- Bobby Pontillas is a Filipino American animator who's designed characters for films like "Frozen" and "Moana."
- He recently designed Sesame Street's first-ever Filipino Muppet, TJ, based off his friends' kids.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Bobby Pontillas, an Oscar-winning animator and director who's designed characters for Disney films like "Frozen" and "Moana," and recently designed the first Filipino Muppet on "Sesame Street." The essay has been edited for length and clarity.
What colored my childhood was drawing. I grew up a single child to an only parent. My mom grew up in the Philippines and joined the US Navy in the 70's when she was super young, just 20 or 21 years old. It's a familiar story with many Filipinas.
I was born in one of those naval stations. I wasn't athletic, outgoing, or social, so gravitated toward drawing. I drew everything and anything, mostly what I saw in the media and on TV: Ninja Turtles, Conan the Barbarian, Top Gun fighter jets.
I continued drawing in high school. I was really into hip hop then, and Disney wasn't cool anymore, so I drew lots of graffiti and hip hop-related stuff.
Toward the end of high school, I wondered what I wanted to do with my life. I was like, "Ma, I want to join the US Navy, too." But she quickly shut that down. Instead, she told me, "You like to draw. You have the skill and the passion. You should do something with that," and signed me up for art school.
But even when I got to art school, I didn't know what I wanted to do as a career. I didn't take it seriously — until I saw "Tarzan" in 1999 in the theater, with my mom.
It was so different from anything I'd ever seen. It was dynamic, complex in terms of the way that it looked. I never looked back after that. I scoured the internet to learn more about the artists behind "Tarzan," and learned about Glen Keane, who was the supervising animator of the movie, along with other hits like "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin."
I knew that was it. That was what I wanted to do with my life: make drawings come to life and impact generations.
Dreaming of becoming a Disney animator
I became completely obsessed with becoming a Disney animator. But it didn't happen right away.
I got into the local video games industry in Seattle, where I did drawings for adventure games. I worked in the games industry for a good decade, and then, at some point, I remembered why I'd even gotten into animation in the first place: Disney.
So I signed up for online classes to push forward that dream. I took night classes while working my 9-to-5 for two years, met some mentors, and finally had my big break into feature films when I joined Blue Sky Studios, the studio behind the "Ice Age" movies and "Rio."
Then, in 2011, I landed a job at Disney. It had taken 11 years.
When I first stepped on the campus in Burbank, California, I saw that big wizard's hat building, right in the middle. It felt unreal. The only thing I remember in those first few days was the feeling of disbelief. I couldn't believe it was finally happening.
All I could think about wasn't necessarily how hard I'd worked, but instead everyone who had supported me along the way: the relatives, friends, mentors, and teachers who'd gotten me there.
Working on "Sesame Street"
At Disney, I worked on character animations for movies like "Frozen," "Moana," and "Big Hero 6."
But as I progressed in my career as an underrepresented voice, I found it was challenging to feel comfortable telling the stories I had within myself. The thing is, the film industry and artists in general are very open-minded nowadays, with an emphasis on cultural representation and bringing new stories into the fold. The biggest challenge is just believing you can do it and believing that people want to hear your stories.
Designing the first Filipino Muppet on "Sesame Street" gave me the opportunity to tell a story that meant something to me — something that's pulled from my culture, my family, my heritage.
In 2021, "Sesame Street" debuted Ji Young, a Korean Muppet. I felt like that turned the tide, like, "These Muppets have races?" Of course they do.
When I heard they were developing TJ, a Filipino American Muppet, I jumped at the chance. I based the designs off my close friends' kids. I wanted to make TJ as genuine as possible, so decided to pull inspiration from real-life experiences around me.
When TJ made his debut, I was pleasantly surprised. On the show, he talked about learning Tagalog and mentioned his lola, which means "grandmother" in Tagalog. I was impressed by how he was portrayed: He's obviously very Filipino American, but also speaks to the diaspora of Filipinos around the world.
Expanding representation through animation
Animation has become a storytelling medium that can appeal to kids, teenagers, and adults. Nowadays, there's more representation behind the camera, and we're bringing in more diverse stories and points of view.
In 2020, I founded Rise Up Organization with three fellow animators to support people of color who are looking to get into animation.
Storytelling from diverse creators is important: The world may not be necessarily exposed to different characters with different stories to tell. The more diverse stories that are out there, the more they can break down divisiveness.