Beatles animator brings paintings to Pineville gallery show

If you watched Saturday morning cartoons, TBS, Nickelodeon, Disney or reruns on cable over the past 50 years, chances are you’ve encountered animator Ron Campbell’s iconic artwork. And chances are his work made an impression on your young mind.

The 76-year-old Australian-born artist helped create “The Beatles” cartoon series (where he served as director), “The Flintstones,” “The Jetsons,” “George of the Jungle,” “Scooby Doo,” “Smurfs,” “Captain Caveman,” “Darkwing Duck” and “The Rugrats,” among others.

His studio produced educational programs such as the Emmy-winning “Big Blue Marble” and work for “Sesame Street.” But Campbell is probably best known for his work with the Beatles, which included animation for “The Yellow Submarine” film.

Campbell began revisiting his subjects after he retired. His paintings became so popular that he now travels to galleries to meet fans and collectors and share his work. He’ll appear Friday through Sunday at Charlotte Fine Art Gallery, in Pineville, where he’ll also paint live.

“When you retire, everybody looks for a second act. If I did paintings of cactuses in my back garden nobody would want to buy it,” says Campbell from his home in Arizona.

“It’s really something to do in my old age. It proved to be a bit of a monster by the tail. They sell so quickly and all my colleagues want me to keep working, so I keep working and I get to travel the country and meet what were once just numbers on a page now as people,” he adds.

At the time he was offered the Beatles’ cartoon, he says he hadn’t taken notice of much popular music.

“I said ‘I don’t think insects make very good characters,’” he recalls, with a laugh. The show became hugely popular thanks in part to three Beatles songs in each episode; it ran for five years. Campbell directed episodes that were produced in Australia decades before the Internet made such international productions commonplace. He later moved to the U.S., where he helped develop “Scooby Doo.”

He didn’t always agree with the storylines. While working on the adult USA series “Duckman,” which he later found out was Elizabeth Taylor’s favorite cartoon, he realized the subject matter didn’t correlate with his reputation as a children’s entertainment artist.

“I found myself working on some ‘Sesame Street’ films at the same time I was working on some storyboard work for ‘Duckman’ and the sequence I was storyboarding had a judge in a massage parlor – one of those nasty massage parlors. I thought, ‘Why am I working here?’ I can see some newspaper column talking about ‘director of “Sesame Street” cartoons animating a prostitution ring.’ It wasn’t long after I stopped working on ‘Duckman.’ ”

Campbell’s original paintings and prints will be available at the show from $200 to $3,000. The average price is $400, he says.

“There’s plenty of options. You don’t have to be a millionaire to have some fun and buy a piece,” he says.

After working in relative seclusion of the TV and film industry, Campbell calls meeting the audience a revelation.

“It’s been a wonderful end to my career.”

He calls American cartoons a great ambassador.

“You can travel all over the world and if you mention you worked on ‘Scooby Doo,’ eyes light up everywhere,” he explains. “I think people have an affection for America that the cartoons have brought them, that no politician could generate. There’s that underlying idea that America is a good place.”

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Beatles animator brings paintings to Pineville gallery show."