He's Still a Top Cat

It’s tough to say how much the older Hanna-Barbera cartoons are in the public consciousness these days. I don’t watch TV so I couldn’t tell you if any channel is airing them. The Flintstones got a Blu-ray release last year and The Jetsons came out in the same format a year earlier, so the people at Warners still thinks there’s a market for some of the cartoons.

This is a roundabout way of saying I was surprised to see a story the other about some of Hanna-Barbera’s output, including Top Cat. It was in, of all places, The Press and Journal of Aberdeen, Scotland. Granted, it appears to be a column designed to bring about nostalgia in older readers, but it’s better than nothing. You can read it here.

You’ll have a good laugh at how the writer praises Bill and Joe’s Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM—with a frame from a Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry! And you’d think he’d mention that Ken Muse animated both the MGM Tom and Jerry cartoons and Top Cat (in the frame above, you can see the same expression he gave Tom in a number of theatrical shorts).

Meanwhile, the Gwinnett Daily Post this week had a trivia question about the series.

And over at the NBC Right Now site, a lifestyles writer has named Top Cat number 86 in its list of the Top 100 TV shows of the ‘60s (people love lists).

Incidentally, The Hollywood Reporter blurbed on July 16, 1961:

Writer-cartoonist Tony Benedict has been signed to a three-year exclusive pact by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. As his first assignment, Benedict will tele-script two “Top Cat” shows.

Tony has mentioned to me did work on Top Cat but he wants to make it clear that he started at Hanna-Barbera in 1960 without a contract, first writing and storyboarding the Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear shows (he invented Alfie Gator on the Yakky cartoons) and moved on to the half-hour comedy prime-time shows, and others “too humorous to mention,” he tells me. I was hoping he could tell me which T.C. episodes he wrote, as the credits were snipped from the shows some time ago (before the DVD release), but I am awaiting a response.

Astro By Nicholas

If you’ve visited our sister blog, Tralfaz, you’ve seen the masthead with the Jetsons’ Astro (né Tralfaz) on a circular dog-walk treadmill. It comes from Millionaire Astro and is one of a pile of scenes drawn by one of my favourite Hanna-Barbera animators, George Nicholas.

Nicholas arrived at the studio from Disney where he had worked on shorts. Before that he was an animator for Walter Lantz.

The original H-B animators could be pretty distinctive and came up with some funny poses. Unfortunately, as the studio added more and more work, the animation got more and more lacklustre. Still, Nicholas did his best. He loved beady-eyed, wavy-mouth expressions and you can see it in this cartoon.

I haven’t determined how much he animated—I’m not good at picking out H-B animators after about 1960—George Goepper and Bill Keil also handled scenes in this cartoon. But let’s look at part of the last third.

First up, Astro runs into a park, begging Elroy to save him from the dog catcher. Nicholas liked drawing cashew shapes for partially closed eyes. And he goes in for bending the muzzle and flopping down an ear to add to the expression.



Astro is shocked in court.



A defeated Astro is taken away by J.P. Gottrockets, who has been awarded the dog by a Jury-Vac (Gottrockets must be a futuristic J.P. Gottrocks from The Flintstones.



Astro’s expression after learning he will, here forth, be known as Tralfaz.



Here he is on the dog walk.



An in-between of him upset that he’s not at home with the Jetsons.



And angrily chasing Gottrockets.



You can read more about George Nicholas in this post.

As for the name Tralfaz, it had been imported by Mike Maltese from the Warner Bros. cartoon studio. The word had been used there, but dated back even further to Cliff Nazarro’s double-talk act. Read more here and in this follow-up post.

Astro, was more or less, created by Tony Benedict. Iwao Takamoto designed the dog first, then Tony jumped in to create stories for him and give him his personality. Tony was also the creator of Alfie Gator in the Yakky Doodle cartoons and had a hand in the evolution of Hairbrain Hare to Touché Turtle (Hanna-Barbera was never a place to waste ideas so Hairbrain was the basis for Ricochet Rabbit). Tony worked on the last of the Huckleberry Hound cartoons and is still with us. He has a book coming out which we’ll let you know about in good time.

Stories From Hanna Barbera Veterans — Live!

No, a character from The Flintstones didn’t one day suddenly cross over into the world of Pixie and Dixie (though it would make more sense than some of the ridiculous “Hanna-Barbera” cross-overs of today). This monster has been conjured up by Mr. Jinks in Magician Jinks, one of the last cartoons with the meeces put into production on the Huckleberry Hound Show.

And who is responsible for this incidental character?

To the right, you see the credits for this particular cartoon. You will notice the name of one Jerry Eisenberg. Jerry was newly-landed at Hanna-Barbera, which was continuing to expand its operations. The studio had The Flintstones and Top Cat in prime time, was still producing cartoons for the Huck, Yogi and Quick Draw half-hour shows for Kellogg’s, churning out the disappointing Loopy De Loop series for Columbia Pictures and working on new concepts, such as Hairbrain Hare. Jerry had already rubbed elbows with some of the great Golden Age artists who didn’t work for Walt Disney. He came from Warner Bros. and had already worked for Joe Barbera as an assistant in-betweener at MGM before the company decided to shut down its cartoon studio. His father was Harvey Eisenberg, known perhaps more for his work in comic books than animation, which went back to the days of the Van Beuren studio in New York.

For a minute, it appears as if Alfie Gator will succeed in his quest for a culinary delight—a duck dinner (out of camera range, Fibber Fox swats the gator’s butt, forcing Yakky Doodle back out of his mouth. Alas). Alfie was a parody of Alfred Hitchcock, specifically the TV host version, where Hitch would appear in silhouette to “Funeral March of a Marionette” and introduce tonight’s stawwww-ry.

Alfie was one of the characters created by the writer whose name you see on the right. Tony Benedict arrived at Hanna-Barbera from UPA and was put to work drawing story sketches. He was soon working on stories for Huck Hound and Yakky Doodle in addition to The Flintstones, The Jetsons and so on. My favourite creation of Tony’s is the comic relief dog Astro. Tony stayed on at Hanna-Barbera until the rise of adventure cartoons and the studio’s sale by Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and various Columbia pictures interests to Taft Broadcasting. Before his stop at UPA, he began his animation career at Walt Disney.

The credits you see to the right are not from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The title card is from the Beany and Cecil show from Bob Clampett’s studio. Clampett had a bunch of plans for various animated series, including one starring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, but things fell apart when prime time cartoons failed in 1961-62 and the networks, for the most part, stayed away from the idea. Willie Ito then moved on to Hanna-Barbera where he provided layouts for a number of series. Like Eisenberg, he had worked in the Chuck Jones unit at Warner Bros. and like Benedict, he got some early grounding at Walt Disney (where he eventually returned).

Getting the opportunity to hear first-hand experiences in animation from these veterans should never be missed. That opportunity is today. The three will be appearing on “Stu’s Show,” which has become far more elaborate and graduated to streaming video (you can still listen to the programme as well). Want tales about putting together The Flintstones? Want to learn what Joe Barbera ate for lunch? Want to hear what kind of practical jokes O.B. Barkley pulled? (O.B. was an assistant animator at MGM and Warners). If anyone knows, it’s these men.

Read more below to find out more about this afternoon’s show. Click here for the link to the broadcast at 4 p.m. Pacific.

The Laugh Days of Hanna-Barbera

To your right, you see a drawing of Fred Flintstone and a model sheet of Wilma Flinstone. Oh, and there's a young man, too.

The young man is Tony Benedict. When he arrived at Hanna-Barbera, the studio had a grand total of two writers—Mike Maltese and Warren Foster, two of the finest cartoon comedy writers of all time who helped bring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other Warner Bros. characters to live. As Hanna-Barbera kept expanding, so did the staff. Young Tony came over from UPA and was soon getting story credits on Huckleberry Hound and Yakky Doodle cartoons.

Tony worked on The Flintstones and The Jetsons, supplying story ideas and sketches. He stuck around the studio until it turned toward superhero and fantasy series and was bought by Taft.

Some time ago, he put together a documentary video. Now, he's putting his Hanna-Barbera life in a book. As he puts it...

"THE LAUGH DAYS OF HANNA BARBERA 1960-1967" is not only a book but an online gallery of art and humor from those glamour days of yore.
Ten years of vintage 1960's drawings, caricatures, paintings, photos, and jokes from that period ONLY.
The book is a work in progress but many of it's images are now available at tony-benedict.pixels.com.
They are prints for sale. Select an image you like, choose a frame and it will be shipped to you in a few days ready to hang on your wall. Easy and unique holiday gifts. You will need to sign up but that is FREE and you can enjoy more than 100 old time big time Hanna Barbera images....and more.
So... Please have a peek. Humor is the best medicine.

Tony is among a handful of people around today who has some first-hand experience at the studio when it moved into prime-time and sparked the growth of cartoons on Saturday morning TV. Some of the pics on his site he has posted before, but hunt around his site and re-live some memories from a man who was there.

Follow-ups to Earlier Posts

We talked about the very nice Hanna-Barbera exhibition on now at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Writer Tony Benedict (right), who was hired at the studio in 1960, was present for the opening of the exhibit. The opening remarks were recorded on video and if you want to see what Tony had to say, watch the video below. Tony appears at about the 23:57 mark.

Tony was hired to work on The Flintstones to help punch up the scripts submitted by TV sitcom writers hired by Joe Barbera with cartoonish visual gags. He went on to write for Huckleberry Hound (in the original series for Kellogg’s) and many other cartoons.



Daws Butler’s birthday has passed but there’s no reason we can’t hear from him. Here’s a neat phone interview with Daws conducted in 1985 by Ken Behrens of WJBC radio. It’s a half hour long but still way too short.

Astro's Writer Speaks

For those of us who watched our favourite cartoons over and over again in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the idea of being able to read about them from the people who made them was inconceivable. Life changes. Technology changes. Thanks to the internet, it’s not so inconceivable now. My favourite cartoons are from the mid-‘20s through the ‘60s so, unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of people who worked on them who are still around.

But Tony Benedict is.

Tony started at Disney toward the end of the Golden Age of theatrical cartoons and then got in at Hanna-Barbera when the studio was in my favourite period. New Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw shows were still being made. “The Flintstones” had become a hit. Loopy De Loop was... well, we can’t win them all.

You’ll recall Tony was hoping to put together a documentary telling of his time at Hanna-Barbera before Bill and Joe sold the studio to Taft Broadcasting. But there’s one slight problem. The studio’s current owner wants approval (and payment) to use its characters, even by the very people who drew them and wrote for them. And it’s a little difficult doing a documentary about Hanna-Barbera without any cartoon characters in it. I could listen to stories about Carlo Vinci, Daws Butler and Mike Maltese all day, but I suspect I’m in the minority—most people want to see Yogi Bear or Dino, even if only for a fleeting moment. So the documentary didn’t come out. Tony’s hoping to rework it into a film covering his own story about his decades in animation and have it ready for the fall.

A good thing in all this is Tony is blogging. You may have seen the link to The Last Cartoonery in the blog roll to your right. Click RIGHT HERE for it.

Tony’s featured some interesting artwork, including a storyboard from one of the “new” Jetsons episodes of the ‘80s (two decades earlier, Tony wrote the episode that brought the world Astro, my favourite Jetsons character that isn’t named Uniblab). Tony worked with almost all the great people who started the studio or arrived a year or two after. It’s an amazing list of talent. I hope he gets around to telling some stories about them on his blog. People like these:



Three great layout artists, Willie Ito, Jerry Eisenberg and Dick Bickenbach. This was taken while filming the TV special “Here Comes A Star” (1963), which includes shots of various departments of the Hanna-Barbera studio in their brand-new building making a cartoon. We’ll feature murky, fairly low-res screen grabs from that later this the week as Tony has graciously identified a pile of people in them. Tony also supplied some photos of his own (including the above) that are of much better quality. In the third picture below, barely visible behind Willie is Iwao Takamoto at the drawing board. If you click on that picture, you might spot the Punkin Puss model sheet to his left. I didn’t get a chance to ask Tony who the guy is in the first two photos. I want to say Dan Gordon, but I don’t think he had that much hair. Maybe it’s Art Pierson, the director of the special.

Little George Jetson

Above you see the opening background drawing for the Jetsons’ cartoon “The Little Man,” the 17th show put into production. And to the right, you see a dialogue page from the opening.

Heritage Auctions had the latter up for auction awhile ago, along with some storyboard panels that you can see below (and click on to enlarge). The final dialogue in the cartoon isn’t exactly the same as what you can read on the panels. Lines have been added and subtracted. There’s a salt gag that’s not in the panels on sheet 21.

The story was written by Tony Benedict and the sketches below are his. If you look at the numbering, you’ll observe that number 22 is broken down into four sheets: A, B, C and D. Whether the story was expanded later to include those scenes, I don’t know. And there’s a whole bedroom routine in the cartoon that takes place between the first and third panels of 22A.

Memories of Hanna-Barbera

Have you got an hour to hear about Hanna-Barbera? Good. Then settle back and watch this video taken at this year’s Wonder Con in Anaheim, California. Former layout artist Jerry Eisenberg, writer Tony Benedict and voice director Wally Burr talk about their creations and co-workers at the studio.

Having chatted with Jerry and Tony (and you can read Jerry’s chat here on the blog), I can’t express enough what friendly and genuine people they are, though you’ll pick that up from the video. Both had many contributions to the comedy cartoons the studio made in the 1960. Mr. Burr was employed at the studio in a later period and had the distinction of being hired by Bill Hanna and fired by Joe Barbera. He tells a funny tale of voice directing Daws Butler in “Laff-a-Lympics,” though I’m at a loss to understand why Mr. Burr just didn’t level with Daws about who was giving the order.

The highlight may be Tony’s video featuring candid footage from the ‘60s of the people he worked with. You may notice it has music by Hoyt Curtin for “Top Cat” and other shows from that period which has never been released on DVD.

The session is coaxed along by another extremely friendly and genuine person, Mark Evanier. I can’t help but think that cartoon writer Earl Kress would have been there, too, if Earl were still with us.



My thanks to Mr. Benj. Edge for pointing out this video. I hope it hasn’t been taken down by the time you read this.

Tony Benedict on Stu's Show

You know how the theme song goes: “The show in town is Huckle Jerry Hound...”

Okay, maybe not. But to the right you see Huckle Jerry Hound. Or, rather Hanna-Barbera layout artist Jerry Eisenberg drawn as Huckleberry Hound sent to me by former storyman Tony Benedict. The two of them worked on H-B cartoons through a good portions of the 1960s. Tony pretty much took over the Huck cartoons in the series’ final season, writing most of them.

I’ve been quite fortunate to have had the chance to talk with both Jerry and Tony about their careers at Hanna-Barbera. Unfortunately, in Tony’s case, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, we chatted for just under a half-hour and I never got a chance to ask him a pile of questions on my mind. However, someone else will get the opportunity, and I urge you to tune in and listen. It’ll be a lot longer than a half hour. And there’s Tony’s career at Disney and UPA we didn’t even discuss that I imagine they’ll touch on.

Tony will be on the air on Stu’s show with Stu Shostak this Wednesday (the 8th) starting at 4 p.m. Pacific time. Stu generally goes two hours with his guests but tends to chat longer if the guest is willing and there’s still a bushel-full of questions to be answered. And I suspect there will be, certainly ones we never got a chance to touch on in my truncated interview.

It goes without saying but Stu loves the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. He knows the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. And, better still, he isn’t a lazy interviewer. He does his research so he’ll ask intelligent stuff, stuff fans want to know about. So, you can bet Stu will ask him why the new version of “The Jetsons” in the ‘80s didn’t cut it (and maybe he’ll find out what the writers thought about that wretched little Orbity), and why the studio’s cartoons started to go downhill despite the presence of talented people.

Other than Mike Lah (who was gone), Tony worked with all of the studio’s early greats—ex-MGM guys like Ray Patterson, Irv Spence, Kenny Muse, Bob Gentle, Art Lozzi, Monte and Walt Clinton. And with George Nicholas. And Art Davis. And Carlo Vinci. And the two greatest writers in cartoon history, Mike Maltese and Warren Foster. Well, the list could go on. Tony wrote the first cartoon with Astro. Same with Alfy Gator. He also came up with an idea for a spy spoof featuring a squirrel.

As you know, Tony has been working on a documentary outlining the life of the studio while he was there and all the great people he worked with. A Kickstarter project didn’t get past the kicking stage. I suspect he’ll reveal what the future holds for it.

So here’s how you listen to the interview. It’s not available in any stores on your local radio station. You’ll have to go to the Stu’s Show web site just as the show starts and then feed it through your media player on your computer. If you miss the show live, you can always download it not too many hours after the end of the broadcast for 99 cents. 99 cents for a couple of hours of one of the veterans of TV animation? Even Bill Hanna would pay more than that.

A late note: I didnt realise Jerry Eisenberg will be on the show, too. He’s a nice man and a funny man. Two hours with him and Tony will go by just like that.

Tony Benedict’s Hanna-Barbera Documentary

Tony Benedict arrived at Hanna-Barbera during the studio’s best period. Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw cartoons were still being made (the originals, not watered-down team-ups that were foisted on kids). The studio was taking a risk going prime-time as “The Flintstones” was about to launch. And most of the original employees of the studio who’d worked on theatrical cartoons at MGM were still there, joined by great people like Warren Foster, Mike Maltese and Art Davis from Warners. What a great atmosphere for a young guy to come into.

Tony had the great foresight to document his time at Hanna-Barbera on film. And, like many artists, he sketched little vignettes and gags about life at the studio. He saved it all, too. And now, he’s putting it together for a documentary about the studio’s Golden Era.

He’s been working on this for some time but, now, he’s going the Kickstarter route to get it made. As you probably know, Kickstarter is where fans can help get projects made. Please click on THIS ADDRESS to learn more about Tony’s project. Or you can read about it HERE on Facebook. There’s a video you can see about it, too.



I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy seeing pictures of the guys who made all those great old theatrical cartoons. Here’s a nice shot of Joe Barbera talking to Warren Foster inside the H-B studio, with Bill Hanna and his sucker behind them. This one will, I suspect, be part of the documentary.



And this is a frame grab of a home movie shot of Bick Bickenbach who was, more or less, the head layout guy when the studio started in 1957. He was a fine animator at Warners (Freleng and Tashlin units) before moving to layout at MGM in the mid-‘40s. He was a pretty good baritone, too. Bick took Ed Benedict’s character models, modified them a bit and put them on sheets for the animators. I gather Mr. Benedict (Ed, not Tony) wasn’t altogether happy with the end result. I wish I could tell you about “The Phone Story” on the wall in the background.



And this is the great Carlo Vinci.

I’ve had a chance to talk to Tony about his career at Hanna-Barbera. Unfortunately, circumstances were such on my end that I only had a half hour to chat after being up all night and before going to work. We didn’t touch on a lot of specific things I’d have liked to have talked about, only the surface was scratched. But it may give you an idea about how the H-B cartoons were put together in an age before corporate interference. And during. Want to know why the re-mounted “Jetsons” cartoons of the ‘80s weren’t as good as the originals? Tony was there and explains the reason. Note that the interview was recorded before the Kickstarter project was pushed back a bit. Press the arrow to hear.