A legendary animator whose cartoons entertained generations of audiences has passed away:
Joseph Barbera, an innovator of animation who teamed with William Hanna to give generations of young television viewers a pantheon of beloved characters, including Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and the Flintstones, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95.
A spokesman for Warner Brothers said he died of natural causes, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Barbera and the studio he founded with Mr. Hanna, Hanna-Barbera Productions, became synonymous with television animation, yielding more than 100 cartoon series over four decades, including “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?,” “Jonny Quest” and “The Smurfs.”
On signature televisions shows like “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons,” the two men developed a cartoon style that combined colorful, simply drawn characters (often based on other recognizable pop-culture personalities) with the narrative structures and joke-telling techniques of traditional live-action sitcoms. They were television’s first animated comedy programs.
Before that, Mr. Barbera and Mr. Hanna had worked together on more than 120 hand-drawn cartoon shorts for MGM, dozens of which starred the archetypal cat-and-mouse team Tom and Jerry. The Hanna-Barbera collaboration lasted more than 60 years. The critic Leonard Maltin, in his book “Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons,” wrote that Mr. Barbera’s strength was more in his drawing and gag writing while Mr. Hanna had a good sense of comic timing and giving characters warmth.
“I was never a good artist,” said Mr. Hanna, who died in 2001. But Mr. Barbera, he said, “has the ability to capture mood and expression in a quick sketch better than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Joe Barbera will be missed. Fortunately, Hanna-Barbera cartoons will continue to entertain everyone today and into the future.
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