William Hanna

“We became very good in developing comical sight gags when we made 'The Flintstones.'”

“Today's youngster has a more highly developed mind, and if you start to play down to them, you lose them.”

“You know that Yogi and Huckleberry didn't just belong to the kids. Grownups know all about our animal friends.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Disney did well with human characters but only in dramas, not comedy.”

“'The Flintstones' was the first animated series to appear on nighttime TV.”

“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.”

“I enjoyed doing the 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons, and if we had never done anything else, I would have been perfectly satisfied.”

“In my opinion, animation will continue to thrive as long as there are children, parents, television, movies and the need to laugh.”

“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.”

“You can compare Fred and Barney Rubble with Gleason and Carney.”

“Italian work is excellent but it takes them six months to do what we do in a week.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“'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.”

“We never realized how much money there was to be found in character products.”