Jim Varney, the comic who most recently provided the voice of Slinky Dog in

TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2, died on Thursday, February 10, 2000 at his

Tennessee home of lung cancer. He was 50 years old. Best known for his

Ernest character in commercials, television and films, Varney also provided

voice over work for characters on the THE SIMPSONS. Varney was the star of

several Disney Ernest films, most notably ERNEST GOES TO CAMP and ERNEST

SAVES CHRISTMAS. Doctors diagnosed Varney with cancer in August 1998, and

On the eve of the final PEANUTS comic strip, creator Charles Schulz died of

a heart attack at his Santa Rosa, California home. He was 77 years old. As

reported [AF 11/21/99], Charles Schulz had decided to retire from drawing

his weekly comic strip after several strokes and newly diagnosed cancer had

left him partially blind in one eye and too weak to keep up with the

rigorous routine. A private funeral will be held later this week. He is

survived by his wife, Jeannie; two sons Monte and Craig; and daughter Jill

Michael Webster, who established Walt Disney's television animation

division in 1984, passed away at the age 60 following a long battle with

multiple sclerosis. On Saturday, January 29, 2000, Mr. Webster succumbed to

complications from pneumonia at his home in Port Townsend, Washington,

U.S.A. During his 42 year tenure, Webster created the Walt Disney

Television Animation division and served as its senior VP until his

retirement in 1992. He oversaw production of the Emmy-winning NEW

On Wednesday, January 12, 2000, Walt Disney's legendary animator Marc Davis

passed away at Glendale Memorial Hospital shortly following a stroke. He

was 86 years old. Davis was a member of Disney's inner circle known as the

"nine old men." During his 43-year tenure at the studio, Davis brought to

life such classic characters as Bambi, Cinderella, Alice, Briar Rose,

Maleficent and Cruella DeVil. In addition to creating many of Disney's

female characters, he served as a key player in the development of many of

For over thirty years, Don Martin's crazy comics filled the pages of MAD

magazine. On Sunday, January 9, 2000, Marin died in a Miami hospital at the

age of 68. A representative of Baptist Hospital says the cartoonist died of

cancer. No further details were disclosed. Martin's weirdo humor disgusted

mothers and delighted young rebels for nearly three decades. No person or

tale was free from Martin's eye for twisted satire. For example, his strips

Darris Dobbs, a well known and respected 3D/CGI writer and artist, died

peacefully at home on November 24, 1999, never having recovered from a

respiratory virus. He was 37. Darris contributed to Visual Magic Magazine

on a number of occasions, as well as writing a number of books for Charles

River Media Publishing (including ANIMATING FACIAL FEATURES AND

EXPRESSIONS, and the recently published TRUESPACE 3 & 4 CREATURE

CREATIONS). He also founded his own business -- HieroglyFX Design -- a

David Allen, one of a handful of truly great stop-motion animators, died of cancer on Monday, August 16. He
was 55. Allen's work in commercials includes animating the Swiss Miss and
early Pillsbury Doughboy in the 1960s, and his feature work includes
CAVEMAN (1981), Q-THE WINGED SERPENT (1982), WILLOW (1988) and FREAKED
(1993). For ten years he had been working on an independent project, a
feature called PRIMEVALS. (The film will be finished at Full Moon Studios
where the film was being animated before Allen's death.) Allen began his

Actor DeForest Kelley, STAR TREK's Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy died Friday,
June 10 after an extended illness. Kelley, born January 20, 1920, in
Atlanta, Georgia, US, played supporting roles in a number of movies,
including THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT (1956); GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K.
CORRAL (1957), RAINTREE COUNTY (1957), and APACHE UPRISING (1966). STAR
TREK creator and producer Gene Roddenberry had wanted Kelley to play the
doctor in STAR TREK from the get-go, having worked with him previously on

Helen Aberson Mayer, co-author with Harold Perl of "Dumbo, the Flying
Elephant," the children's book that inspired the 1941 Walt Disney animated
feature, DUMBO, died April 3, 1999 in her Manhattan home. She was 92. Born
in Syracuse, New York in 1907, Mayer, who was known as Helen Aberson when
she wrote "Dumbo," moved from Syracuse, to Los Angeles, California in 1939
at the request of the Walt Disney Company.


In her story, Dumbo the baby elephant is teased for his oversized ears, but

Elfriede Fischinger died quietly in her sleep at her home on Thursday, May
13, 1999. She was born September 17, 1910, in Gelnhausen near Frankfurt,
Germany. She attended the prestigious College of Design in Offenbach, and
in 1931 one of her abstract textile designs won a prize and was published
in a magazine as well as exhibited in Berlin, where she met her future
husband, animator and painter Oskar Fischinger. They were married in 1933
and she worked on many of his subsequent films. In 1936 they emigrated to