William Hanna (Producer)

About William Hanna

Breaking into animation with Harman-Ising studios, William Hanna worked his way up from cel-washer to director before moving to MGM to team with Joseph Barbera under the supervision of unit director Fred Quimby. Hanna's precise understanding of comic timing and his organizational ability were perfect compliments for Barbera's delightful drawing and strong storytelling sense, and the two created, wrote and directed hundreds of "Tom and Jerry" cartoons during a two decade stint at the studio. Beautifully animated, compellingly paced and hilariously violent, their shorts routinely beat out product from both the Walt Disney and Warner Bros. studios at the Academy Awards, racking up an impressive seven statuettes from 1943 to 1952. In addition to the highly regarded shorts, Hanna and Barbera mixed live-action and animation in features like "Anchors Aweigh" (1945), pairing Jerry the Mouse and Gene Kelly in dance, "Dangerous When Wet" (1953), matching Esther Williams with dancing partners Tom and Jerry, and "Invitation to the Dance" (1956), creating an elaborate cartoon environment for Kelley's dance in its lengthy "Sinbad the Sailor" segment.

After MGM shut down its animation department, the team formed Hanna-Barbera Productions and went about defining animation for TV, simultaneously inventing a new product and a new market. Their first assignment for NBC resulted in "The Ruff and Reddy Show" (1957-64), featuring a quick-thinking cat (Ruff) and his dimwitted dog-pal (Reddy) in six-minute episodes that served as book-ends for vintage cartoons. In 1958, they launched the syndicated "The Huckleberry Hound Show", TV's first all-animation show and eventual Emmy-winner, which introduced picnic basket thief Yogi Bear, a character who would go on to greater success as the star of his own syndicated series, "The Yogi Bear Show". The Western spoofing "Quick Draw McGraw" (syndicated) debuted in 1959, introducing Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and cat-and-mouse detectives Snooper and Blabber. Considering Tom and Jerry never spoke, Hanna and Barbera did a marvelous job of creating distinctive individuals with unmistakable voices, catch phrases and mannerisms, although they definitely wore out their format of tall character-short sidekick (Yogi and Boo Boo, Quick Draw and Baba Looey), accompanied by "the same canned music, the same gags, the same sound effects and gimmicks . . ."

Hanna-Barbera broke new ground with "The Flintstones," (ABC, 1960-66), conquering primetime with the first animated sitcom to expand the usual six-or seven-minute format to a full half hour. They also introduced "Top Cat" (ABC, 1961-62), "The Jetsons" (ABC, 1962-63) and "The Adventures of Jonny Quest" (ABC, 1964-65) to evening audiences, and though these subsequent shows did not find the popularity of "The Flintstones", the characters all later prospered on weekend mornings. Hanna and Barbera made their feature producing and directing debut with "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear" (1964) and followed quickly that same year with "The Man Called Flintstone". After producing some classic films like "Charlotte's Web" (1973) and "Heidi's Song" (1982), they returned to direct (as well as produce) "Jetsons: The Movie" (1994). Their longest-running series, "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?", stayed in continuous production on Saturday mornings for 17 years, and they also segued successfully to live-action feature and TV fare, winning two of their eight Emmy Awards for "The Runaways" (ABC, 1974) and "The Gathering" (ABC, 1977).

After rocketing NBC to an enormous ratings lead over the other networks, "The Smurphs" expanded to 90 minutes, a block of time never set aside before, or since, for any single animated series. It also spawned a merchandising bonanza, adding to the many product endorsements linked to Hanna-Barbera characters. Licensed manufacturers turn out thousands of products, including Miles Laboratories' Flintstones Chewable Vitamins and General Foods' Pebbles Cereal, to name only two. Though many animation enthusiasts paint Hanna and Barbera as villains who cheapened the form, no one can deny the artistry of their early work, the product of the leisurely pace and big budgets of the studio era. However, the sheer quantity of their output over four decades of TV programming has insured a decline in quality. Don't blame the messengers, blame the medium. Hanna and Barbera have provided the best quality possible in meeting the ever-growing demand for low-budget product, often disappointing themselves in the process. Nonetheless, their work has remained prized by baby-boomers whose comic sensibilities took root watching the likes of Fred, Barney and the original purple dinosaur, Dino, and the existence of the Cartoon Network guarantees an audience for Hanna-Barbera creations for years to come.

Notes

"As it is now, we're turning out eight half-hour shows a week. One person works on more footage per day than all of us combined used to. Back in the Tom and Jerry days, I personally did a minute and a half of film a week; now I do as much as thirty-five minutes a week. So you can see the quantity produced is much greater today. The economics has a lot to do with it, of course. The economics of TV dictates the quality. I think we do a fair job on character design and we do a good job on voice casting and in backgrounds, but we fall short in actual animation. It is unfortunate that more money cannot be spent on animation. The cost per foot of Tom and Jerry-type animation would be prohibitive, even for theatrical shorts. I think that to achieve the same standards today, a six-minute Tom and Jerry would cost in the area of $100,000. They only cost $30,000 to make in the forties." --Wiliam Hanna, in "Cartoons Today"

"In the early days, I had bar sheets. Did you ever see those? I had [music] bar sheets and I would set established tempos--2/10 frame beats to the bar, 2/12, 2/14. Whatever the click was ... The reason ours [characters] worked so well with the music is because we had bar sheets there and would establish a tempo that would suit a chase, or a spooky scene, or whatever it was and you'd establish that tempo and record it to that ... For me it was a godsend. The music that I had studied." --Hanna quoted in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 1994 ANIMATION SPECIAL ISSUE

About his relationship with Joseph Barbera: "One thing that has probably kept us together is that, while we work very closely here at the studio, his outside interests are entirely different from mine, and we never see each other socially. We have had strictly a business relationship all along.

"When Joe and I did the Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM, Joe did all the drawing, and I did all the timing and directing. We'd sit across a big desk and together we'd develop all the material ... My talent, I believe, has been in organization. I'm still directing pictures, but I'm also directing the work of other people. And I also spend a lot of time with the writers. My own efforts have always been in writing: I have written the main titles and lyrics for over one hundred series." --William Hanna, in "Cartoons Today"