Joe Barbera (95) of the Hanna-Barbera animation team has died.
Barbera died yesterday of natural causes at his Los Angeles home with his wife, Sheila, at his side.
Barbera and longtime partner Bill Hanna produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bearand the Flintstones.The Tom and Jerrycartoons won 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 1960s with a witty series of animated TV comedies, including The Jetsons, Scooby-Dooand Huckleberry Hound and Friends.
According to critic Leonard Maltin, the pair's talents complemented each other perfectly; 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 that his partner could "capture mood and expression in a quick sketch better than anyone I've ever known".
AP