Oscar-nominated stop-motion animator Eli Noyes (Clay, or The Origin of Species) who also worked on MTV’s influential Liquid Television anthology and HBO’s Braingames, passed away on March 23 at age 81. He died of prostate cancer at his home in San Francisco. Ralph Guggenheim, his partner at Alligator Planet for more than 20 years, announced the news of his death.
Born on October 18, 1942 in Amherst, MA, Noyes made a big splash in animation with his stop-motion short Clay, or The Origin of Species in 1965 when he was an undergraduate student at Harvard. He used clay and sand to tell the story of the rise of life on Earth from its early days. His use of clay animation would inspire the likes of David Sproxton and Peter Lord who went on to form Aardman Animations in 1972.
He continued to use sand to create animated short in his next project, Alphabet which on the Special Jury prize at Annecy in 1967 and was later used on PBS’ Sesame Street to teach the letters of alphabet to young viewers. He also experimented with different styles in projects such as Sandman (1973) and Peanut Butter & Jelly (1976) which would also air on Nickelodeon.
In 1983, Noyes joined forces with Kit Laybourne to form Noyes & Laybourne Enterprises. He directed and produced the pilot for the HBO series Braingames, for which he won a 1983 CableACE Award for Single Program: Innovative Programming genre. He and Laybourne then went on to create Nickelodeon’s Eureeka’s Castle and Gullah Gullah Island. The duo formed Colossal Pictures in 1988 and helped develop MTV’s influential Liquid Television series, which
Noyes and Laybourne formed Colossal Pictures in 1988, and the pair helped develop Liquid Television, MTV’s memorable toon showcase series that aired from 1991-94 and introduced viewers to Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head and Peter Chung’s Aeon Flux. Noyes and Laybourne also created branding spots for ABC, HBO, Xerox and IBM. He continued to work on projects for Pixar and Disney in the 1990s, including the programming block Zoog Disney which aired on Disney Channel from 1999 to 2003. He was also the director of interactive design at the Oxygen network from 1999 to 2001.
He created film, print and media projects with Ralph Guggenheim and Alan Buder at their company, Alligator Planet, which was launched in 2003. He created animated segments for documentaries such as Under Our Skin (2008) Oscar-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America in 2003.
Noyes is survived by his wife, Augusta Talbot; son Isaac, daughter, Abigail and granddaughter Esme.
Watch Clay, Sandman and a compilation of Sesame Street‘s Alphabet series below:
Sources: Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter
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