Joe Ranft
American screenwriter (1960–2005)
Joseph Henry "Joe" Ranft (March 13, 1960 – August 16, 2005) was an American animator, screenwriter, storyboard artist, and voice actor. He is best known for voicing Elmo St. Peters in The Brave Little Toaster (1987), Heimlich in A Bug's Life (1998), Wheezy in Toy Story 2 (1999) and the spin-off film Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000), and Jacques in Finding Nemo (2003), as well as providing vocalizations for Red in Cars (2006). He worked for Pixar Animation Studios and Disney at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney Television Animation. His younger brother Jerome Ranft is a sculptor who also worked on several Pixar films.
Ranft's first film credit was a writer for Fun with Mr. Future (1982), followed by his first feature film The Brave Little Toaster in 1987. He received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nomination as one of the writers of Toy Story (1995), and was also the co-director on Cars (2006), his final work before his death.
Early life
Joseph Henry Ranft was born in Pasadena, California, on March 13, 1960, and raised in Whittier. His parents were James and Melissa Ranft.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q453094. VIAF identifies the subject as 5140089. The Library of Congress control number is no2004041012. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 2005, 1987 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joe Ranft” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.