Jereld "Jerry" Beck is an American animation historian, author, blogger, and video producer. Beck wrote or edited several books on classic American animation and classic characters, including The 50 Greatest Cartoons, The Animated Movie Guide, Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, The Flintstones: The Official Guide to the Cartoon Classic, The Hanna-Barbera Treasury: Rare Art Mementos from Your Favorite Cartoon Classics, The SpongeBob SquarePants Experience: A Deep Dive into the World of Bikini Bottom, Pink Panther: The Ultimate Guide, and Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons alongside The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons. He is also an authority on the making of modern films, with his books detailing the art of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, DreamWorks' Madagascar, and Bee Movie. Beck is also an entertainment industry consultant for TV and home entertainment productions and releases related to classic cartoons and operates the blog "Cartoon Research." He appears frequently as a documentary subject and audio commentator on releases of A&E's Cartoons Go to War as well as DVD collections of Looney Tunes, Popeye the Sailor, and Woody Woodpecker cartoons, on which he serves as consultant and curator.
Work
Early in his career, Beck collaborated with film historian Leonard Maltin on his book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Revised and Updated Edition, organized animation festivals in Los Angeles, and was instrumental in founding the international publication Animation Magazine. In the 1990s, Beck taught courses on the art of animation at UCLA, NYU, and The School of Visual Arts. In 1993, he became a founding member of the Cartoon Network advisory board and he currently serves as president of the ASIFA-Hollywood board. He co-produced or was a consultant on many home entertainment compilations of Looney Tunes, MGM Cartoons, Disney Home Video, Betty Boop, and others. In 1989, he co-founded Streamline Pictures and first brought such anime as Akira, Vampire Hunter D, and Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky to the United States. He himself compiled collections of cartoons of Warner Bros., Woody Woodpecker, and the Fleischer Studios. As vice president of Nickelodeon Movies, he helped develop The Rugrats Movie and Mighty Mouse. In 2006, Beck created and produced an animated pilot for Frederator Studios and Nickelodeon. That cartoon, Hornswiggle, aired on Nicktoons Network in 2008 as part of the Random! Cartoons series. In 2004, Beck and fellow animation historian and writer Amid Amidi co-founded another blog, Cartoon Brew, which focused primarily on current animation productions and news. Beck sold his co-ownership in Cartoon Brew in February 2013 and started an IndieWire blog, Animation Scoop, for reports on current animation while continuing to write about classic animation at Cartoon Research. Beck teaches as part of the Character Animation program faculty of CalArts School of Film/Video. Through 2018 he also taught animation history at Woodbury University in Burbank, California. On a regular basis Beck moderates panels at various venues along with hosting programs/retrospectives of classic cartoons at same. In the past this included shows at the now shuttered Cinefamily and Cartoon Dump monthly live Hollywood performance. His current regular presentations include:
