Barbera: Comic master

Los Angeles, Dec. 19 (AP): Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, died yesterday, a Warner Bros. spokesman said. He was 95.

Barbera died of natural causes at his home with his wife, Sheila, at his side, spokesman Gary Miereanu said. With his long-time partner, Bill Hanna, Barbera first found success creating the highly successful Tom and Jerry cartoons. The antics of the battling cat and mouse went on to win seven Academy Awards, more than any other series with the same characters.

The partners, who had first teamed up while working at MGM in the 1930s, went on to a new realm of success in the 1950s with a witty series of animated TV comedies, including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo and Huckleberry Hound and Friends.

Their strengths melded perfectly, critic Leonard Maltin wrote in his book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. Barbera brought the comic gags and skilled drawing, while Hanna brought warmth and a keen sense of timing. “This writing-directing team may hold a record for producing consistently superior cartoons using the same characters year after year — without a break or change in routine,” Maltin wrote.

Hanna, who died in 2001, once said he was never a good artist but his partner could “capture mood and expression in a quick sketch better than anyone I’ve ever known.”