Joseph cartoon movie kids
Puss Gets the Boot was a box office success and scored an Academy Award nomination for the studio. The Itchy and Scratchy Show is not too far ahead of them. Barbera unleashes his childish barbarism upon the page, and the result is an uncomfortably humorous but mostly cringy assault on mouse from cat, and vice versa. In 1940, Barbera and Hanna answered the call with their first short film, Puss Gets the Boot.įeaturing a savage cat and mouse rivalry that would eventually evolve into Tom and Jerry, Puss Gets the Boot feels of the era that produced the early adventures of Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny but contains an additional layer of diabolical venom. Mayer was hungry for new characters, and he sent orders to every animator to bolster MGM’s stable of cartoons. After Hanna directed his first short ( To Spring) in 1936, MGM severed ties with Harman and Ising but hired Hanna for their new cartoon studio.īarbera and Hanna were fast friends, but even faster workers. Harman and Ising eventually ditched Warner Bros. There, Hanna discovered a knack for drawing and quickly wiggled his way into the Harman and Ising Studio, which produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies through Warner Bros. While working at a car wash, his sister implored him to apply for a position at Pacific Title and Art. He was a college dropout who worked as an engineer in the construction crew that erected the Pantages Theater. Hanna was another guy who bounced around various jobs before finding his way to MGM. He would have if his desk at MGM were not directly across from William Hanna. They were suffering as much there under the Great Depression as they were in New York City, and the cartoonist seriously considered returning to Brooklyn upon arrival. Los Angeles was not the golden city Barbera imagined. The job gave him an extra boost of confidence, and when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer offered him a job in California, including a significant pay raise, Barbera jumped at the chance. Terrytoons refused to produce the short.īarbera was unphased. Barbera slid almost immediately into Terrytoon Studios, where he storyboarded a cartoon involving an aerial race between Kiko the Kangaroo and Dirty Dog. When RKO ceased distributing their animated shorts in favor of Walt Disney’s more popular efforts, Van Beuren shuttered their doors. From 1932 to 1936, Barbera animated cels and wrote scenarios for Van Beuren Studios. What he learned regarding ink and paint worked for him, and Barbera found a job at Max Fleischer Studios. He had talent, but he required a better understanding of the craft. Taking what he made from his job at the bank and the cartoons he sold, Barbera enrolled in the Art Students League of New York and the Pratt Institute.
Barbera wrote to Walt Disney, the man responsible for his newfound drive to create, and Disney wrote back, saying he’d call Barbera up on his next trip to New York. While working at a bank (a tricky proposition during the Great Depression), he started selling his single-panel cartoons to Redbook, Saturday Evening Post, and Collier‘ s. His mind contained numerous silly and twisted tales to equal or best what Disney produced.īarbera seriously began to pursue the life of a cartoonist, collecting rejection slips one after the other. There’s not much to the story - four human skeletons escape their graves and produce music from their jangling bones - but Barbera wanted in on the ghoulish joy. The Silly Symphony short sparked something electric in the back of his mind. In 1929, Barbera saw The Skeleton Dance, written and directed by Walt Disney. However, the passion soon became work, and Barbera dropped the dream of the ring. In high school, his passion was boxing, and for a moment, World Lightweight Boxing Champion Al Singer managed him. With two younger brothers and a mother to look after, Barbera did what he could, taking any odd job that would have him.īarbera had a skill with a pencil and drew doodles and characters from the first grade on up. His father made a mini fortune as the owner of three barbershops, but by the time Barbera was fifteen years old, the money evaporated, and so did his pop. Just ask Joseph Barbera.īorn on March 24, 1911, Barbera spent his youth keeping company with the streets of Brooklyn. In this entry, we spotlight Hanna-Barbera.Ī single cartoon can change the world.
Our lives may no longer be scheduled around small screen programming, but that doesn’t mean we should forget the necessary sanctuary of Saturday ‘toons. Welcome to Saturday Morning Cartoons, our new weekly column where we continue the animated boob tube ritual of yesteryear.