Writer Gordon Bressack, best known for his work on iconic ’90s toons Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, died Friday, August 30 in Los Angeles after a long illness. His son, James, shared the news of his passing with Deadline.
Bressack was born in New York and started out working in theater. In the mid 1980s, he began totting up credits on animated series such as The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Snorks, Pound Puppies, DuckTales and The Smurfs. At the end of the decade, he shared a Humanitas Prize nomination for The Adventures of Raggedy Ann & Andy.
In the years to come, he received Emmy Award recognition for Animaniacs (one win and one nomination), Pinky and the Brain (one win for Animated Program and one nomination for Original Song) and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (two wins) with his series colleagues. Bressack was also the first recipient of the Writers Guild of America’s first Animation Writers Caucus Award in 1998.
His many notable writing credits also included Tiny Toon Adventures, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Darkwing Duck, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Little People: Big Discoveries (for which he won a Writers Guild of Canada Award), Jimmy Neutron, WordGirl, The Octonauts and Captain Simian & The Space Monkeys, which he also executive produced. Returning to his theater roots in later years, Bressack’s most recent animation project was feature-length project CarGo, directed by his son, James Bressack.
Bressack is survived by son James, daughters Jackie and Samantha, grandchild Logan, and siblings Margi, Celia and Roger.
[Source: Deadline]
