Early life
Menville was born on April 17, 1940, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At age 19 he moved to Los Angeles intent on becoming an animator, and found early work at Walt Disney Productions, where he served as an assistant on the studio's 1967 feature The Jungle Book. Dissatisfied with the working climate at Disney, he turned toward writing and directing, and began the long creative partnership with his friend Len Janson that would define the rest of his career.2
Career
Pixilation shorts
In the mid to late 1960s Menville and Janson produced a series of acclaimed comedy shorts built on pixilation, a stop-motion technique that animates live human performers frame by frame. Their 1967 film Stop, Look and Listen, in which characters "drive" invisible cars through real city streets, earned an Academy Award nomination. The duo followed it with further shorts including Vicious Cycles (1967), a biker-gang comedy, Blaze Glory (1970), Sergeant Swell of the Mounties (1972), and Captain Mom (1972). The films became fixtures of the early-1970s midnight-movie circuit and established the irreverent comic voice the pair carried into television.2
Television animation
Menville and Janson moved into television animation, often working together, and Menville built a career spanning roughly two decades and many of the era's best-known animated series. His credits include associate producer on Filmation's Shazam! (1974) and Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1976); writer on two episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973 to 1974), "Once Upon a Planet" and "The Practical Joker"; and story editor and writer on The Smurfs in the early 1980s. He later worked as a story editor on Tiny Toon Adventures (1990 to 1991), as a producer and writer on the 1991 revival of Land of the Lost, and as a writer on Batman: The Animated Series. He received a Humanitas Prize nomination for the live-action Land of the Lost episode "Opah."12
Ghostbusters
The Real Ghostbusters
Menville held senior staff roles across several seasons of the animated franchise. His production credits include story editor on Seasons 3, 4, 5 (except The Halloween Door), and 7; producer on Season 4; and supervising producer on Slimer!, Season 5 (again except The Halloween Door), Season 6, and Season 7.1
Writing with Len Janson, he is credited on roughly twenty episodes of The Real Ghostbusters:
Slimer!
For the Slimer! shorts he wrote A Mouse in the House, Out with Grout, Show Dog Showdown, and The Not-So-Great Outdoors.
Menville also appeared on camera as a commentator in the retrospective documentary Slimer Won't Do That! The Making of The Real Ghostbusters, which featured behind-the-scenes footage from the show's production.1
Death
Menville died on June 15, 1992, in Malibu, California, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, at age 52. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. Some of his work, including story material for Batman: The Animated Series, reached the screen after his death.2
Family
Menville was the father of voice actor and musician Scott Menville, known for roles including Robin in Teen Titans, and of writer Chad Menville.2
References
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Chuck Menville on IMDb.
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Chuck Menville, Wikipedia (accessed 2026; web-verified for birth/death dates, place and cause of death, early life, pixilation shorts, and full career beyond Ghostbusters, which the frozen Fandom snapshot did not cover).
