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Feb. 22, 2006 For many years, African-Americans received the same treatment in animated motion pictures as they did in live-action features—that is, if they weren’t being portrayed by Caucasian caricatures in blackface or tossed into stereotypical roles, they were ever-faithful second bananas but never the leads. That changed in 1992, when Paramount released the Hyperion Pictures production of Bébé’s Kids, an animated feature based on the stand-up comedy of the late Robin Harris. Although it didn’t exactly light up the box office, Bébé’s Kids marked the first time in motion-picture history that an animated movie was created specifically for a black audience. It is now considered a cult classic, and the title has become synonymous with ill-behaved children. At the helm of that movie was animator Bruce W. Smith. In a 2004 interview with The Trinidad Guardian, Smith indicated that he started working on his first animated film at age 10 and finished it between the ages of 11 and 12. He cited, specifically, that the animation powerhouse Hanna-Barbera influenced the story and style associated with that first animated effort. In 1984, Smith began working for Bill Melendez, a veteran animator who worked at Disney, Warner Bros. and UPA before forming his own production company in 1964. Under his own banner, Melendez, along with producer Lee Mendelsohn, has animated the famed Peanuts comic strip characters of Charles M. Schulz in over seventy half-hour made-for-television specials, four feature-length motion pictures, a Saturday-morning cartoon series and a historical mini-series (both on CBS in the 1980s). Smith’s first assignment was as key animation assistant on a special featuring Garfield, Jim Davis’s lasagna-loving cat, called Garfield in the Rough. Feature-film animation awaited Smith in 1988, when he worked under supervising animator Dale L. Baer on the Academy Award-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He worked under Baer again the following year on the Roger Rabbit short Tummy Trouble, which ran as the lead-in to the blockbuster hit Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. That work led up to his directorial debut with Bébé’s Kids The premise of Bébé’s Kids is simple enough. Bachelor Robin Harris (voiced by Faizon Love) ends up falling head over heels for the lovely Jamika (Vanessa Bell Calloway). To impress Jamika, Robin decides that he will take her and her son, Leon (Wayne Collins, Jr.), to an amusement park called Fun World. Unbeknownst to Robin, however, Jamika has promised to take her friend Bébé’s three out-of-control children with her on the date, so that Bébé, who is never actually seen during the movie, can take care of some errands. LaShawn (Jonell Green), Kahill (Marques Houston) and Pee Wee (Tone Loc) turn Fun World, and Robin’s date with Jamika, upside-down. On top of bad kids, Robin must also contend with his ex-wife (Tom Joyner Morning Show regular Myra J.) and her friend Vivian (the late Nell Carter). On its opening weekend, July 31-August 2, 1992, Bébé’s Kids grossed $3,010,987, good for seventh that particular week. All told, it grossed over $8 million. And Bébé’s Kids even spawned a video game from Motown Games, published for the now-defunct Super Nintendo system. Bruce W. Smith continued his work in feature films after Bébé’s Kids as animation supervisor on the live-action/animated feature The Pagemaster in 1994 (for 20th Century Fox) and as animation director on the live-action/animated feature Space Jam in 1996 (for Warner Bros.). He also worked on four Disney animated features, including A Goofy Movie (1995) and The Emperor’s New Groove (2000). He also branched out into television, serving as the character designer for the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995-98) and C-Bear and Jamal (1996). In 2000, Smith sought to break ground again, this time with an animated television series aimed at a teenaged black audience. Rejected by Nickelodeon in 2000, The Proud Family was picked up by The Disney Channel, which aired 55 first-run episodes during its afternoon block of cartoons from 2001 to 2004. The show has also run over-the-air on ABC’s Saturday morning cartoon blocks. Produced by Jambalaya Studio, a joint effort between Smith and Hyperion Pictures, The Proud Family focused on a middle-class African-American family with its share of love and life lessons. Penny Proud (voiced by Kyla Pratt) is the typical teenage girl—respectful of her parents, but also eager to have fun with her friends and meet boys. Her mom, Trudy (Paula Jai Parker), is a respected veterinarian, while her father, Oscar (Tommy Davidson), runs a snack-food business. (Strawberry-flavored pork skins, anyone?) Her grandmother, Suga Mama (Jo Marie Payton) is sweet as can be to everyone she knows, except her son, Oscar. She prefers to give her affections to her other son, Bobby (Cedric the Entertainer), a self-styled 70s crooner who sings his way through life. Periodically, Penny finds herself babysitting her twin siblings, BeBe and CeCe (both voiced by Tara Strong), but she is more likely to be found in the company of her clique—her best friend Dijonay Jones (Karen Malina White), her gangly friend Zoey (Soleil Moon Frye), her arch-rival LaCienega Boulevardez (Alisa Reyes) and her super-cool male friend Sticky Webb (Orlando Brown), upon whom Dijonay has a serious crush. The Proud Family gave Disney a more down-to-Earth counterpoint to the high-flying adventures of Kim Possible and the zany antics of Lilo & Stitch. The series run culminated in 2005 with The Proud Family Movie, which put the Prouds in the clutches of a mad scientist (voiced by Arsenio Hall) bent on controlling Oscar Proud’s latest snack sensation. In a field where blacks have not been traditionally well represented, Bruce W. Smith has helped lay the groundwork for future black animators with Bébé’s Kids and The Proud Family. His work earns him distinction as the last of this year’s Living Groundbreakers. ------------ About the author: Claxton Graham has written a number of articles for Useless Knowledge. He works as a business systems analyst. Email: scifiwriter8502@email.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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