Oscar-winning animation legend Richard Williams (1933-2019)

By Jim Batts | August 19, 2019

Word spread quickly this past Saturday through the world’s animation news outlets, word of the loss of one of the true innovators and greatest masters of the art form. Here’s how Variety reported his passing:

“Renowned animator Richard Williams, best known for his work on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” died Friday at his home in Bristol, England, Variety has confirmed. He was 86.

Williams was a distinguished animator, director, producer, author and teacher whose work has garnered three Oscars and three BAFTA Awards. In addition to his groundbreaking work as the animation director of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Williams also animated the title sequences for the “Pink Panther” franchise and received critical acclaim for his first film “The Little Island” in 1958 and his animated adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” in 1971, for which he won his first Oscar.”

While many sources called him the creator of Roger Rabbit, a character actually created by novelist Gary K.Wolfe, it was Williams who brought the bungling bunny along with his pals and the population of “Toon Town’ to vivid life in the 1988 box office smash. Though this may be his most popular work, Williams was a most prolific artist in commercials, television, and feature films, making truly dazzling, whimsical title sequences for several 1960s classics beginning with WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT.

His art also extended to more dramatic fare, seen here in the newspaper editorial cartoon-inspired work on the 1968 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

Three years later Williams received his first Oscar for his animated adaptation (seen on ABC-TV in the US) of A CHRISTMAS CAROL in a style evoking the pen and ink illustrations of the late 1800s (and using feature film Scrooge Alistair Sim).

And during the production of these classics, Williams was toiling away (in his spare time and on his “own dime”) on his epic project, a feature based on an Arabian Nights tale, THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER. But to help finance this, Williams returned to feature titles and created a sensation in the first two films the kicked off the revival of the Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers comedy series in 1975’s THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER (Looney Tunes icon Friz Freeling had animated the Panther in the first 1960’s entry). Here’s some great movie-themed gags in 1976 follow-up…

Then in 1977 Williams would release his first full-length animated feature, not COBBLER, but the more “kid-friendly” RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE.

Nearly ten years would pass until Steven Spielberg tapped Williams and his London-based studio to create (or re-create) the look of classic 1940s Hollywood Studio animation for the comedy/fantasy hit WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. Mr. Williams even lent his voice to Tex Avery’s MGM superstar Droopy (“Goooing up, sir?”). For his remarkable achievements, he earned another Oscar.

Of course, Williams poured a good chunk of his ROGER earnings into COBBLER, but due to financial conflicts, the not-quite-completed feature would be taken from him, heavily edited, re-dubbed, and combined with, to put it mildly, less polished animation. After a limited release by Miramax pictures as ARABIAN KNIGHT, it would see a home video release in 1993 under its original title. Despite these disappointments, Williams continued to inspire with the acclaimed book “The Animator’s Survival Kit” in 2002, and the shorts CIRCUS DRAWINGS and 2015’s PROLOGUE (which was nominated for an Oscar).

And now Richard Williams joins Walt Disney and his “nine old men”, the Fleischers, and the titans of Looney Tunes’ “Termite Terrace” as one of the medium’s greatest craftsmen and a true animation legend, whose work will be studied and admired forever.