Vincent Cafarelli started at Famous Studios where he worked on Popeye, Little Audrey and Baby Huey. He worked in most of the commercial studios in New York in the 1950’s and 60’s—working with Bob and Ray, Pablo Ferro and then Len Glasser at Stars and Stripes Forever, and making prize-winning ads. Vincent and Candy Kugel met at Perpetual Motion Pictures. There he was responsible for many ad campaigns and co-directed Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City and animated on all 5 Berenstain Bears holiday specials. Vinny and Candy co-directed Deck the Halls With Wacky Walls.
In 1985 Vinny and Candy formed Buzzco Associates with Marilyn Kraemer. At Buzzco they made commercials, educational films (“Talking About Sex”, a ½ hour video made for Planned Parenthood, which won best educational film at Annecy in 1997), TV ID’s (like MTV) and programming. But their proudest work were the dozen of independent shorts they made—from “A Warm Reception in L.A.” and “Fast Food Matador” to “Archie Foley”, “KnitWits”, “Nothing At All”, “Command Z” and finally “It’s Still Me!” They were happy to present most of them at Annecy.
Then Vincent came into work as usual on December 1, 2011. They had finished sending out holiday cards and completed a TV commercial. That evening Candy walked him to the subway since he wasn’t feeling well. He went home, went to bed and never woke up. He was 81 years old and loved making things move and sharing that joy with others. He was known as “Vince the Prince” and people loved him.
