John Canemaker

Career

While studying for his Bachelor of Arts degree, Canemaker's childhood interest in animation revived. He began making sponsored animated shorts and wrote the first of more than 100 articles on animation history. His first book, the story of the making of Richard Williams' Raggedy Ann and Andy, was published in 1977 as The Animated Raggedy Ann and Andy. In 1982, he wrote the introduction of Treasures of Disney Animation Art; in 1987, he published Winsor McCay—His Life and Art; and, in 1991, Felix, the Twisted Tale of the World's Most Famous Cat. There followed Tex Avery: The MGM Years and Before the Animation Begins: the Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists (both in 1997), Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards (1999), Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation (2001), and The Art and Flair of Mary Blair (2003).

His research in the history of animation inspired two of his own films, Remembering Winsor McCay (1976) and Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat (1977).

Canemaker's filmography includes independently made animated shorts that are part of the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. Among them are The '40s (1974), Street Freaks (1975), Confessions of a Stardreamer (1978), The Wizard's Son (1981), Bottom's Dream (1983), Confessions of a Stand-Up (1993), and Bridgehampton (1998).

In the early 1980s, Canemaker animated several Children's Television Workshop films for Sesame Street, TV commercials, and, in 1981, created the animation sequences for the Warner Bros. feature The World According to Garp. He designed and directed animation sequences in the Academy Award-winning HBO documentary You Don't Have to Die (1988) and the Peabody Award-winning CBS documentary Break the Silence: Kids Against Child Abuse (1994).

John Canemaker: Marching to a Different Toon, a DVD/home video collection of his films, is distributed by Milestone Film & Video/Image Entertainment. In addition, Canemaker writes regularly on animation for The New York Times and is on-camera and audio commentator on DVD versions of The Fantasia Anthology, Dumbo, Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cut-up: The Films of Grant Munro, and Winsor McCay: The Master Edition. He has appeared on NBC's Today, PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Entertainment Tonight, and has lectured throughout the United States and in Brazil, Canada, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and Wales.

In 2006, he received an Award for outstanding contribution to animation studies at the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb.

Books

• The Animated Raggedy Ann and Andy, 1977.
• Treasures of Disney Animation Art (with Robert E. Abrams), 1982.
• Winsor McCay: His Life and Art, 1987.
• Storytelling in Animation: The Art of the Animated Image, Volume 2, editor, 1988, The American Film Institute.
• Felix, The Twisted Tale of the World's Most Famous Cat, 1991, Pantheon, New York, ISBN 0-679-40127-X.
• Tex Avery: The MGM Years, 1942-1955, 1996, Turner Publishing, Atlanta,
• Before the Animation Begins: the art and lives of Disney inspirational sketch artists, 1997.ISBN 0-7868-6152-5.
• Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards, 1999.
• Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation, 2001.
• The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: an appreciation, 2003.ISBN 0-7868-5391-3.
• Two Guys Named Joe: Master Storytellers Joe Grant & Joe Ranft., 2010. ISBN 978-1-4231-1067-5.
• The Lost Notebook - Herman Schultheis and the secrets of Walt Disney’s movie magic, 2014.ISBN 978-1-61628-632-3.