Bruce Wayne Smith (born September 6, 1961) is an American animator, character designer, film director, and television producer. He is best known as the creator of Disney Channel's The Proud Family, as well as the supervising animator of Kerchak in Tarzan, Pacha in The Emperor's New Groove, Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog, and Piglet, Kanga, and Roo in Winnie the Pooh.
Biography[]
Smith studied animation in the Character Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. He joined the Walt Disney Studios as an animator on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and various other Roger Rabbit shorts that the studio produced. Soon after, Smith was handpicked by producer/director Reginald Hudlin (House Party, Boomerang) to direct the Paramount Pictures animated film Bébé's Kids.
Smith also served as co-director on the Warner Bros. live action/animated film Space Jam before returning to Disney as supervising animator on such films as Tarzan (Kerchak and Baboons) and The Emperor's New Groove (Pacha).
While working animation on the feature film side, Smith started feeding into his love of television animation and created The Proud Family for Disney Channel. He co-founded Jambalaya Studios for the production of the series and crafted over 50 episodes of the series along with The Proud Family Movie. Smith then rejoined the Walt Disney Studios and Duncan Studio Production to supervise animation on The Princess and the Frog (Dr. Facilier), the 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie (Piglet, Kanga and Roo), and as the lead animator on the short Tangled Ever After. Smith's knack for unique character design led him into the visual development of other projects at the studio such as Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen.
He is set to return to The Proud Family with The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, which is set to air on Disney+ and Disney Channel.
Smith grew up in Los Angeles, California. More recently, he signed an overall deal with Disney.