Customer Reviews

My Life in 'Toons : From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An inspiring book for any student of animation, as the author details his life building a huge cartoon empire. Hanna/Barbera went from producing 40 mins a year to 2 and a half hours per week in the matter of afew years..an amazing achievement in any mans language. The book does falter however and reminds me of teh cover picture of Joe barbera ( resplendant in what looks like dyed hair,. a face lift and capped teeth. ) I think a more "warts and all " approach would have been far more interesting..

I recently read this book and loved it! It brought back many happy childhood memories of hours spent watching Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

This is an honest, straight-forward book by a very talented man. If you've ever seen and loved (who hasn't) a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and wondered what it took to get them on TV, (it took several tries to make Fred Flintstone a star) then you owe it to yourself to read this book...Enjoy!

Anyone who could possibly find this book "boring" has never worked in the visual arts, where one can encounter real-life characters wilder than any cartoons Hanna or Barbera could dream up. Barbera captures perfectly the utter frustration of being a creative person (artist, playwright and lightning-quick idea man) and working for and pitching concepts to uncreative incompetents like Fred Quimby (his boss at MGM during the Tom and Jerry years), who knew nothing about creating animated cartoons, spent most of his workday eating or sleeping, but always showed up to collect the Oscars© that Hanna and Barbera rightfully should have received. His reminiscences about Gene Kelly and TV boss Fred Silverman should elicit a knowing smile from anyone who has worked for an S.O.B. who can turn the charm on and off faster than a light switch. I would recommend this book highly to those who want to go into animation, advertising or commercial art. These professions are no place for the shy, the gentle or the antisocial, and Barbera makes it abundantly clear. If only his partner Bill Hanna's autobiography, "A Cast of Friends", had been written with such a clear voice. 10 Stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Joe Barbera's autobiography. It is interesting to delve into the mind of the animator, and more appropriately into one who has made great strives in the animation movement and who has played a part in almost all of our childhoods. Taking a view "behind the scenes" and recognizing the hard work and creativity that went behind the ultimate product-- cartoons that we sat plastered to each and every Saturday morning-- to me, a fellow artist from Brooklyn, was truly enjoyable. My thanks to Hanna-Barbera for some enjoyable years...

This book talks about Joe Barbera's amazing life. Also, the book talks about my favorite cartoon character, Scooby-Doo, and many other famous cartoon characters he and his partner, William Hanna, made.

When my friends saw me reading this book, they asked me: "Well? Does he apologize?" They meant does Barbera apologize for squandering his considerable talent on second-rate TV shows and for reducing the intellectual content of animation so that it has become perceived as a strictly children's medium. He doesn't. This is a success-story autobiography, where the dramatic convention of winning bigger and bigger accolades, with all setbacks being temporary hitches in the grand sweep of progress, is strictly adhered to. From rags to riches! From Flatbush to Bedrock!

Hanna and Barbera's MGM work is, sadly, vastly critically underappreciated, and it was certianly interesting to get fleeting glimpse into the making of these cartoons (haven't you always wondered how the H&B team divided up the work?). By far the strongest parts of this book are the all-too-brief looks into the workings of the animation studios; Barbera's account of the last days of the doomed NY-based Van-what'sitsname studio especially has a certain romantic grandeur to it (that sounds hyperbolic, but no, I really liked that part).

You wonder if Fred Quimby had more to do with Tom and Jerry's success than he is credited with in this book, because the quality of their cartoons went down severely after his departure, and H&B's cartoons never again reached that pinnacle. Certainly Barbera presents himself (unashamedly) as driven more by business acumen than by any esthetic sensibility (of the sort that motivated, say, Tex Avery).

You also have to wonder about the accuracy of some of these anecdotes. I mean, has anybody ever laughed at a Huckleberry Hound cartoon (let alone with the huge belly laughs H&B catoons seem to always be eliciting in this book)?

But these are cheap shots. Barbera is a fine anecdotist, and his caricatures of his various bosses are funnier than...well, than Huckleberry Hound. The author comes across as a decent guy, and his book is interesting for what it is, but his wide experience in ear! ly animation and personal stock in some all-time great cartoons should have yielded a richer and much more hitorically valuable book. In skimping on the studio sections and refusing to discuss the cartoons themselves Barbera has just squandered his talent again.

This book is never boring. It always held my attention. But Barbera should admit to some of the astehetic weaknesses in his work. (Like the fact that every Sooby Doo episode is exactly the same.)

According to this book, a test screening was run with a "Jetsons" episode, and test audiences supposedly roared with laughter throughout. That's a questionable claim. "The Jetsons" is not garbage, but anyone who has seen it would find it very hard to believe that anyone could actually laugh out loud throughout an episode! (I'd say the better Jetsons episodes have about two or three chuckles, tops.)

It is interesting to learn that H-B hired one of the writers of "The Honeymooners" to write "The Flintstones". And they were dumb enough to let him go! I think "The Flintstones" could have greatly benefitted from the wit of "The Honeymooners", which was so often missing.

I am also peeved that Barbera tries to take credit for "inventing" made-for-TV animation. Hanna-Barbera's first made-for-TV cartoon series was 1958's "Ruff and Reddy", which came nine years _after_ Jay Ward's "Crusader Rabbit"! What's more, "Ruff And Reddy" copied Crusader Rabbit's format and style so closely, Barbera can't claim he's never seen it! Why can't Barbera give proper credit where it's due?

And since Barbera clearly lied about having invented TV animation, I wondered if there was anything else in his book he may have also lied about.

The thing that irritates me the most, however, is Barbera's smug, self-righeous comparison of H-B cartoons to Beavis and Butt-head. The following passage is from page 215:

"I am proud of _The_ _Greatest_ _Adventure,_ just as Bill Hanna and I are proud of every cartoon we've done. I think that's a remarkable statement to make -honestly- at this point in a half-century career. This is not to say that everything we've done has been a terrific financial success or great entertainment -but it has _all_ been entertainment, and it has all been crafted with high regard for our young audience. We have never been tempted to go the way of some of the recent violent, emotionally exploitive, and generally irresponsible cartoon series, one of which may have even prompted children to acts of arson."

It's very disappointing to to find this kind of reactionary nonsense coming from Joe Barbera. For one thing, unlike Jerry the mouse, Beavis and Butt-head have never committed any acts of arson. The closest they come to it is Beavis gleefully chanting "Fire! Fire!" when he watches a music video with fire in it.

And remember that this is coming from the co-creator of TOM AND JERRY, which, entertaining as it is, is also one of the most violent cartoons of all time.

Both Tom the cat and Beavis and Butt-head have put dogs in washing machines. As for acts of arson, there was a scene in a Tom and Jerry cartoon called "The Flying Cat" in which Jerry sets Tom on fire.

Like Tom and Jerry, Beavis and Butt-Head is intended solely as entertainment. Both series succeed more often than not. Joe, please get off your high horse and learn to laugh at Beavis and Butt-head like the rest of us.

About the persisting "arson" claims against Beavis and Butt-head: A highly publicized news event, in which a five-year-old girl supposedly set her family's trailer on fire because of B&B, was later revealed to be pure B.S. The girl's family did not have cable TV, and the girl who set the fire had _never_ _seen_ Beavis and Butt-head! Nevertheless, MTV conformed to pressure and censored the word fire from all subsequent B&B episodes.

Aside from the self-congradulatory tone and outright dishonesty in at least one part, "My Life In 'Toons" is captivating reading for anyone who is interested in animation. Hanna and Barbera had to struggle very hard to build their huge empire up from nothing, and must still constantly struggle to sustain it. That aspect makes this book a good source of inspiration for anyone wishing to start a business of any kind.