Bob Peterson (filmmaker)

Robert Peterson (born January 18, 1961) is an American cartoonist, animator, director, screenwriter, storyboard supervisor and voice actor who works at Pixar. He was hired at Pixar by Roger Gould in 1994 as an animator for commercials, before subsequently becoming an animator on ''Toy Story'' (1995). He was the co-director and co-writer for '' Up'' (2009), in which he also voiced the characters Dug and Alpha. He conceived the idea of ''The Good Dinosaur'' (2015), and was the film's original director before being dismissed from it. His work as a writer for the films ''Up'' and ''Finding Nemo'' (2003) earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He was also a co-writer on ''Cars 3'' (2017) and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program for his work on ''Forky Asks A Question'' (2020).

Career

Peterson's early career as an artist started when he was a mechanical engineering student at ''Ohio Northern University'' (1979-1983) and then as a graduate student at ''Purdue University'' (1983-1986). At Ohio Northern, Peterson drew a weekly cartoon "For Pete's Sake". At Purdue, Peterson drew the cartoon "Loco Motives" for the Purdue student newspaper, the ''Purdue Exponent''. Prior to his graduation from Purdue in December 1986, the Exponent published "Loco Motives: Boilercoaster 84-86, The Best of the Purdue Exponent's Loco Motives Cartoon", a paper-back collection of Peterson's cartoons. In October 1986 Peterson autographed copies at a book-signing event in the ''Purdue Memorial Union''. At least one copy of the book is known to have original, signed artwork inside the book cover which was drawn by Peterson during the book-signing.

Peterson has also voiced characters for various Pixar projects such as Geri in the short ''Geri's Game'' (1997), Roz in ''Monsters, Inc.'' (2001) and ''Monsters University'' (2013), Mr. Ray in ''Finding Nemo'' (2003) and ''Finding Dory'' (2016), and Dug and Alpha in '' Up'' (2009). His most recent vocal work was Dug and Alpha in the short ''Carl's Date'' (2023). Peterson also voiced Chick Hicks in ''Cars 3'' since Chick's original voice actor Michael Keaton was unavailable to reprise the role.

He conceived Pixar's ''The Good Dinosaur'' (2015) and directed the film until August 2013. He he had been dismissed from the project due to story problems. Peterson remains at Pixar, where he was developing another original feature film. He created, wrote, and directed two short-form series: ''Forky Asks a Question'' (2019–20) and ''Dug Days'' (2021–23).

In August 2015, Peterson voiced a dog named Derby for an '' E:60'' profile on ESPN that chronicled the Trenton Thunder's minor league baseball team's tradition of using bat dogs.

Filmography

Feature films

Short films

Television

Video games

Other credits

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterson, Bob
1961 births
Living people
Animators from Ohio
American male screenwriters
American male voice actors
Animation screenwriters
Annie Award winners
Filmmakers from Ohio
Pixar people
Primetime Emmy Award winners