Amy Winfrey (born October 1975) is an American

animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animat ...

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

, songwriter, director and voice actress. She is best known for creating the web series '' Making Fiends'' that was later picked up by Nickelodeon in 2008, and for directing several episodes of ''

BoJack Horseman ''BoJack Horseman'' is an American adult animation, adult animated tragicomedy television series created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg. It stars the voices of Will Arnett, Amy Sedaris, Alison Brie, Paul F. Tompkins, and Aaron Paul. Set primarily in ...

'', including " The View From Halfway Down" and " Free Churro", which were each nominated for a

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program is a Creative Arts Emmy Award which is given annually to an animated series. In the following list, the first titles listed in gold are the winners; those not in gold are nominees, which ...

at the 71st and 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmys.

Career

Winfrey studied animation at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

and made a

3D film 3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema and later experienced a worldwide r ...

called ''The Bad Plant'', which won her a silver medal at the

Student Academy Awards The Student Academy Awards are presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in an annual competition for college and university filmmakers. Description The awards were originally named the Student Film Awards and were first pres ...

in 2000. While attending school, Winfrey worked as an animator on ''

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...

'' starting with the pilot episode, ' ''The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Santa''' in 1995. When

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...

picked up the series, Winfrey remained part of the animation team and continued to work on the show, pausing her schooling to work on the feature film '' South Park Bigger, Longer & Uncut''. In a UCLA class, Winfrey made a website dedicated to traffic cones. Because of many visitors on the traffic cone website, Winfrey decided to create a series of short web cartoons, and the result was ''Muffin Films''. The first was created as a thesis project in 2000 and lasted twelve episodes, one for each muffin in a dozen. The series explored different styles of Flash animation through twelve different shorts, using muffins as the subject of the stories. To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Muffin Films, Amy Winfrey created six additional cartoons for the series. In 2001'','' Winfrey created another web series, ''Big Bunny.'' Winfrey provided all of the voice acting, except for the eponymous character who is voiced by her husband, Peter Merryman. Winfrey pitched it as a series for

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and

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

in 2002, but neither picked it up. In 2008, Winfrey started ''Squid and Frog'', short cartoons about a red squid and an orange frog, who sing about various things, such as that you can't learn surgery from television. On 6 October 2018, Winfrey released a web cartoon called ''Hooray For Hell'', co-created by Peter Merryman. The series is about a girl who wakes up in Hell after voting for president and gets a ticket to Heaven. There are three episodes available on

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. They can be found by clicking the link in the description of the trailer on Winfrey's main channel. After a hiatus, the show's final two episodes were uploaded on May 27, 2020.

''Making Fiends''

Winfrey created '' Making Fiends'' in 2003 as a web cartoon. The series has 21 episodes created between 2003 and 2005. Winfrey voiced several characters, including Charlotte. Winfrey was able to produce web animation full time after she began selling merchandise of her characters online.

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

contacted Winfrey in early 2004 about bringing ''Making Fiends'' on TV. The series only had one season, airing from October 4 to November 1, 2008, on the secondary channel Nicktoons Network.

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, now

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, retained the rights to the property after the series was canceled. Despite the limited run, the series was named "Best Television Series" at

Annecy International Animation Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring ever ...

in 2008.

Recent work

For a five-year period between 2014 and 2019, Winfrey worked as director on all six seasons of the

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

animated series ''

,'' typically working on three episodes per season, including some of the series' most notable episodes, Zoës and Zeldas, Brand New Couch, Hank After Dark,

Thoughts and Prayers "Thoughts and prayers" is a phrase commonly used by politicians, public figures, and celebrities, particularly in the United States, as a condolence after a deadly event such as a natural disaster or mass shooting. The phrase "thoughts and pr ...

, Ruthie, Free Churro, The New Client, and the show's penultimate episode, ' The View From Halfway Down.' She was nominated twice for the

by the

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), also colloquially known as the Television Academy, is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the Television in the United States, television industry in the United S ...

for "Free Churro" and "The View From Halfway Down". She also worked on the second season of ' Greatest Party Story Ever', an animated episode of ''

Adam Ruins Everything ''Adam Ruins Everything'' is an American educational comedy television series starring Adam Conover that ran from 2015 through 2019 on TruTV. The series endeavors to debunk common misconceptions held by the public on a variety of topics. Premis ...

,'' the first season of ''

Tuca & Bertie ''Tuca & Bertie'' is an American animated sitcom created by cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt for Netflix. It began streaming on May 3, 2019. It stars Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, with a supporting cast including Steven Yeun, John Early (comedian), John ...

''. She used to be a supervising producer on '' Velma'' before it was cancelled.

Personal life

Winfrey resides in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

with her husband, Peter Merryman. She has also been an educator teaching animation at the UCLA Animation Workshop.

Career

''Making Fiends''

Recent work

Personal life

Web series

''Muffin Films''

''Big Bunny'' (2001)

Filmography

Television

Film

Short Film

Other Works

References

External links