TS: You animated on most of Hubley's award-winning shorts -- The Hole, Cockaboody and The Adventures of an *.

BL: John and Faith were wonderful to work for. They were great artists. I animated straight ahead the dance steps for the construction worker voiced by jazz great Dizzy Gillespie [in The Hole]. At the after-party, Dizzy said to me, "Man, I'm glad you did that section yourself, because I can't dance!"

When we were working on A Doonesbury Special (1977), John called me and said, "Bill, I want you to come out so we can go over some stuff. I have to go into surgery and, in case anything happens, I want this project to get finished." I did fly out and we went over the schedule and storyboards with John, Faith and Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau. I had done some test animation of Zonker putting flowers in the muzzles of National Guardsmen's rifles. Trudeau was amazed, he had never seen his characters moving before. The next day, John Hubley went in for open-heart surgery and died on the operating table. We went on with the film and I must have animated about 12 minutes of it myself. [A Doonesbury Special was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Jury Prize at Cannes.]

Littlejohn brought his special touch to the various Peanuts specials.

TS: How did you get to animate Snoopy in the classic Peanuts specials?

BL: I had been doing commercials around L.A. and I met Bill Melendez at Playhouse Pictures. We were doing some commercials involving the characters. Later, Bill teamed up with Lee Mendelson to create the special A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). Thereafter I did many of those shows. I did a lot of Shroeder playing the piano, even though I don't play myself.

TS: You did one of my favorite scenes in all animation there, where Shroeder is playing a jazz riff, and Snoopy starts dancing up on the piano. Linus and Lucy notice, stop the music, and stare down the hapless pup until he slinks away.

BL: Interestingly enough, at first Charles Schulz didn't care for all the Snoopy pantomime. He felt it was deviating too much from his style. He wanted the whole film to be talking heads, doing his dialogue.

TS: The Snoopy stuff is many people's favorite. You also did the Snoopy-Lucy prizefight in Snoopy Come Home (1972) and the Snoopy-Red Baron section in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! (1967).

BL: It's a good thing Bill [Melendez] fought Charles Schulz for that. (laughs)

TS: What are you doing now?

BL: Learning the Internet, so I can email my friend Jack Zander [age 99].

TS: Do you have any advice for anyone trying to get into animation?

BL: GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN AND DO SOMETHING ELSE!

Bill smiles broadly with that special twinkle in his eye that shows he is kidding. Everything Bill did, he did to the fullest. He put passion in everything he pursued. His career has certainly been full. Full enough for four or five careers.

Tom Sito is an animator and author who has taught at USC, CalArts and UCLA. His new book, Drawing The Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions From Bosko to Bart Simpson, is out from University of Kentucky Press. Visit www.tomsito.com for details.

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