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Margaret Nichols Dies at 82

Veteran animator and director Margaret Nichols passes away at the age of 82.

Veteran animator and director Margaret Nichols has passed away at the age of 82, according to a report by Big Cartoon Database. An exec­u­tive board mem­ber of The Ani­ma­tion Guild from 1980 to 1985, she died Novem­ber 5.

From 1955 until 1993, Nichols worked for Warner Bros., Dis­ney, UPA, Fleis­cher, Snow­ball, Patin, TV Spots, Cre­ston, Eagle, Hanna-Barbera, Mar­vel, Uni­ver­sal and Graz Entertainment. Also known as Mar­garet Grewell, Nichols directed the TV series Trans­form­ers (1985–86); The Glo Friends, Potato Head Kids, InHu­manoids and Moon Dream­ers (all 1986); My Lit­tle Pony ‘n Friends (1986–87); and Frag­gle Rock (1987).

She served as an ani­ma­tion direc­tor for the series Mup­pet Babies (1985–88), Defend­ers of the Earth (1986), Space­cats and Bucky O’Hare and the Toad Wars! (both 1991), Tom & Jerry Kids Show and The Addams Fam­ily (both 1992), The Pirates of Dark Water (1992–93), and Droopy: Mas­ter Detec­tive (1993). In addi­tion, she was ani­ma­tion direc­tor of the TV-movies Solar­man (1986), Pryde of the X-Men (1989) and I Yabba-Dabba Do! (1993), along with the 1986 the­atri­cal films The Trans­form­ers: The Movie and My Lit­tle Pony: The Movie and the 1987 video G.I. Joe: The Movie.

As an ani­ma­tor, Nichols worked on the series The Peb­bles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971); The Flint­stone Com­edy Hour (1972); Jean­nie and Speed Buggy (both 1973); These Are the Days and Par­tridge Fam­ily 2200 AD (both 1974); The New Tom & Jerry Show (1975); The Mumbly Car­toon Show and The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour (both 1976); The All-New Super Friends Hour and C B Bears (both 1977); Scooby’s All Star Laff-A-Lympics (1977–78); Jana of the Jun­gle, Chal­lenge of the Super­Friends and Dyno­mutt Dog Won­der (all 1978); Godzilla (1978–79); The World’s Great­est Super­Friends, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo and Casper and the Angels (all 1979;) Trol­lkins and The Kwicky Koala Show (both 1981); Smurfs (1981–84); Joke­book, Shirt Tales and Pac-Man (all 1982); and The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show and The Char­lie Brown and Snoopy Show (both 1983).

Also, she was an ani­ma­tor on the 1974 ABC After­school Spe­cial Cyrano, along with the ABC Week­end Spe­cials The Puppy Saves the Cir­cus (1981) and Miss Switch to the Res­cue and Bun­nic­ula, the Vam­pire Rab­bit (both 1982). She ani­mated the TV shorts and TV-movies Clerow Wilson’s Great Escape (1974), The White Seal (1975), A Flint­stone Christ­mas (1977), Christ­mas Comes to PacLand (1982), Is This Good­bye, Char­lie Brown? (1983) and It’s Flash­bea­gle, Char­lie Brown (1984), in addi­tion to the 1987 the­atri­cal movie Rock Odyssey.

A key assis­tant ani­ma­tor on the 1973 movie Charlotte’s Web, Nichols was an assis­tant ani­ma­tor on Who Framed Roger Rab­bit and Disney’s Oliver & Com­pany (both 1988). She was a char­ac­ter ani­ma­tor on the 1982 the­atri­cal film Heidi’s Song and a guest ani­ma­tor on Chuck Jones’ 1975 TV-movie Yan­kee Doo­dle Cricket.

Nichols was a sequence direc­tor on the TV series Robotix (1985), G.I. Joe (1985–86), Jem (1985–88), Trans­form­ers (1986–87) and The Lit­tle Wiz­ards (1987), as well as the 1985 video Big­foot and the Mus­cle Machines and TV-movie The GLO Friends Save Christmas. Her first screen credit was as a lay­out artist for the 1970 TV-movie Uncle Sam Magoo. Nichols was a back­ground and lay­out artist for the 1971 musi­cal film Shin­bone Alley.

At Dis­ney, Nichols was a key clean-up artist for the movie The Black Caul­dron (1985), and a char­ac­ter key for The Lit­tle Mer­maid (1989) and The Res­cuers Down Under (1990). She was a tim­ing direc­tor and sheet timer for X-Men (1992–94), and a tim­ing direc­tor for the 1994 TV series The Tick.

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.

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