Charlie Downs in the 1970s
Charlie Downs (1927-2008), also credited as Chuck Downs and Charles E. Downs, was an animation director on several seasons of Muppet Babies and on the animated version of Fraggle Rock.
Downs began his animation career at Disney in the 1950s, as an inbetweener or assistant animator on Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. He moved up to animator on shorts and TV programs, such as the Ward Kimball directed Tomorrowland space episodes, and animated one short scene in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Thunderbolt fighting Dirty Dawson on TV). Downs went on to work on TV's Mister Magoo, Beany and Cecil, and for Jay Ward on commercials.
Returning to Disney, Downs animated on more TV anthology installments (mainly wraparounds of Ludwig Von Drake or the ranger) and educational shorts including Scrooge McDuck and Money. He worked for DePatie-Freleng on The Pink Panther and the Inspector shorts and on various Hanna-Barbera shows (including iterations of Scooby-Doo and Superfriends and the later Jetsons) and their feature film Heidi's Song. On other animated features, he was the principal animator on the Captain in Raggedy Ann & Andy and worked on Coonskin, Heavy Metal, and The Black Cauldron. By 1986, Downs had settled at Marvel Productions, as an animation director on My Little Pony, G.I. Joe, Jem, Transformers, and the Pryde of the X-Men pilot special. One of his last credits was as timing director on Tiny Toon Adventures.