Lee Mendelson Productions opened in Burlingame, California (17 miles south of San Francisco) in 1963.
Fresh from their previous two year productions at KPIXTV (where they won a Peabody Award for the best locally produced documentaries in the country), writer-produce-director Lee Mendelson and Cinematographer and editor Sheldon Fay Jr. created the documentary A MAN NAMED MAYS, which became a major hit on NBC-TV. They followed this with A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN, a documentary on Charles Schulz and his “Peanuts” characters.
This lead to a 38-year association with Schulz and animator Bill Melendez that created over 50 prime time network “Peanuts” specials and four animated Feature films. Other Mendelson animation projects included 12 prime time “Garfield” specials and a 120-program series “Garfield and Friends” (with animator Phil Roman and writer Mark Evanier).... plus a series of 13 shows on “Mother Goose and Grimm” with cartoonist Mike Peters... three prime time “Cathy” specials with cartoonist Catrhy Guisewite...and the first two time “Barbar the Elephant” specials.
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Lee Mendelson Productions opened in Burlingame, California (17 miles south of San Francisco) in 1963.
Fresh from their previous two year productions at KPIXTV (where they won a Peabody Award for the best locally produced documentaries in the country), writer-produce-director Lee Mendelson and Cinematographer and editor Sheldon Fay Jr. created the documentary A MAN NAMED MAYS, which became a major hit on NBC-TV. They followed this with A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN, a documentary on Charles Schulz and his “Peanuts” characters.
This lead to a 38-year association with Schulz and animator Bill Melendez that created over 50 prime time network “Peanuts” specials and four animated Feature films. Other Mendelson animation projects included 12 prime time “Garfield” specials and a 120-program series “Garfield and Friends” (with animator Phil Roman and writer Mark Evanier).... plus a series of 13 shows on “Mother Goose and Grimm” with cartoonist Mike Peters... three prime time “Cathy” specials with cartoonist Catrhy Guisewite...and the first two time “Barbar the Elephant” specials.
Mendelson and Fay would be joined by producers Walt DeFaria, David Crommie, Karen Crommie and Cinematographer Chuck Barbee to create over thirty prime time network specials, including such stars as Paul Newman, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, Flip Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, and Henry Fonda, to name a few.
Mendelson and Frank Buxton also joined forced to create the NBC-TV hit series HOT DOG, starring Woody Allen and Jonathan Winters.
Mendelson productions have won 12 prime time Emmys, numerous other Emmy nominations, as well as two Grammy and one Oscar nomination.
Mendelson Productions is also the Publisher of the Vince Guaraldi Library of Charlie Brown music.
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Lee Mendelson Film Productions
