Darrell Van Citters

Darrell Van Citters (born October 29, 1956) is an American director, animator, and author, whose credits include directing the animated television series Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi and directing popular Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety, and Foghorn Leghorn. He partnered with Ashley Postelwaite in 1992 to form Renegade Animation. He studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Early career Darrell Van Citters began his career in animation training at the prestigious California Institute of the Arts in the Disney-sponsored Character Animation program. While still at Cal Arts, he spent one summer working at Chuck Jones' studio as in-betweener/gofer. The next summer he spent as an assistant at Filmation Studios. Walt Disney Animation Studios years After graduating, he went straight into the animation business and started at the Walt Disney Studio as a trainee in animation. He worked his way up to animator on The Fox and the Hound and, after working on story for a few TV specials, he was placed as director on Fun with Mr. Future. Van Citters continued as director and did much of the original development work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, including his personal choice for the voice of Roger (a then-unknown member of the Los Angeles improv comedy group The Groundlings, Paul Reubens). His final Disney project was directing the "Sport Goofy" film Soccermania in 1987. Warner Bros. Animation years Van Citters moved to Warner Bros. Animation in 1987 as an animator (his first work with Warner Bros. was 1988's Daffy Duck's Quackbusters), before being promoted as Creative Director a couple years later. His duties included overseeing almost every aspect of the classic Warners characters from the new shorts, to commercials to the comic strip and print work. He was asked to direct the first new Bugs Bunny short in over 26 years and, after bringing in a full animation staff, Box Office Bunny was produced and released with the Warner Bros. feature film, The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter.