Karen Beth Disher (born August 7, 1972) is an American film director and storyboard artist in films, TV, cartoons and video games. She was an artist at

Blue Sky Studios Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American computer animation studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was founded on February 22, 1987 by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their e ...

, an in-house studio at 20th Century Animation (formerly 20th Century Fox Animation).

Life and career

Disher studied traditional 2D animation at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. After graduation, she joined

MTV Animation MTV Animation is the animation department of the television network MTV. History In 1991, MTV debuted its first full-length animated series, ''Liquid Television'', which helped launch ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' and ''Æon Flux''. MTV establishe ...

as a layout artist on ''

Beavis and Butt-head ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' is an American adult animated series created by Mike Judge. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, lack of intelligence, lowbrow humor, ...

''. She then designed the main characters and was the supervising director on the hit series ''

Daria ''Daria'' is an American adult animation, adult animated sitcom created by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis, Susie Lewis Lynn. The series ran from March 3, 1997, to January 21, 2002, on MTV. It focuses on the title character, Daria Morgendorffer, ...

''. Meanwhile, she directed two TV feature-length installments in the series, ''

Is It Fall Yet? ''Is It Fall Yet?'' is a 2000 American animated comedy-drama television film written by Glenn Eichler and Peggy Nicoll, and directed by Karen Disher and Guy Moore. First broadcast on August 27, 2000, it was the first of two film-length installme ...

'' in 2000 and the follow-up ''

Is It College Yet? ''Is It College Yet?'' is a 2002 American animated comedy-drama television film written by Glenn Eichler and Peggy Nicoll, and directed by Karen Disher. The film was the second film-length installment of MTV's animated series ''Daria'', after 200 ...

'' in 2002. She then joined

, where she worked as a story artist on many animated films, including ''

Robots "\n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...

'', '' Ice Age: The Meltdown'', ''

Horton Hears a Who! ''Horton Hears a Who!'' is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss. It was published in 1954 by Random House. This book tells the story of Horton the Elephant and his adventures saving Whovil ...

'', '' Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs'', ''

The Peanuts Movie ''The Peanuts Movie'' (known in some countries as ''Snoopy and Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie'') is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy film based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip ''Peanuts'', produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed ...

'', and ''

Ferdinand Ferdinand is a Germanic name composed of the elements "protection", "peace" (PIE "to love, to make peace") or alternatively "journey, travel", Proto-Germanic , abstract noun from root "to fare, travel" (PIE , "to lead, pass over"), and "co ...

''. She was also the head of story on ''

Rio Rio or Río is the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese word for "river". When spoken on its own, the word often means Rio de Janeiro, a major city in Brazil. Rio or Río may also refer to: Geography Brazil * Rio de Janeiro * Rio do Sul, a ...

'', and directed a short animated film '' Surviving Sid'' and a television special '' Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas'', both part of the ''

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

'' franchise. In addition to storyboarding and directing, she lent her voice to some minor characters in the films she worked on, most notably to Scratte in ''Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs''. In 2018, Disher was tapped to co-direct Blue Sky's first feature-length musical, "Foster", based on an original story written by Disher, co-director Steve Martino, and Tim Federle, with songs to be written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Disher joined Spire Animation Studios in 2021 as Creative Director, Development and is a founding member of the studio's brain trust, the "Creative Cadre".

Personal life

In 2001, Disher married Robert Todd Partington, then a supervisor of computer graphics and animation technologies for

MTV Networks Paramount Media Networks (formerly known as Warner Cable Communications, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, MTV Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks) is an American mass media division of Paramount Global tha ...

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

References

External links

* American voice actresses 1972 births American film actresses American women film directors Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American women comedians American film directors Blue Sky Studios people American storyboard artists 21st-century American comedians 21st-century American actresses {{US-voice-actor-1970s-stub