Pixar executive vice president and two-time Oscar-winning director John Lasseter has signed a ten year contract to provide his services exclusively to the studio. "John Lasseter, more than anyone else, has shaped Pixar into the world-class animation studio it is today. With John leading our creative team for the next decade, our dream of nurturing a golden age of animation at Pixar may come true," said Pixar CEO Steve Jobs.

A memorial service for Mr. Hanna has been scheduled for Monday, April 2, at 6:00 pm, at:



Warner Bros. Studios

Steven J. Ross Theater

4000 Warner Boulevard

Burbank, California



Guests are asked to enter through Gate 7/Forest Lawn Drive, and not to arrive before 5:15 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to one of the following:



The William D. Hanna Research Fund

Alzheimer's Association

c/o Elly Brtva

919 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1100

Alliance Atlantis has promoted Jennifer Bennett to vice president, merchandising and licensing. Bennett will oversee the licensing of all Alliance Atlantis' television properties, including children's label, AAC KIDSTM. She has been with the company for the past seven years, most recently as director, merchandising and licensing. "Jennifer has been invaluable to Alliance Atlantis' merchandising and licensing initiatives over the past three years since joining the M&L team," said Ted Riley, president, Alliance Atlantis Television Distribution.

Blur Studio has hired Tim Brown as their new co-creative director of the design division. Prior to Blur, Brown served as creative director of the design and animation house, RezN8. Brown's work on CBS's coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics helped the project earn two Sports Emmy Awards for graphic design and technical innovation. Brown said, "Here, we have a design engine that is integrated with a production engine. Very few design firms have direct access to 3D animation and visual effects production, or to artists of the caliber we have at Blur.

On Thursday, March 22, 2001, one of the fathers of TV animation, William Hanna, died at his home in North Hollywood, California. He was 90 years old. Born in Melrose, New Mexico, on July 14, 1910, Hanna and his partner, Joseph Barbera created such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Scooby-Doo. Hanna, a trained engineer, began his animation career during the Depression when he took an ink and paint position at Harman-Ising Studios.

ATTIK has named Dana Zipser the new business development manager for the San Francisco office. In her new post, Zipser will be responsible for the development of current and potential clients. She comes to ATTIK from San Francisco branding consultancy company Sterling Group where, from November 1999 to February 2001, as Marketing Director, she grew new business in industries ranging from entertainment to fashion to technology. "We're all incredibly excited about Dana joining the business development team. Her passion and energy marry perfectly with ATTIK culture.

Warner Bros. Animation has announced that Jean MacCurdy has stepped down from her post as president and will be replaced by former Sony Family Entertainment Group president Sander Schwartz. MacCardy will become a creative consultant for the studio, working on developing animated and live-action children's productions. In 1979, she joined Warner Bros. Cartoons as director of animation programming and in 1982, was promoted to VP and general manager.

Walt Disney Co. Latin America has hired Marcos Rosset as managing director, Brazil. He will head all of the company's businesses in the territory, including the Portuguese language Disney Channel that debuts on April 5, 2001. For the past 15 years, Rosset served as managing director of CIC Video, a co-venture between Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. There he oversaw all retail businesses, including interactive consumer products and rental/sell-through video.

Norma Macmillan, the voice of UNDERDOG's Sweet Polly Purebread, has passed away. She suffered a heart attack and died Friday afternoon at her home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was 79. Macmillian also provided voices for Goo and other characters on THE GUMBY SHOW, Davey's sister Sally on DAVEY & GOLIATH and Kokette on MEAN MOE. During John F. Kennedy's presidency, Macmillan contributed voices to the popular Kennedy family parody album, THE FIRST FAMILY. She also appeared in such live-action features as HEAD OVER HEALS and BIG BULLY.

Susan Armstrong has joined EyeballNYC as a designer. Previously, she served as an inferno* artist and 3D animator for Toronto-based TOPIX/Mad Dog. There she worked on commercials for Coca-Cola, Tylenol, Sega Playdium, as well as music videos for David Bowie, Bare Naked Ladies and Sheryl Crow, among others. In addition, Armstrong worked on such feature films as THE SWEET HEREAFTER and HARRIET THE SPY.

German children's entertainment producer TV-Loonland AG has appointed Celia Holman to the newly created role of head of development for the London office. Holman will be responsible for the development of all TV-Loonland's European-based programming and the maintaining and developing of contacts with independent producers, children's publishers and rights holders. Prior to TV-Loonland, she worked as project development manager for Network of the World (NOW), where she worked with potential children's content partners for a fully converged TV/Web environment.

Simona Fabbri has joined Cartoon Network Italy in the newly created position of director of content. Fabbri will be responsible for the programming schedule and acquiring Italian shows, in addition to coordinating the network's and Website's content. She will also oversee the promos and on-air look of the channel. Previously, Simona worked at the Italian Disney channel where she started as acquisitions manager, moving to asset manager.

Scott Dougherty has been appointed executive producer of visual effects for Cinesite, Inc. Dougherty will be responsible for managing the creative and technological resources needed to complete visual effects projects. After freelancing as an art department assistant and production manager, Dougherty joined Cinesite in 1993 and has played various roles including visual effects coordinator, associate producer and producer. His filmography includes RED PLANET, AIR FORCE ONE, DEEP BLUE SEA, PRACTICAL MAGIC, SPACE JAM, OUTBREAK and dozens of other projects.

Richard Stone, the music composer for many Warner Animation TV series, has passed away. He died on Thursday, March 8 of pancreatic cancer. He was only 47 years old. He is the man responsible for the ANIMANIACS, PINKY & THE BRAIN, FREAKAZOID and THE SYLVESTER & TWEETY MYSTERIES theme songs. Stone started as a music editor for such films as WITNESS and PLATOON. He later worked on other Warner TV cartoons such as HISTERIA, ROAD ROVERS and the direct-to-video features TINY TOON ADVENTURES: HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION and WAKKO'S WISH.

Nickelodeon has promoted senior VP Andra Shapiro to executive VP of business affairs and general counsel. Shapiro will head all business and legal affairs for Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, TV Land, TNN: The National Network, Nickelodeon Games & Sports and Noggin. Before joining MTV Networks, she was an attorney at New York law firm Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, where she handled copyright and trademark issues.

Visual effects/live-action director Simon D. Holden has signed with The Flux Group, a motion graphics, visual effects and live-action production house. Holden will focus on commercial work for Flux. His previous commercial work includes spots for Dodge, Pontiac, Bally Total Fitness and Warner Bros. Home Video. Recently, Holden has done F/X work on film and TV projects such as MOULIN ROUGE, CONTACT, DANTE'S PEAK, FACE/OFF, THE X-FILES and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. Flux president Maggie Magee said, "Simon is an exceptional effects director and supervisor.

ATTIK, a leading all-media creative solutions firm, has named Monica Perez their new creative director at the San Francisco office. Perez replaces Simon Dixon who returned to England to assume the creative director role at ATTIK's British offices. Perez joined ATTIK in 1997 as associate creative director and has helped design spots for Microsoft, Ford, Nike, Adidas, Columbia/TriStar Pictures, Levi Strauss and LucasArts.

Fred Lasswell, the cartoonist behind SNUFFY SMITH for the past 60 years, passed away on Sunday, March 4 at his home in Tampa, Florida. The cause of death was congestive heart failure. He was 84 years old. He continued to work on the SNUFFY strip up until his death, leaving behind 49 unpublished cartoons. In 1934, Lasswell became an assistant to cartoonist Billy DeBeck, creator of TAKE BARNEY GOOGLE, FOR INSTANCE and SNUFFY. Lasswell took over SNUFFY in 1942 after DeBeck's death. He would focus his career on the Smith character, a card-playing, moonshine-making hillbilly from Hootin' Holler.

The CFO of Viacom, Fredric Reynolds, has decided to step down from his post. Fredric served at Westinghouse Electric Corp. when they purchased CBS, subsequently overseeing the purchase of CBS by Viacom. Reynolds is leaving the post for personal reasons, but will continue working for the New York-based company in some fashion out of the California offices. He will remain CFO until a replacement can be found. A Viacom spokeswoman said, "He wants to spend more time with his family in California, and it wasn't possible for the CFO to be in California."

Black Logic has added five 3D artists to its CG department. The new Black Logic CG staff members include: Scott Petill, senior animator; Sebastian Bilbao, technical director; Julio Soto and Andrew Dayton, CG artists; and Glenn Harper, visual effects animator. Prior to joining Black Logic, Petill was at Post Perfect and earlier at ad agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer. In addition, he has consulted with Pixar on their commercial software releases, and designed a library of 3D textures for broadcast and print applications. "Scott is a wizard with motion and light.