A Charlie Brown Christmas

Bill Meléndez, Sept. 2, age 91: The Mexico-born Meléndez came to the U.S. as a child and started in animation working for Walt Disney in the late 1930s. In the early '60s he founded his own animation studio, and he earned an Emmy for the now-classic "A Charlie Brown Christmas" ... more(1965), for which he provided the animation for Charles M. Shultz's drawings and story. Meléndez would collaborate with Schultz for decades -- on more than 75 animated "Peanuts" projects -- and also contributed the voices of Snoopy and Woodstock. He also animated "Cathy" and "Garfield" projects, but it's for the "Peanuts" gang that Meléndez will be most fondly remembered. It makes us want to do the Snoopy dance.

(AP)