A Cast Of Friends [Paperback]

Bill Hanna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2000

For more than sixty years, Bill Hanna has made entertaining children and the young at heart his ”business.” In A Cast of Friends, he offers an engaging look at his decades in animation and at the people who helped make it all possible. Hanna shares his memories of the tough and wild years at the beginning of animation, working with such legendary colleagues as Tex Avery and Friz Freleng. He describes as only he can the hard work and determination it took to make Hanna-Barbera Productions a success, with unforgettable behind-the-scenes stories of Daws Butler, Alan Reed, Mel Blanc, Casey Kasem, and other voiceover magicians. Throughout it all, he was determined to be a family man with his wife and their two children, to live a life different from Hollywood standards—and this adds a singularly personal aspect to Hanna’s very special insider’s look at the history of animation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hanna was born in New Mexico in 1910 and as a child moved to Southern California. During the Depression, when he was forced to drop out of college and look for work, the only thing that came his way was a job as a janitor for a studio that made Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. Moving through the ranks quickly, he learned the skills of writing, animating and timing and went on to create his own projects. When the studio folded, he moved to MGM as a director. There he met Barbera and they conceived the famous cat-and-mouse cartoon team of Tom and Jerry. Writing with freelancer Ito, Hanna tells wonderful stories about the industry, about how he hooked up with Gene Kelly to create the acclaimed animated dancing sequence in Anchors Aweigh and then about winning his first Academy Award in 1943 for Yankee Doodle Mouse. In 1957, MGM closed its animated studio, and Hanna and Barbera formed their own business and were soon producing such classical cartoon shows for TV as Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound and The Flintstones, the last of which Hanna says was inspired by The Honeymooners TV series. He goes on to reminisce about his family, how the industry has changed and his long association with the Boy Scouts. Those who grew up with Yogi Bear and Fred Flintstone will love this book.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Cartoon director Joe Barbera published his autobiography, My Life in 'toons, in 1994. Now his longtime partner weighs in. The two enjoyed huge wide-screen success with their Tom and Jerry cartoons. When TV displaced movies in popularity, they switched to the new medium and developed such hit characters as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and the Flintstones. Hanna's anecdotes about the animation pioneers he worked with in the 1930s and 1940s are entertaining, but it seems that for him the motivation behind producing cartoons was wholly economic. Well, he and Barbera are famous for developing the cost-cutting but creatively restrictive "limited animation" technique. Still, both cartoonists come off as rather dull guys. Hanna devotes far too many pages to banal philosophizing about life rather than art and to tedious family tales. Few libraries will need both men's memoirs. Since Hanna's are slightly livelier and also more technical, his volume edges out Barbera's more acerbic one. Gordon Flagg --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306809176
• ISBN-13: 978-0306809170
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,048,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a cast of freinds, February 10, 2011

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Dougmoser "Mr. Jurassic" (Brainerd, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Cast Of Friends (Paperback)

I love this book. It goes well with my other book written by Joe Barbera, "My Life in Toons". I enjoyed reading about both their early yeas in the animation biz.