Bill Hanna: Yogi’s Father
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 22nd April 1985:
Bill Hanna: Yogi’s father
By ADRIAN SWIFT
BILL HANNA is the only 74-year-old in the world who can wear a Yogi Bear necktie and get away with it.
Hanna, a kind-faced, silver-haired grandfather, is the former half of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon empire, the company behind such all-time animation greats Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Scooby Doo and The Smurfs.
Hanna has turned Yogi “smarter than the average” Bear and his variously furry, cuddly and Stone Age friends into a $50 million-a-year business.
He wears his Yogi tie with pride.
He is in Australia to promote a new range of his cartoons released on video cassette.
“Things are probably better for us now than they ever have been,” he said.
“We made the transition from films to television in the 50s when its importance first became apparent and it’s been good for the company.”
Unlike most of the big animation studios at the time, Hanna-Barbera made a concerted effort to get cartoons on television by developing a special process which made their production cheaper.
They were some of the first cartoons to be screened on television and Hanna-Barbera has grown to become the biggest animation company in the world today.
“Even the current trend to do away with shorts altogether before the feature doesn’t really worry us because it forces us to produced a greater range of cartoons for television.”
This year, the 200 writers and thousands of animators will be working on new episodes of old faves like The Superfriends, Smurfs, Snorkels [sic], Scooby Doo and Yogi Bear and some new cartoons.
“We are doing a series called Go-bots, based on Japanese toys that are robots that become cars, as well as Galtar, a super hero.
“There will also be the Paw Paws, which are bears dressed as Indians.”
Hanna-Barbera has produced about 170 cartoon series since beginning operations in 1957, but although it misex older cartoons with new ones, new ideas are not always a success.
“For every real hit like the Flintstones, there are 20 bombs.
“We run a cartoon for a season, and if it doesn’t work, we axe it… things like a cartoon we did on the Three Stooges that we had to can after a season.”
Although Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera came up with the ideas for the early cartoons, ideas for subsequent series have come from various sources.
Some are bought, a few come from employees within the studio, and there is a team of people who do nothing but look for good cartoon properties.
The idea for The Flintstones came when Hanna-Barbera decided they wanted to make a cartoon strip based on a situation comedy.
“We decided to base The Flintstones on The Honeymooners that starred Jackie Gleason. We basically developed some characters then we dressed them as Romans, pilgrims and Indians before finally putting skins on them and setting them in a Neanderthal scene.
“I don’t know how long a good idea like the Flintstones can go on. I’d say almost indefinitely.”
Hanna points out that, almost every year, cartoons have a new market as a new round of kids row up to enjoy them.
“Adults have a memory. These kids don’t. They can see even the oldest cartoons as a first run, so really, most have an unlimited lifespan.”
But there are fashions in cartoons.
“A couple of years ago it was superheroes, then comedy, then the 10-minute format, now the half-hour format.
“At the moment, as well as the inevitable science fiction, superheroes are making a comeback.”
“But, basically, cartoons haven’t changed since 1910. Sure, they’re in colour now and the production techniques have become better, but the cartoons themselves are the same.”
Much thanks to Alison Bean for passing this article on to us.
