Vale animator extraordinaire Zoran Janjic – funeral at Northern Suburbs Crematorium, 3pm today

September 20 2011, 9:44 am | BY Lynchy | 58 Comments

ZORAN-JANJIC.jpgZoran Janjic’s funeral service will be held at Northern Suburbs Crematorium @ 3pm today (Tuesday 20th September), followed by a wake at the Sydney Flying Squadron (AKA The Squaddy), 76 McDougall Street, Milsons Point.

UPDATED – The industry will be saddened to hear of the death of Zoran Janjic, one of Australia’s top animators and one of the best-loved characters of the business, of heart failure at the age of 71.

Janjic was the boss of Hanna Barbera in Australia in the 70s and his own company Zap Productions in the 80s and 90s, which was a major force in the Australian commercials production industry during that period.

Zap created traditional animation as well as being a pioneer in stop-motion animation and computer animation.

Throughout the sixties, Janjic was an animation director at API, which was the major animation studio in Australia producing series work for the Australian Broadcasting Commission and American networks. In 1962 episodes of “Challenge of Flight” and “Challenge of the Sea” were sold to Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Britain, The Middle East, and Italy. The studio’s most successful series and somewhat of a cornerstone was “King Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table” – syndicated in the U.S. by Twentieth Century Fox and sold to 14 countries. The series was directed by Janjic who had arrived in Australia in 1960 after working in animation at the Zagreb studios.

The strong ties to the American producers continued over the next few years with series work for the children’s toy manufacturer General Mills, realising what was to become known as the “Family Classics” such as “Treasure Island,” “The Legends of Robin Hood,” “Tales of Washington Irving,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Ivanhoe,” and “Journey to the Centre of the Earth.”

Hanna Barbera also tested the water in Australia by having API produce seventeen half-hour episodes of “Funky Phantom.”

Janjic, along with most of the key staff form API, was lured away to set up a new studio in Sydney for Hanna Barbera in 1972 – a coup from which API was never really able to recover. The manner in which the studio divided has remained a contentious issue to today for those concerned at the time. The arrival of Hanna Barbera had been the biggest single development in the Australian animation industry.