‘Ghee Happy’: Pixar’s Veteran Animator Sanjay Patel Lunches Animated Preschool Series
- The 3D CG series reimagines Hindu deities as little kids discovering their powers through their daily adventures in a divine daycare.
Growing up in San Bernardino, California, Sanjay Patel found himself surrounded by two sets of compelling iconography: the Hindu gods and scenes that populated his family home and the Warner Bros. and Disney cartoons that he watched obsessively on television. He began to draw his own cartoons as a young boy. But as he grew up and became an artist, he felt a disconnection between the two worlds.
That’s how his latest animated preschool series “Ghee Happy” was born. Launched on YouTube earlier this month in honor of Diwali, the 3D CG series reimagines Hindu deities as little kids discovering their powers through their daily adventures in a divine daycare called Ghee Happy. Each episode follows Kali, Saraswati, Krishna, and Ganesha as they encounter and learn about the rest of the Hindu pantheon, and celebrate traditions like kite fighting and rakhi, as well as learn the real meaning of Diwali, the festival of lights.
A supervising animator and storyboard artist at Pixar Animation Studios, Patel is best known for directing the Oscar-nominated short animated film “Sanjay’s Super Team” (2015). He has also worked on numerous Pixar films such as “Monsters, Inc.” (2001), “Ratatouille” (2007), “Cars” (2006), “Monsters University” (2013), “Toy Story 2” (1999) and “The Incredibles” (2004).
He was recruited by Pixar in 1995 when he was a student at CalArts’s animation program, founded by Walt Disney to train his animators. He told Spark magazine that he “was amazed by how Pixar’s films were able to tell compelling, emotionally engaging stories through the use of computer animation.” So, he “traded in his pencil for animation software and a mouse and began working at Pixar.”