Emmy-winning writer Gordon Bressack, best known for his work on ’90s animated classics “Tiny Toon Adventures,” “Pinky and the Brain” and “Animaniacs,” died Friday following several health issues. He was 68.
His son, filmmaker James Cullen Bressack, announced the news in a statement posted to Instagram. A specific cause of death was not given.
“You were my mentor, my writing partner, my hero, my best friend, but most of all you were my Dad,” Bressack’s statement said in part. “Thank you for everything you taught me. Thank you for being a story teller and instilling a love of stories into me. Thank you for making me watch movie after movie when i was little and asking me questions about them. Thank you for telling me I was going to be a filmmaker before I ever even knew what that meant. You meant the world to me, you always have and you always will.”
“If you like cartoons watch an episode of pinky and the brain or anamaniacs and have a laugh in his honor,” Bressack concluded. “I know its what he would want.”
Throughout his prolific career, Gordon Bressack wrote for some of the most celebrated and influential cartoons of their eras. In addition to “Tiny Toons,” “Animaniacs” and “Pinky and the Brain,” his other credits include episodes of Disney’s groundbreaking shows “DuckTales” and “Darkwing Duck,” along with “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “The Smurfs,” “The Real Ghostbusters,” “Pound Puppies” and “Snorks.”
More recently, he co-wrote the 2017 feature-length animated film “CarGo” with his son, James, who also directed. The film featured the voices of Ed Asner, Melissa Joan Hart and Haley Joel Osment.
In 2000, he won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Animated Program for his work on “Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain,” and in 1988, he was the first person to receive the Writers Guild’s Animation Writers Caucus Animation Award.
He’s survived by his son James, daughters, Jackie and Samantha; his grandchild, Logan; and siblings Margi, Celia and Roger.
See James Cullen Bressack’s full statement below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1zqBFuFZ79/