This frequently cartoon-centric blog notes that July 14 (tomorrow) is the natal anniversary of animation great William Hanna, the ridiculously prolific producer, director, animator, partner of Joe Barbera in Hanna-Barbera Productions and co-creator of the Tom & Jerry series.
Here's an interview with Bill Hanna from 1979.
His seven decade animation career splits into two lengthy portions: first, the 25+ year stretch making theatricals, mostly for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer release, through the 1930's, 1940's and first half of the 1950's, then an even longer stretch (through the end of the 20th century) co-heading Hanna-Barbera Productions, the studio that would be a phenomenally successful producer of cartoons for television.
He was involved in sensational, Oscar-winning theatrical cartoons, and at least up to the early 1970's, excellent TV series.
The animation studio and production company was founded on July 7, 1957 by Tom and Jerry creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with financial backing by film director George Sidney. It was headquartered on Cahuenga Boulevard from 1960 to 1998, then subsequently at the Sherman Oaks Galleria in Sherman Oaks.
Bill and Joe elaborate in this 1990 interview.
Mr. Hanna began his animation career with the Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising studio in 1930. Even knowledgeable animation buffs forget, due to the 1960's popularity of such TV series as Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Top Cat, that the work of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in movies dated back to the early days of talkies.
Bill Hanna directed To Spring, one of my all-time favorite cartoons and arguably the most memorable of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Happy Harmonies series, produced by the aforementioned Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising.
The Tom & Jerrys, aided and abetted by such super talented animators as Irven Spence, Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson, Pete Burness, Mike Lah and Ed Barge, would rank among the very best and brassiest cartoons from the 1940's and 1950's.
Along the way, the series won a slew of Academy Awards.
The creative and rhythmic synchronization with Scott Bradley's dynamic music, a key cornerstone of the Tom & Jerry cartoons, is already apparent by 1942-1943.
While the Oscar-winning Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943) demonstrates a bit of the animation style inspired by Disney and Rudy Ising (seen in such initial entries in the Tom & Jerry series as Puss Gets The Boot), the transition towards the faster, wackier WB-Tex Avery approach is well underway.
The Tom & Jerry cartoons successfully combined Disney/Harman-Ising style character animation with "Warner Brothers rowdyism."
Two of this blog's favorites, both influenced by the go-for-broke sensibility of Tex Avery (the guy who invented Warner Brothers rowdyism): Quiet Please! and Tee For Two.
An entire episode of the long-gone but always outstanding Cartoon Logic podcast by Bob Jacques and Thad Komorowski was devoted to Tee For Two, arguably the most devastatingly funny of MGM's Tom & Jerry cartoons.
Of everything made for the silver screen for Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, including such feature-length animated films as Charlotte's Web (1973), the seamless blends of animation with live-action in two outstanding MGM musicals starring Gene Kelly (Anchors Aweigh, Invitation To The Dance) are tops.
Love the Sinbad sequence from the latter film.
For the most part, as an old geezer these days, I enjoy the Hanna-Barbera made for TV cartoons a lot more than my younger, louder and more opinionated self, who looked down on all TV-toons (sans The Flintstones and The Jetsons) not made by Jay Ward Productions, did.
Now watch the 1950's and 1960's H-B series and appreciate everything from the pleasing design and color palette to the soundtracks (Hoyt Curtin!) to frequently inspired voice acting of Daws Butler, Don Messick, Alan Reed, George O' Hanlon, Jean Vander Pyl, Bea Benaderet, Janet Waldo, Arnold Stang, Mel Blanc, Allan Melvin, Howard Morris and many more.
Thanks in large part to those aforementioned voice artists and numerous ace animators, lots of new H-B characters hit TV screens in the 1960's: Sinbad Jr., Touché Turtle and Yippee, Yappee & Yahooey, Winsome Witch, Lippy The Lion & Hardy Har Har, Magilla Gorilla and Peter Potamus among them.
IMHO, one's view of Hanna Barbera Productions has something to do with when one grew up. Those in my age group, the mid and late 1950's babies, were little kids watching Saturday morning toons when Ruff & Reddy, Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear hit the airwaves, and older kids when its excellent action-adventure show Jonny Quest began its year in prime time in 1964.
Those cartoon loving kids who were 1950's babies) lost interest in Saturday morning TV, even the likes of Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel, as the 1960's wore on and Jay Ward Productions' Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (including Wossamatta U) continued running in syndication.
By the time Scooby Doo became an enormous hit and a signature series Hanna-Barbera Productions would be remembered for, as much as The Flintstones and The Jetsons, the 1950's kids were watching the likes of Creature Features - and asking why such series as Wacky Races and Scooby Doo weren't funny like Jay Ward's George Of The Jungle. By the time the 1950's kids were watching Saturday Night Live and SCTV in the last half of the 1970's, all bets were off!
Are Scooby Doo, Shaggy, Scrappy Doo, Josie & The Pussycats, The Grape Ape, Jabberjaw, Laff-A-Lympics, etc. the faves of kids who watched these shows on Saturday morning and are now entering their fifties? Maybe. I don't know the answer to that, but still regard the 1957-1965 Hanna-Barbera TV series quite fondly all these decades later.
A topic for an additional post would be the last gasp of Hanna-Barbera in the 1990s and the resulting series produced for Cartoon Network, some of which (Johnny Bravo) are among my favorites among all of the studio's TV shows. Must single out directors Van Partible and Patrick A. Ventura in particular for superb work for Hanna-Barbera as the 20th century came to an end.
The What A Cartoon series - all 33 episodes are on a YouTube playlist - included Hard Luck Duck, one of the last films with William Hanna's name in the credits. While I don't know what Van and Pat are doing these days in 2024, I emphatically insist they deserve credit for the excellent and very funny cartoons they produced for Cartoon Network, bringing the Hanna-Barbera Studio's 40+ year run producing animation for TV to a rousing finish.
Don't know to what degree Mr. Hanna was involved in this production and other very good films H-B was making for Cartoon Network at the time, but the fact that Bill started making cartoons in 1930 and was last credited on a film in 1999 remains very impressive.
For more info, read Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning by Jesse M. Kowalski, several terrific pieces on Cartoon Research, including My Conversation With Hanna And Barbera by Jerry Beck and It's A Happy Holiday With Hanna-Barbera by Greg Ohbar.
Also, check out the Hanna-Barbera Wiki, as well as the marvelous podcast Greg Ehbar’s Funtastic World Of Hanna-Barbera.
Thanks, Bill and all who worked on the excellent cartoons he contributed to, both at MGM and Hanna-Barbera Productions.
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