May 12 - Joy Batchelor

Happy Birthday, Joy Batchelor! Born today in 1914, this English animator, screenwriter, producer and director married pioneering Hungarian animator John Halas in 1940 and subsequently co-established Halas and Batchelor cartoons. 

  

Together, Halas and Batchelor created over two thousand shorts/films! 

They also produced roughly seventy propaganda pieces during World War II for the British government. Batchelor helped to animate, co-write, write, produce, and direct many of their productions. 

  

Her best known production is in co-writing, co-producing and co-directing the British-American Technicolor animated drama film 'Animal Farm'. 

It was this feature that made her the first woman director of an animated feature since German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation Lotte Reiniger ('The Adventures of Prince Achmed'). 

  

One of Batchelor's projects as an art director was the two-hour 1955 American documentary/travel documentary film 'Cinerama Holiday'.  

  

Years later, Batchelor wrote and directed the fifty-four-minute 1966 British Eastmancolor animated comedy/family film 'Ruddigore'.  

  

This was a television-film adaptation of English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator W.S. Gilbert's eponymous opera, of which became the first opera to be adapted into an animated film. 

  

Batchelor later worked in television, directing series. This included animated shows like the 1971 Saturday morning cartoon comedy series The Jackson 5ive (1971–1972). 

  

Batchelor passed on May 14 1991 in London, England, United Kingdom. She was 77. This was just two days after her birthday. 

  

Batchelor had been active from 1937–1991. 

  

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