Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Nice To Look At, But There Are MANY Factual Errors!!, December 30, 2007
I should preface this review by stating that I have been a fan of the Hanna-Barbera studios since I was old enough to sit in front of the television. I've worked in the animation industry for 15 years, and consider myself an expert on the studio and it's characters.
Like most other fans of the Hanna-Barbera library, I was excited to hear that animation historian Jerry Beck was writing a book about Hanna-Barbera's early years. After being disappointed in other H-B coffee-table-type books, I thought, "Finally! Someone who knows his stuff is going to get it right!" Well, guess what? He didn't. There are TONS of factual errors in this book. I'm starting a list and will forward it to anyone that cares, but to start:
1. Page 61, photo 15 is called out in the caption text as a Limited Edition recreation of a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon episode title card. This is wrong. It's the actual title card used in production, which was signed by Bill & Joe. The H-B Animation Art division never re-created this piece.
2. Since Snagglepuss was given his own segment on "The Yogi Bear Show," his fur color has always been pink (except when he first appeared on "The Quick Draw McGraw Show," in which case it was more of an orange color). Jerry Beck states (Caption text, Page 67) that the color is actually purple. Huh? Purple? Other than the covers of a few Coloring and/or Sticker Books released by Western Publishing, it's always been pink. The Hanna-Barbera studio paint code, since 1961 has always been: XRR-1, which is pink. Perhaps the proof reader was sick that day.
3. Page 75 calls out a background layout as being art for a collectible plate. Wrong. It's the original background layout for the Flintstones episode titled, "The Gruesomes." (The book's designer put it in a circular shape.)
4. Pages 76 & 77 are called out as "Model Sheets For the later episodes" of "The Flintstones." Wrong. Drawings on Page 77 are the construction drawings created by Iwao Takamoto in 1993/94 for a Licensing and Merchandising Style Guide, released to coincide with Universl Pictures' live action feature film starring John Goodman.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. The list of factual errors is long. The number of series produced between 1957 and 1969 (which is the year Jerry Beck decided to stop his book) is incomplete. The character line art used on many pages isn't vintage art from the archives (which do exist, as I have copies.) They are, in fact, current licensing and merchandising drawings created by Warner Bros. Consumer Products, and drawn off-model. Why, I have to wonder, with all the original vintage character art that exists in the archives, created by legends such as Iwao Takamoto, Jerry Eisenbery, Willie Ito, Dick Bickenbach, etc. etc., did they use this new crop of inconsistant character art? The world may never know.
Am I being picky? Perhaps. But the author should have proofread his own copy and checked it for factual inaccuracies. I have found quite a few more than mentioned above, just perusing the book in the store. Someone with Jerry Beck's reputation and credentials should have tried harder. This is the only chance a book like this will be released and the studio, it's co-founders and it's fans deserved much more respect.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Amazing and Truly Unique Book!, December 5, 2007
I was blown away when I first cracked this book open. It's overflowing with amazing visuals from everything Hanna Barbera. All of the added extras like mini comics, cards and cels are so cool. We can only hope that Jerry Beck has a similar Looney Tunes book in the works. BUY THIS!
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
They finally got it RIGHT! Hanna barbera's golden years!, November 28, 2007
After years of dreaming, and having those dreams crushed by earlier, horrible attempts at a proper Hanna-Barbera coffee-table art book, THIS wonderful, colorful, artiful (?) book has made my dreams come true.
This book may not sound that big at 157 pages, but what you can't tell from that number is that every oversized page is PACKED with photos of REAL production artwork (not those awful fakey-fake publicity "cels.") -- most of which was apparently photographed from original archival artwork! There are pictures of storyboards, layouts, animation drawings, model sheets, development sketches, character designs, etc...stuff that has never seen the light of day until now. I've been waiting for someone to put together this kind of book for ages.
There are also tons of beautiful photos of vintage H-B collectable and toys, like plastic dolls and View-Master reels. If you remember the groundbreaking art direction in Chip Kidd's Batman Animated art book from the nineties, you can imagine what this looks like.
The other feature that really expands the page-count is that there are tons of little envelopes and pockets and pamphlets bound into this book that contain beautiful facsimiles of trading cards, full-color 12-page mini-comic book reprints, Model sheets, storyboard sequences and vintage activity-book pages.
There are separate chapters for all of the early Hanna Barbera stars (in chronological order), including a chapter EACH devoted to:
* Tom and Jerry
* Ruff and Reddy
* Huckleberry Hound
* Pixie and Dixie
* Yogi Bear
* Quick-Draw McGraw
* Augie Doggie
* Snagglepuss
* The Flintstones
* Top Cat
* The Jetsons
* Magilla Gorilla
* Peter Potamus
* Sqiddly Diddly
* Touche Turtle
* Lippy The Lion
* Jonny Quest
* Space Ghost
* Atom Ant
* Secret Squirerel and Morocco Mole
* Frankenstein, Jr and the Impossibles
* Birdman
* Wacky Races
* Space Ghost
* Scooby Doo
...and THEY STOP RIGHT THERE! Oh, happy day!
There's no need to pretend that the entire history of Hanna Barbera is totally golden...most of their output after the late sixties was totally forgettable. But they wisely chose to focus on the best of the best!
If you felt horribly cheated by the awful Hanna Barbera Cartoons coffee-table book from 1999, this new book should make you forget all about that publishing nightmare. This new book a winner through and through! Caveat: I haven't READ the text yet, so I'm looking at this purely from a visual standpoint. I'm guessing that based on the love and devotion that obviously went into the art direction of this book, they probably didn't skimp on the textual accuracy either.
The text is written by animation historian and Cartoon Brew-meister Jerry Beck, so I'm looking forward to reading it and posting another review later to complete the full review.
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