Robert Paul Jaques (born November 2, 1956) is a Canadian-American animator and animation director.^[1][2] He is best known for the television series The Ren & Stimpy Show,^[3][4] Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" and SpongeBob SquarePants.^[5][6] He also was nominated for two Emmys in 1992 and 1993 for his contributions to The Ren & Stimpy Show.^[7]

Early life and career

Jaques' fascination with animation began by watching the Fleischer Popeye cartoons as a kid, and he never thought of animating as a profession. He also did some stop motion animations since he was a fan of Ray Harryhausen films. One day, he got sick with mononucleosis and did nothing but watch cartoons. Jaques didn't "draw religiously" like other children his age but he was basically self-taught. He got curious in traditional animation when he was older and applied for a animation course in Sheridan College which didn't work the first time but when he drew with more effort it worked the second time. At Sheridan, he met with John Kricfalusi and Jaques showed 16mm prints during lunch hours of shorts from the Golden age of American animation, which a crowd of people would come in and John would be one of the regulars. Kricfalusi saw one of Jaques animated shorts, which was based on a Robert Crumb comic called Tales from the Land of Genitalia, in which Jaques animated a penis with arms and legs jerking itself off, and Kricfalusi, when he saw the short, immediately thought he could animate. Eventually, Kricfalusi and Jaques became great friends because they both had an interest in golden age cartoons.^[1]

Jaques animation career started at Nelvana in the 1970s as an assistant animator for Jeff Short, an employee for the Richard Williams Studio. It didn't last long since Short got frustrated at the Nelvana animation process, so Jaques switched over the Nelvana commercial department with Mark Mayerson. He headed to Los Angeles in 1981, and his first job there was working for the show Laverne & Shirley in the Army. His first work with Kricfalusi was a animation director for the "Harlem Shuffle" music video, which was animated at Bagdasarian Productions and was part of a pitch piece presented by Ralph Bakshi and drawn by Kricfalusi. Ralph made a deal with The Rolling Stones to make the video for the single. In 1989, Kricfalusi called Jaques and recruited him to animate on the pilot short for Ren and Stimpy, based on two characters Kricfalusi originally pitched as pets within an Our Gang parody, Your Gang. Jaques and Kelly Armstrong worked on the pilot in Vancouver, and Jaques sent pencil tests to Spümcø for approval. Jaques and his animation company, Carbunkle Cartoons, went on to supply animation for the show in its first two seasons, animating notable episodes such as Stimpy's Invention, Son of Stimpy and Space Madness.^[1][2]

He is currently the host of the Cartoon Logic podcast with Thad Komorowski.^[8]

Filmography

Film

Television