Bob Godfrey

Roland Frederick Godfrey MBE (27 May 1921 – 21 February 2013), known as Bob Godfrey, was an English animator whose career spanned more than fifty years. He is probably best known for the children's cartoon series Roobarb, Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1976–77) and Henry's Cat (1983–1993) and for the Trio chocolate biscuit advertisements shown in the UK during the early 1980s. However, he also produced a BAFTA and Academy award-winning short film, Great (1975), a humorous biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Further Academy Awards nominations received were for Kama Sutra Rides Again (1971), Dream Doll (1979), with Zlatko Grgic, and Small Talk (1994) with animator Kevin Baldwin.

Life and career Godfrey was born in West Maitland, Australia, but his British parents returned to England while he was still a baby. He attended school in Ilford, Essex, and Leyton Art School, During the Second World War he served as a Royal Marine and was involved in the D-Day landings.

Early career Godfrey was taken on by the Larkins Studio in 1950 While still working at Larkins Godfrey made Big Parade (1952) and Watch the Birdie (1954), a film inspired by a painting by Paul Klee, both were filmed in the basement of his flat.

1960s Godfrey subsequently made Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit (1961) which satirises animation and commercial advertising.

In the Thames Television documentary The Thief Who Never Gave Up, broadcast in the late 1980s, animator Richard Williams credits Godfrey with giving his career its initial impetus: "Bob Godfrey helped me...I worked in the basement and would do work in kind, and he would let me use the camera...[it was] a barter system".

1980s and after Henry's Cat, created by Stan Hayward and animated and narrated by Bob Godfrey, was first screened on 12 September 1983.

Bob Godfrey was awarded an MBE in 1986, and received the newly established Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bradford Animation Festival on 18 November 2007, with the festival including a retrospective of his films. His later films included social and political satires based on the work of Steve Bell, such as Beaks to the Grindstone and A Journalist's Tale. He worked with Bell again on the series Margaret Thatcher: Where Am I Now?

Bob Godfrey had a long association with the Royal College of Art. In 1985, under his direction and Dick Taylor, Animation became a separate course with the first students graduating in 1987. Godfrey was made a Senior Fellow in 1989. He told The Guardian in 2001: "I teach the basics of animation, then it's up to the individual. Great illustrators don't always make great animators. I've known people who couldn't draw at all who were great animators. You can always spot the ones with real talent. They don't listen to you." Godfrey received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb in 1992.

Death Bob Godfrey died on 21 February 2013. He was 91 years old.