James A. Simon, also known as Jim Simon, is an artist and animator. With his animation company, Wantu Studios, he created animations for ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...

'' and other shows.

Early life

Simon attended New York City's

High School of Art and Design The High School of Art and Design is a career and technical education high school in Manhattan, New York City, New York State, United States. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, the school moved to 1075 Second Avenue in 1960 and more ...

, graduating in 1963. There he had won an award for excellence in animation, and earned two scholarships from the Junior Epstein Memorial Foundation as well as a scholarship to the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

. At SVA, he initially pursued a career producing live action TV, but switched to animation.

Career

After graduation, Simon began working as an animation background artist at

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

' animation studio. It closed four months after he joined, but his time there had allowed him to join the animators' union. A Paramount colleague then brought Simon in as an assistant animator on the 1960s Spider-Man animated series. After a year-and-a-half, Simon left in order to freelance, recalling in 1975 that, "I was turning out so much work, they had to promote me, because I was earning more money than some of the full-fledged animators. But it got to the point that I was just too excited about the things going on inside my own head, which I could not release while working for someone else." Circa 1972, he formed Wantu Animation Inc., initially based in New York City and then Los Angeles.Simmons, p. 42. Simon's clients included the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

children's educational series ''

The Electric Company ''The Electric Company'' is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now known as Sesame Workshop). It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The ...

'', for which his first short film, "Hey Diddle Diddle", won an award at the

International Animated Film Association The International Animated Film Association (French: ''Association Internationale du Film d'Animation'', ASIFA) is an international non-profit organization founded in 1960 in Annecy, France, by the best known animation artists of the time such a ...

's 1975 Animation Awards Festival;

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

's children's educational series ''

Vegetable Soup Vegetable soup is a common soup prepared using vegetables and leaf vegetables as primary ingredients. It dates to ancient history, and is a mass-produced food product in contemporary times. Overview Vegetable soup is prepared using vegetables, ...

''; ''

''; the Black Psychiatrists of America; and the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

Personal life

By 1977, Simon and his wife René Simon had four sons: Jimmy, Kelly, Sean, and Mark. Simon and his wife had known each other since high school, and married while he was attending college.Simmons, p. 43. In 2009, he said that some career setbacks "led me to a little depression, a little alcoholism and homelessness with me and my dog sleeping in the car." After not drawing for 10 years, he took up oil painting and had a show at the St. Clair gallery in

El Cajon, California El Cajon ( , ; Spanish: El Cajón, meaning "the box") is a city in San Diego County, California, United States, east of downtown San Diego. The city takes its name from Rancho El Cajón, which was in turn named for the box-like shape of the va ...

, near

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, where he was then living.

References

External links

*Additional on May 9, 2017. American animators American animated film directors American animated film producers American television directors American television producers African-American artists 1950 births Living people 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people {{US-cartoonist-stub