Bruce W. Smith

Bruce Wayne Smith (born September 6, 1961 in Los Angeles, California) is an American character animator, film director, and television producer. He was 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.

Smith studied animation in the Character Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. He joined the Walt Disney Studios 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 Emperors 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 the Disney Channel. He co-founded Jambalaya Studio for the production of the series and crafted over 50 episodes of the hit series along with The Proud Family TV movie. Smith then rejoined the Walt Disney Studios and Duncan Studio Production to supervise animation on The Princess and the Frog (Dr. Facilier) and the 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.

Smith grew up in Los Angeles, California.