Gordon Bressack, Emmy-Winning 'Pinky and the Brain' Writer, Dies at 68

His credits include other animated shows like 'Tiny Toon Adventures,' 'The Smurfs' and 'Darkwing Duck.'

Gordon Bressack, the Emmy-winning writer known for such animated hits as Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs, has died. He was 68.

Bressack died Friday in Los Angeles after a long health battle, his son, filmmaker James Cullen Bressack, told The Hollywood Reporter.

"Thank you for telling me I was going to be a filmmaker before I ever even knew what that meant," the younger Bressack wrote on Instagram. "You meant the world to me, you always have and you always will."

Bressack worked on some of the most influential cartoons of the 1990s. He was nominated for five Daytime Emmys and won three that he shared with his colleagues — outstanding achievement in animation for Animaniacs in 1996; outstanding special class animated program for Pinky and the Brain in 1999; and outstanding children's animated program for Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain in 2000.

In 1998, he became the first recipient of the Writers Guild's Animation Writers Caucus Animation Award.

His credits also include Tiny Toon Adventures, The Smurfs, Mighty Max, Darkwing Duck, Bionic Six and his own creation, Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys.

Bressack was a New York native who came up in the theater. In his later years, he exercised his love of the stage by writing and directing plays in Los Angeles.

In addition to his son — with whom he shared his most recent animation credit, on their 2017 feature-length film CarGo — Bressack is survived by his daughters, Jackie and Samantha; his grandchild, Logan; and siblings Margi, Celia and Roger.