The Folks behind the Toons
Bruce W. Smith
Bruce Wayne Smith was born on September 6, 1961, in Los Angeles, California. He loved cartoons throughout his childhood and, at age 10, made his first animated film based on designs of One Hundred and One Dalmatians. He attended the California Institute of the Arts and graduated in 1981.
Shortly thereafter Smith got a job as an assistant animator on a TV short Garfield in the Rough and later served as a freelance animator for Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night. He was hired by Walt Disney Studios as an animator for Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
In the early 1990s, Smith was selected by producer Reginald Hudlin to direct the Paramount Pictures animated film Bebe's Kids. An ambitious project, the film performed poorly and received mixed to negative reviews from critics; although some critics lauded the movie for its unadulterated depiction of Black culture and language without effort to make it more palpable to white audiences.
Entertainment reporter Kendra Beltran noted "Bebe’s Kids proved that a Black animated cast meant something to audiences. Maybe not monetarily but in a sense that Black characters didn’t just have to be the resident tokens. It would take some time before Hollywood grasped that notion but in a way, we have Bebe’s Kids to thank for what followed with the likes of The Boondocks and Disney’s The Proud Family."
In the years that followed, Smith was credited as a character designer for Ted Turner's ‘A Cool Like That Christmas,’ ‘The Pagemaster,’ and ‘Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child.’ he additionally served as co-director on the Warner Bros. live-action animated film ‘Space Jam’ before returning to Disney as supervising animator on such films as ‘Tarzan’ and ‘The Emperor's New Groove.’
While working animation on the feature film side, Smith furthered his interest in television animation by creating ‘The Proud Family’ for Disney Channel in 2001. Initially pitched to Nickelodeon in 1998, a pilot was created for the network but was not green lit. Smith subsequently co-founded Jambalaya Studios, which worked in conjunction with Willard Carroll's Hyperion Pictures to produce the series. The Proud Family was picked up by the Disney Channel and ended up being a substantial hit, running for 50 episodes as well as The Proud Family television movie.
In 2004, Smith served as a supervising animator for Disney's Home on the Range. That same year, co-created and served as executive producer for the series ‘Da Boom Crew’ for The WB. Another highly ambitious project Da Boom Crew sought to be something of a combination between Star Wars with Boyz-N-The Hood, and argued that the series tries to recreate the "black experience in animated form." Although 13 episodes were produced, only four of which aired; the series was deemed a commercial failure.
In 2009, Smith returned to Walt Disney Animation Studios to supervise 2D animation on The Princess and the Frog (specifically for the character of Dr. Facilier) as well as the 2011 film Winnie the Pooh (supervising animation of the characters of Piglet, Kanga and Roo). Smith went on to serve as lead animator for the animated short Tangled Ever After and did character and animation designs for the movies Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph.
In 2015, Smith served as part of the senior creative team for the direct-to-TV film Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast; and later served as an animator for Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.
In 2019, Smith directed the short film Hair Love. This was a short that centered on a young father who struggles to help his daughter with her hair and explores the weight and ambivalence of hairstyles and maintenance among the Black community. The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
In 2022, Smith returned to Disney and relaunched The Proud Family with a sequel series entitled ‘The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.’ Similar to the original series, Louder and prouder proved a significant hit for the Disney Channel - further concretizing the show's protagonist, Penny Proud, as a prominent and hugely important figure in the history of Black American animation.
In his youth, Smith was very much aware of the lack of Black characters and themes in mainstream animation. He dedicated much of his career in an effort to move things forward in rectifying this deficit. And it is abundantly clear that he greatly succeeded in this goal.
