Robert John Renzetti (born September 12, 1967) is an American animator and writer. He is known for creating the animated series My Life as a Teenage Robot and Mina and the Count for Nickelodeon, as well as directing Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack for Cartoon Network. He served as the animation director for Sym-Bionic Titan, supervising producer for Disney Channel's animated series Gravity Falls, and an executive producer for Big City Greens. In addition, he was a story editor and co-executive producer on Kid Cosmic (2021–2023) for Netflix and released his first original novel, The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things (2023), through Penguin Group.
Early life Renzetti, born in Chicago and raised in Addison, Illinois, was an art history major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiOZt9sOFO8 Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 1 of 7 Retrieved April 21, 2010 After graduating from Illinois, Renzetti attended the animation program at Columbia College Chicago for one year, where he was a classmate of Genndy Tartakovsky. Renzetti and Tartakovsky were then both accepted into the California Institute of the Arts, where they were roommates.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9vqu0zpwI Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 2 of 7 Retrieved April 21, 2010
Career After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, Renzetti began his animating career in Spain, working on 5 episodes for Batman: The Animated Series.
Renzetti has been writer, director, and storyboard artist for several Cartoon Network shows, including 2 Stupid Dogs, Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. He won an Emmy Award in 2009 for his work on the latter. During the mid-1990s, he created Mina and the Count, a series of animated shorts that premiered on the What a Cartoon! show then later aired for a short time on the similar anthology series Oh Yeah! Cartoons. In 1999, he made the short "My Neighbor Was a Teenage Robot", which also debuted on Oh Yeah! Cartoons; in 2003, My Life as a Teenage Robot, based on the short, debuted on Nickelodeon. In April 2008, he started work on Cartoon Network's The Cartoonstitute project, where he served as supervising producer.
He was story editor on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for the series' first two seasons, but left in 2011, soon after the departure of the series showrunner, Lauren Faust, to work as the supervising producer and a story editor on Disney's Gravity Falls. He subsequently worked on Disney's Big City Greens as one of its executive producers for the first season. In 2021, he served as executive producer and co-writer on Craig McCracken's Kid Cosmic for Netflix.
Renzetti has co-written four books based on various Disney properties, including Dipper's and Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun!, the New York Times Bestseller Gravity Falls: Journal 3, DuckTales: Solving Mysteries and Rewriting History, and Onward: Quests of Yore. His first original novel, The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things, was released in July 2023. A new installment in The Horrible Series, The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment, was released in July 2024, with the third novel potentially already being in the works.
Filmography Film Year Title Role 1991 Dudley's Classroom Adventure animator2024Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecationtiming director
Television Year Title Role Notes 1993–1995 2 Stupid Dogs writerstoryboard artistdirector 1995 Dumb and Dumber storyboard artist 1995–1997 Dexter's Laboratory directorstoryboard artistanimation director 1995 Mina and the Count creatorwriterproducerdirector 1998 Oh Yeah! Cartoons producer Episode: "The F-Tales" The Powerpuff Girls writerstoryboard artistdirector1.7: Mr. Mojo's Rising
4.7: Nano of the NorthEpisode 4.8: Stray Bullet 2000 Family Guy director Episode 2.18: "E. Peterbus Unum"Episode 3.6: "Death Lives" 2001 Time Squad storyboard artist Episode 1.5a: "Dishonest Abe"Episode 1.12b: "Where the Buffalo Bill Roams" 2001–2002 House of Mouse storyboard artisttiming director 2001–2002, 2017 Samurai Jack sheet timerdirector 2002 Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? supervising producerdirector 2003–2009 My Life as a Teenage Robot creatordeveloperwriterexecutive producerdirectorstoryboard artist 2006–2009 Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends post supervising directorstorywriterstoryboard artistdirector 2009 Random! Cartoons sheet timerdirector Episode: "6 Monsters" 2010–2011 Adventure Time sheet timer 2010–2011 Sym-Bionic Titansheet timeranimation director 2010–2011 My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic story editor Seasons 1 and 2 2012–2016 Gravity Falls supervising producerdirectorstory editor (season 1) Episode 2.1: "Scary-Oke" 2018–2019Big City Greensexecutive producer2021–2022Kid Cosmicwriterdirectorco-executive producer
Internet Year Title Role Notes2015 Cartoons VS CancerHimselfPodcast2016 Nickelodeon Animation Podcast2022 Mystery Shack Lookback
Bibliography Year Title Publisher ISBN Notes 2014 Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun!Disney Press Co-written with Shane Houghton 2016 Gravity Falls: Journal 3 Co-written with Alex Hirsch 2018 DuckTales: Solving Mysteries and Rewriting History Co-written with Rachel Vine 2020 Onward: Quests of Yore 2023 The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things Penguin Workshop 2024 The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment
References
External links
The Teenage Roblog