Bill Plympton

Early life

Plympton was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Wilda Jean (Jerman) and Donald F. Plympton, and was raised on a farm in nearby Oregon City with five siblings. From 1964 to 1968, he studied Graphic Design at Portland State University, where he was a member of the film society and worked on the yearbook. In 1968, he transferred to the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he majored in cartooning. He graduated from SVA in 1969.

Career

Plympton's illustrations and cartoons have been published in The New York Times and the weekly newspaper The Village Voice, as well as in the magazines Vogue, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Penthouse, and National Lampoon. His political cartoon strip Plympton, which began in 1975 in the SoHo Weekly News, eventually was syndicated and appeared in over 20 newspapers.

In 1988, his animated short Your Face was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He also became known for other animated short films, including 25 Ways to Quit Smoking (1989) and Enemies (1991), the latter of which was part of the Animania series on MTV, where many of his other shorts were shown.

In 1991, Plympton won the Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival for Push Comes to Shove which was featured on MTV's animated series Liquid Television. In 1992, his self-financed, first feature-length animated film, The Tune debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

His work also appeared on the 1992–1993 Fox comedy series The Edge. In 1993, he made his first live action film, J. Lyle.

In 1995, he contributed animation and graphics to a computer game collection, Take Your Best Shot. In 1997, Plympton's work was also presented in Europe. In November, the Geneva-based publisher Éditions Paquet published the French-language collection ''Toute la vérité sur le sujet''. The following month, from December 6 to 20, Plympton was featured at the Geneva event "BD Fleuves", held at 1 rue de la Truite, with Paquet among the participating partners.

In 1997, Plympton released Mondo Plympton, an animated retrospective of his career combining earlier shorts and excerpts with new sequences depicting Plympton as an animated character discussing his work as a cartoonist and independent animator. Following its festival premiere at the World Animation Celebration and a screening at Seattle's Masters of Animation conference, Plympton self-distributed the film to selected U.S. theaters. Reviewing its San Francisco theatrical run, Edward Guthmann described the film as a career retrospective in which Plympton placed his earlier films in autobiographical context.

Later works

Guard Dog (2004) was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. In 2005, Plympton animated a music video for Kanye West's "Heard 'Em Say" and the following year, he created the music video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Don't Download This Song". Plympton contributed animation to the 2006 History Channel series 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America, to illustrate the events of Shays' Rebellion. Together with other independent New York City animators, he has released two DVDs of animated shorts, both titled Avoid Eye Contact.

Plympton's 2008 80-minute feature, Idiots and Angels presented by Terry Gilliam, had no dialogue. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on 26 April 2008,

In 2011, Alexia Anastasio completed a documentary on Plympton's life, Adventures in Plymptoons!, released in September 2012 direct-to-DVD and on video-on-demand.

In 2011, Plympton collaborated with child film critic Perry Chen on Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest, a 2011 short animated film directed by Kevin Sean Michaels, about actress and Holocaust survivor Ingrid Pitt.

Plympton's seventh animated feature, Cheatin' (2013), was partly financed through a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $100,000. Plympton personally drew more than 40,000 frames for the film. Cheatin' won the Jury Award for a Feature Film at the 2014 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, as well as the ANIMAFICX Award at the 2013 Gijón International Film Festival.

Plympton directed the segment "On Eating and Drinking" in the 2014 animated film The Prophet, adapted from Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet.

In 2014, Plympton was one of four artists featured in the Icons of Animation exhibition at New York's Society of Illustrators, alongside Peter de Sève, William Joyce and Carlos Nine. The exhibition was accompanied by an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences program in which Plympton and de Sève participated in a panel discussion on the craft of animation.

Technique

By sometimes alternating the same drawings back and forth, it creates a shimmering effect, known in animation as a 'boil', that makes it look like the images are pulsating.

Legacy

A collection of more than 180 Plympton items is held at the Academy Film Archive. The archive has preserved Plympton's films such as Your Face, The Tune, Guard Dog, and The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger.

His films have featured in the Animation Show of Shows including Your Face, Guard Dog, Eat (2001), The Fan and the Flower (2005), and Santa: The Fascist Years (2009).

On June 1, 2026, Plympton was inducted into the Animation Hall of Fame.

Personal life

On December 23, 2011, Plympton married animator/artist/illustrator Sandrine Flament. Their son was born in September 2012.

Influences

Plympton has stated he has many influences, the biggest being the work of the Walt Disney with others including Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Robert Crumb, Milton Glaser, Charles Addams, Charles M. Schulz, Frank Capra, Bob Godfrey, Chuck Jones, Tomi Ungerer, Quentin Tarantino, Jacques Tati, Don Martin, Harvey Kurtzman, Spain Rodriguez and Jules Feiffer. He said I Married a Strange Person! "was influenced by Peter Jackson, some of his earlier films ... where he used gore and violence and blood as humor." He also included references to Jacques Tati, Carlos Nine, and Milt Kahl.

Awards

1988 Academy Award nomination for Short Animation: "Your Face"

1991 Jury Prize for Short Films, "Push Comes to Shove", Cannes Film Festival

2004 Inkpot Award winner

2005 Academy Award nomination for Short Animation: "Guard Dog"

2006 Winsor McCay Award Annie Awards by ASIFA-Hollywood

2011 20th Annual Cinema St. Louis Film Festival (traditional name: St. Louis International Film Festival), Lifetime Achievement Award

2011 Burbank International Film Festival, Pioneer in Theatrical Animation Award

2011 Action On Film International Film Festival, Lifetime Achievement Award

2013 ANIMAFicx Award, 51st Gijón International Film Festival: "Cheatin'"

2014 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Jury Award for a Feature Film: Cheatin'

2017 Nashville Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize, Animated Feature Competition: Revengeance

2019 Cartoons on the Bay, Pulcinella Career Award

2023 National Cartoonists Society, Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award

2023 Los Angeles Animation Festival

Winner Best Feature Film: "Slide"

Filmography

Animated features

The Tune (1992)

I Married a Strange Person! (1997)

Mutant Aliens (2001)

Hair High (2004)

Idiots and Angels (2008)

Cheatin' (2013)

Revengeance (2016)

Slide (2024)

Documentaries

Walt Curtis: The Peckerneck Poet (1997)

Fuck (2005; provided animated sequences)

Adventures in Plymptoons! by Alexia Anastasio (2011)

Live-action features

J. Lyle (1993)

Guns on the Clackamas(1995)

Walt Curtis, the Peckerneck Poet (1997)

Hitler's Folly (a mockumentary) (2016)

Animated shorts

Source unless otherwise noted:

The Turn On (1968; 2:00)

Lucas the Ear of Corn (1977; 4:00)

Boomtown (1985; 6:00)

Love in the Fast Lane (1985; 3:00)

Your Face (1987; 3:10)

Drawing Lesson #2 (1988; 6:00)

One of Those Days (1988: 7:50)

How to Kiss (1989; 6:35)

25 Ways to Quit Smoking (1989; 5:00)

Plymptoons (1990; 6:45)

Tango Schmango (1991)

Dig My Do (1990; 4:00)

The Wiseman (1990: 4:30)

Push Comes to Shove (1991; 6:30)

Draw (1993; 2:00)

Faded Roads (1994; 2:30)

Nosehair (1994; 7:00)

How to Make Love to a Woman (1995; 5:00)

Smell the Flowers (1996; 2:00)

Boney D (1996; 3:00)

Plympmania (1996; 8:00)

Sex & Violence (1997; 8:00)

The Exciting Life of a Tree (1998; 7:00)

Animated TV shorts

12 Tiny Christmas Tales (2001)

ChalkZone “That Thing You Drew”

Random! Cartoons - Gary Guitar

The Simpsons couch gags (2012–2022; Beware My Cheating Bart, Black Eyed, Please, Married to the Blob, Lisa the Veterinarian, 22 for 30, 3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage, Manger Things, One Angry Lisa)

Compilations (DVD)

Avoid Eye Contact Vol. 1

Avoid Eye Contact Vol. 2

Plymptoons: The Complete Early Works of Bill Plympton (1992)

Bill Plympton's Dirty Shorts (2006)

Mondo Plympton (2007)

Bill Plympton's Dog Days (2009)

Bill Plympton's Dogs & Cows (2013)

Music videos

Peter Himmelman – "245 Days" (1990)

Kanye West – "Heard 'Em Say" (2005)

"Weird Al" Yankovic – "Don't Download This Song" (2006)

Parson Brown, "Mexican Standoff" (2008)

"Weird Al" Yankovic – "TMZ" (2011)

Cousin Joe Twoshacks (Joe Cartoon) - "Deep End" (2014)

Matt Jaffe — Wicked World (2019)

"Weird Al" Yankovic – "Polkamania" ("Shape of You" segment) (2024)

Jon Bellion – "Rich and Broke" (2025)

Wendy Maybury — The Vagina Song (2026)

Commercials

MTV public service announcement "Acid Rain" (1989)

Trivial Pursuit (3) (1990–91)

Nutrasweet (1991)

Soloflex "Transformation" (1992)

Oregon Lottery "Blackjack" (1992)

Taco Bell "Fuddy Duddy" (1993)

Nik Naks (UK) (1993)

Microsoft Windows '95 (1995)

AirTouch Cellular (1996)

AT&T "Longshot" (1996)

AT&T Wireless "Map-O-Rama" (1997)

NBC "Peacock Bumper" (1997)

7-11/PBS "Head" & "Explore" (1997)

The Money Store "End of the World" & "Rollercoaster" (1998)

Geico Direct (6) (1999)

Wilson Tennis (3) (2002)

United Airlines "Signature" (2005)

Ford Motor Company (2016)