Robert John Renzetti is an American animator and author. Renzetti is known for creating My Life as a Teenage Robot and the Oh Yeah! Cartoons series Mina and the Count for Nickelodeon, directing Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack for Cartoon Network and serving as the animation director of Sym-Bionic Titan. He was also the supervising producer on the Disney Channel animated television series Gravity Falls and an executive producer on Big City Greens. He most recently served as story editor and co-executive producer on Kid Cosmic for Netflix and released his first original novel, The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things.
Rob Renzetti | |
---|---|
Born | Robert John Renzetti |
Alma mater | California Institute of the Arts |
Occupation(s) | Writer, director, storyboard artist, layout artist, animator |
Years active | 1991–present |
Known for | Mina and the Count My Life as a Teenage Robot The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things |
Website | robrenzetti |
Early life
editRenzetti, born in Chicago and raised in Addison, Illinois, was an art history major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[1][2] After graduating from Illinois, Renzetti attended the animation program at Columbia College Chicago for one year, where he was a classmate of Genndy Tartakovsky. Renzetti and Tartakovsky were then both accepted into the California Institute of the Arts, where they were roommates.[3]
Career
editAfter graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, Renzetti began his animating career in Spain, working on 5 episodes for Batman: The Animated Series.[3]
Renzetti has been writer, director, and storyboard artist for several Cartoon Network shows, including 2 Stupid Dogs, Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. He won an Emmy Award in 2009 for his work on the latter. During the mid-1990s, he created Mina and the Count, a series of animated shorts that premiered on the What a Cartoon! show then later aired for a short time on the similar anthology series Oh Yeah! Cartoons. In 1999, he made the short "My Neighbor Was a Teenage Robot", which also debuted on Oh Yeah! Cartoons; in 2003, My Life as a Teenage Robot, based on the short, debuted on Nickelodeon. In April 2008, he started work on Cartoon Network's The Cartoonstitute project, where he served as supervising producer.
He was story editor on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for the series' first two seasons, but left in 2011, soon after the departure of the series showrunner, Lauren Faust, to work as the supervising producer on Disney's Gravity Falls. He subsequently worked on Disney's Big City Greens as one of its executive producers.[4] In 2021, he served as executive producer and co-writer on Craig McCracken's Kid Cosmic for Netflix.
Renzetti has (co-)written four books based on various Disney properties, including Dipper's and Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun!, the New York Times Bestseller Gravity Falls: Journal 3, DuckTales: Solving Mysteries and Rewriting History, and Onward: Quests Of Yore. His first original novel, The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things, was released in July 2023. A new installment in The Horrible Series, The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment, is set to release in July 2024, with the third novel potentially already being in the works.[5]
Works
editFilm
editYear | Title | Role |
---|---|---|
1991 | Dudley's Classroom Adventure | animator |
2024 | Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation | timing director |
Television
editYear | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1993–1995 | 2 Stupid Dogs | writer storyboard artist director |
|
1995 | Dumb and Dumber | storyboard artist | |
1995–1997 | Dexter's Laboratory | director storyboard artist animation director |
|
1995 | Mina and the Count | creator writer producer director |
|
1998 | Oh Yeah! Cartoons | producer | Episode: "The F-Tales" |
The Powerpuff Girls | writer storyboard artist director |
Episode 4.7: Nano of the North Episode 4.8: Stray Bullet | |
2000 | Family Guy | director | Episode 2.18: "E. Peterbus Unum" Episode 3.6: "Death Lives" |
2001 | Time Squad | storyboard artist | Episode 1.5a: "Dishonest Abe" Episode 1.12b: "Where the Buffalo Bill Roams" |
2001–2002 | House of Mouse | storyboard artist timing director |
|
2001–2002, 2017 | Samurai Jack | sheet timer director |
|
2002 | Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? | supervising producer director |
|
2003–2009 | My Life as a Teenage Robot | creator developer writer executive producer director storyboard artist |
|
2006–2009 | Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends | post supervising director story writer storyboard artist director |
|
2009 | Random! Cartoons | sheet timer director |
Episode: "6 Monsters" |
2010-2013 | Adventure Time | sheet timer | |
2010–2011 | Sym-Bionic Titan | sheet timer animation director |
|
2010–2011 | My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic | story editor | Seasons 1 and 2 |
2012–2016 | Gravity Falls | supervising producer director story editor (season 1) |
Episode 2.1: "Scary-Oke" |
2018–2019 | Big City Greens | executive producer | |
2021–2022 | Kid Cosmic | writer director co-executive producer |
Internet
editYear | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | Cartoons VS Cancer | Himself | Podcast |
2016 | Nickelodeon Animation Podcast | ||
2022 | Mystery Shack Lookback |
Bibliography
editYear | Title | Publisher | ISBN | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun! | Disney Press | ISBN 978-1484710807 | Co-written with Shane Houghton |
2016 | Gravity Falls: Journal 3 | ISBN 978-1484746691 | Co-written with Alex Hirsch | |
2018 | DuckTales: Solving Mysteries and Rewriting History | ISBN 978-1368008419 | Co-written with Rachel Vine | |
2020 | Onward: Quests of Yore | ISBN 978-1368052092 | ||
2023 | The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things | Penguin Workshop | ISBN 978-0593519523 | |
2024 | The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment | ISBN 978-0593519554 |
References
edit- ^ Levy, David (September 23, 2011). "Animondays Interview: Rob Renzetti - Part I". Animondays. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiOZt9sOFO8 Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 1 of 7 Retrieved April 21, 2010
- ^ a b https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9vqu0zpwI Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 2 of 7 Retrieved April 21, 2010
- ^ Zahed, Ramin (June 14, 2018). "Making Disney Channel's 'Big City Greens'". Animation Magazine.
- ^ "The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things". Rob Renzetti. Retrieved February 6, 2024.