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Title: A Cast of Friends by William Hanna, Tom Ito, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera ISBN: 0-306-80917-6 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: February, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Cartoons, Ltd
Comment: This ghosted autobiography is recommended to anyone interested in how the Hollywood animation industry of the golden age adapted to the labour-intensive demands of television. As one half of the Hanna-Barbera team that created Tom and Jerry for MGM in the forties and pioneered low-budget, high-output TV animation in the fifties, Bill Hanna has much of interest to say about the economic aspects of an artform that, during this period, was largely transformed by commercial concerns. However, if lively insight into the creative process is what you're looking for, this book is not for you. Hanna is essentially a business man, with his partner Joe Barbera apparently handling the creative side. The pleasure he takes in relating the building of H-B as a successful studio makes satisfying reading, but one often has the impression that he could have been involved in virtually any business -- it just happened to be animation. Therefore, the decline in quality from the early H-B TV shows onward is defended on the grounds that numerous jobs were created by the new conveyor-belt process, while the comparatively bland nature of so much latterday Saturday morning product (the early TV shows are great in their way) is justified on the grounds that it is "wholesome" (a favourite word), as if cartoons should only be made for young children. Hanna's philosophy is probably acceptable within the context of H-B's juvenile TV work, but falls down when he tries to present it as a continuation of the MGM shorts, where Tom and Jerry's more universal appeal was based partly on the artistry and expense with which their adventures were presented and partly on the fact that their relationship was the antithesis of wholesome -- violent and antagonistic to the end (and certainly not one of Hanna's "cast of friends" in spite of the uncharacteristic picture of them on the cover). I've previously found it hard to reconcile the high standards and complexity of the Tom and Jerrys with the worst of latter-day H-B, yet, between-the-lines, this honest account helps to explain the connection. It also acts as a reminder of how commercial demands can upend even the most successful of artistic ventures.
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Title: My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century by Joseph Barbera ISBN: 1570360421 Publisher: Turner Pub Pub. Date: June, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons by Jeff Lenburg, Jeff Leaburg, June Foray ISBN: 0816038325 Publisher: Checkmark Books Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Hanna-Barbera Cartoons by Michael Mallory ISBN: 0883631083 Publisher: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
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Title: Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin ISBN: 0452259932 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: May, 1990 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Chuck Amuck : The Life and Time of an Animated Cartoonist by Matt Groening, Chuck Jones ISBN: 0374526206 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 03 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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