William Hanna
In my opinion, animation will continue to thrive as long as there are children, parents, television, movies and the need to laugh.
We all can't stay busy doing exactly what we want to do.
I used to watch 'The Honeymooners' and laughed so much I'd fog up the inside of the lenses of my glasses.
Today's youngster has a more highly developed mind, and if you start to play down to them, you lose them.
I started out with three creative jobs - painter, janitor and gag writer.
I enjoyed doing the 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons, and if we had never done anything else, I would have been perfectly satisfied.
On the 'Tom and Jerry's,' Joe and I would sit across a desk from each other and develop the story. Joe would do the storyboard and I'd do the timing and the direction of the animation.
I was never a good artist.
You can compare Fred and Barney Rubble with Gleason and Carney.
We used to make a 'Tom and Jerry' short every six weeks and they were about six minutes long, so we were producing about a minute of animation a week.
The early years of Hanna-Barbera were more fun than the later ones. I was working more in the creative areas of timing and direction then. But as the studio grew, I became more involved in administration and got away from the creative aspects.
I think we had made 160 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons.
In 'Tom and Jerry,' there was hardly any dialogue at all. It was all action. It required a great many drawings to make.
I think that - whether I should admit this or not - Joe and I, going back to 'Tom and Jerry,' have been very lucky in being able to do cartoons that have universal appeal.
'Tom and Jerry' seemed to be as well liked by adults as by children. 'The Flintstones,' of course, was geared more to adults, but I guess we were just lucky that the kids seemed to enjoy 'The Flintstones,' too.
The concept of the characters in animal skins and us satirizing modern technology made it fun. But the voices we cast and the characterization of Fred Flintstone had a lot to do with it.
I was attracted to Joe right away. He was and is one of the greatest cartoon artists I've ever met. I was able to do the timing, and Joe with his draftsmanship could make the storyboards. There were things I could do that he couldn't and vice versa.
We almost decided on a dog and a fox before we hit on the idea of using a cat and mouse.
I think 'The Simpsons' is in the right time slot because it's not a show for kids. It's too vulgar. And 'Ren and Stimpy' is worse. We would never do anything like that.
We became very good in developing comical sight gags when we made 'The Flintstones.'
Initially, it was sort of devastating to lose full animation and go limited.
'The Flintstones' was the first animated series to appear on nighttime TV.
The novelty business is astounding. We can't keep up with it.
You know that Yogi and Huckleberry didn't just belong to the kids. Grownups know all about our animal friends.
You know, it is a funny thing, but 'The Flintstones' was bought by ABC and the sponsors when they discovered adults were watching and enjoying 'Huck Hound' and 'Quick Draw McGraw.'
We wanted a world that looked like our world. In the original 'Flintstones,' low flat buildings filled the city and suburbs. Now, high-rise buildings and apartments exist next to the family neighborhoods. Part of the 'Flintstone' fun remains its parallel of our world.
We've never tried to educate children. We've never tried to preach to them, just entertain.
I think anything created today can be said to be a ripoff. It's hard to find anything original any more.
We are trying to build a family image of wholesome movie entertainment.
We never realized how much money there was to be found in character products.
When we were at MGM, we never did much about merchandise tie-ups There were too many executives and lawyers to go through.
Italian work is excellent but it takes them six months to do what we do in a week.
Greatest thing in our partnership is the sharing of responsibility; if one of us has to go away, we always know someone vitally concerned is on the spot.
Disney did well with human characters but only in dramas, not comedy.
We're delighted that Freddie Flintstone and his friends have made such a hit. The comedy is not the old cartoon slapstick. Most of it is situation stuff and dialogue.
We work in vertical and horizontal planes. We avoid depth characteristics as much as possible. This reduces the number of pictures in a five minute segment from 12,000 to 1,200. And the public likes the technique better.
Cartoons ran into trouble when they became too much like real life images. Cartoons had become poor imitations of the real thing.
I saw one of the old 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons the other day. I hadn't seen it for 30 years and I didn't remember it. We made 160 of them! I thought it was a very funny cartoon.
It takes four people to lay out the 'Flintstones.'
We moved amazingly fast because our product was acceptable to a broad market: tots, teenagers, adults. Even to some people who never before liked cartoons. When we started we knew Disney already had the kids. So we figured we should be broader.
Our stuff is made strictly for fun. We're not out to give a message.