Well, I'd hoped to get a few more days in our Joe Barbera Tribute before the man left us. But given the reports of his condition the last week or three, it's not surprising and of course, it's better that these things end sooner than later, for the family if not for the deceased.
There will be obits galore (like this one) with the details of his amazing life. I thought I might be able to offer a few personal glimpses and observations. The first time I met Joe Barbera, I had been hired by his studio to write a live-action situation comedy pilot that had nothing to do with animation or cartoons or anything you think of when you hear the name, "Hanna-Barbera." Mr. B. walked into the room looking beleaguered and weary, flopped into a chair and announced, "God, I have so many things to do today. My wife wants me to stop on the way home and look at new carpeting, I think I may need some dental work, my secretary is out sick, we just bought Marineland, I lost one of my credit cards…"
I'm sure I looked startled. "Just bought Marineland?" But that's what the man said. The corporation that then owned H-B had purchased the famed amusement park and was counting on the entertainment wizardry of Joe Barbera to turn a failing operation into a going concern. That almost made sense. What amazed me was how he just lumped it in with picking out carpet samples and other things that were on his mind.
And then, before we could get to the project at hand, he launched into a ten minute explanation of why Marineland was losing money. It had to do with crowds only coming on the weekends…but the place had to be kept open and fully-staffed seven days a week, 365 days a year. Apparently, if you want the seals to do six shows on Saturday, the seals need to do six shows every day. So on a rainy Christmas with no one in the place, someone had to go out and put the seals through six shows to an empty house, and that meant security guards had to be there and electricians and there were other costs that ate up the weekend profits.
The problems as he described them seemed insurmountable — and indeed, "Hanna-Barbera's Marineland" would be a disaster — but that day, I was dazzled by the discussion. He seemed so "on top" of the dilemma and yet, it was in a very human, humble way. Overall, he was so sharp and so engaging and (dare I say it?) so animated that you could instantly see why this man had his name on the outside of the building.
Finally in that first meeting, Mr. B. turned his attention to our show…and I should explain about that nickname. Joe always wanted everyone to call him Joe, just as his longtime partner Bill Hanna told everyone to call him Bill. When I worked there, I felt a bit awkward addressing Mr. Hanna as Bill and even less comfy turning to Mr. Barbera and saying, "Well, Joe…" I think most of us had this problem to some extent…at least, those of us who grew up on Huckleberry Hound and The Flintstones and Top Cat and other seminal Hanna-Barbera programming. It wasn't just that these men were such towering presences in the animation business. It was that they were such a part of our lives, our childhoods…in some cases, the reasons we got into cartoons or creative arts. Which was why a lot of us called him "Mr. B." It was friendly and casual but it didn't bring him down wholly to our level. That was not where we wanted him.
He and Bill were the guys who, once upon a time, had saved the animation industry. Perhaps if they hadn't, someone else would have…but they were the ones who did it. They'd made all those wonderful, Oscar-winning Tom & Jerry cartoons for seventeen years for MGM and then, one day, the studio was closing. All the studios that did that kind of thing were closing and Bill and Joe were, like many talented folks who wanted to work in animation, without a place to do that. Others had done cartoons for TV before them but they were the guys who showed everyone how it could be done as they built a dynasty in that new venue. At first, it was founded on the likes of Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and The Flintstones — very good shows, I thought. A whole generation of kids loved them and many of us were inspired to want to write or draw, if not for Hanna-Barbera then for someone.
Later, especially after the studio was sold to corporate overlords, Bill and Joe seemed to put profit over pride in craft…but from their point of view, I'm sure it didn't feel that way. Mr. B. sometimes admitted that his legacy included an awful lot of dreadful shows and cut corners, though he defended some (not all) as being as good as network and financial circumstances permitted. More important though was that they kept the doors open, kept the operation operating, kept everyone — including Bill and Joe — working. They were both tireless workers who rarely took a day off, and who never retired. The last day that his health allowed it, Barbera was trying to get another cartoon made. Same with Hanna.
Unfortunately for me, I worked at Hanna-Barbera during a period when Mr. B. was not happy with much of their product and often felt shackled by all the restrictions. Still, just as he was excited at the prospect of rebuilding Marineland, he never seemed to lose his optimism that the next show could be better, that the idea they'd just sold ABC could be the next Scooby Doo. And of course, there was enormous pride in employing so many people who needed a paycheck and wanted to earn it by helping create cartoons. No overview of his life and times would be complete without noting the thousands of writers and artists who might have had to go work at Home Depot had it not been for Hanna and Barbera.
On a personal basis, Joe Barbera was a delight. He was charming and funny and in all the years I was around him, I never saw him lose his enthusiasm for the next series, the next project, the next challenge. The way he and Hanna divvied up the operation, Joe was in charge of selling the shows, Bill was in charge of the details of production. It worked well because Mr. B. was a fabulous salesman. He had good ideas and bad ideas but when he pitched them, they all sounded great.
One day, Barbera was in a network meeting proposing idea after idea for specials, tossing out jokes and concepts and ideas with machine-gun precision. Finally, as the hour grew late, the network guy said, "Okay, we'll buy two hours," and Barbera quickly left. That's how you sell. When they say yes, you get the hell out before they have time to think it over and take it back. So J.B. got the hell out and an hour or two later, the guys from the network called over to H-B and said, "Uh, this is embarrassing and we are going to honor the commitment…but there were so many ideas flying around that room. Just what was it we agreed to buy?" And of course, the punch line was that Barbera wasn't sure, either.
I believe that to be true because I worked with Joe Barbera. Anyone who did would believe it.
As I said, I grew up on the initial product of the H-B empire. When I was hired for the aforementioned live-action show, I had the feeling I'd come in through the wrong door. I wanted to work there but Mr. B. had the belief that "live-action writers" couldn't write animation and since he'd met me as a live-action writer, that's what I was to him. I dazzled him with my knowledge of their early shows and showed him Hanna-Barbera comic books I'd written…but still, I was a live-action writer. I had to go write animation for other studios before he'd consider me to write cartoons for his.
That's how I got in. How I got out was that one day, he and I were debating some silly story point on a new, planned Yogi Bear series. I was right and he was wrong but he was still Joe Barbera. Even when he or his company did me wrong, which they occasionally did and not just to me, he was still Joe Barbera and I liked him so much. I had other offers at the time and I suddenly, right in the middle of our meeting, decided that I should go take one of them; that if I argued much more with Mr. B., right or wrong, something would change for me in how I viewed him and his studio. On the spot, I decided it was better to leave while I was still in love. I've never regretted anything about that decision other than that I didn't make it one show earlier.
It was smart because every time I saw J.B. after that, we were friends and my affection for him and his studio was undiminished. The last few encounters though, were bittersweet. Well into his eighties, he looked sixty and performed with the energy of a man of forty. Then one day not long before Hanna passed, Barbera was suddenly acting his age, whatever it was. The official bios say he was born in 1911 but some animation scholars say it was earlier than that. However old he was, you could tell the mind was as alert as ever but things just weren't connecting as before. Paul Dini and I went to lunch with him and J.B. told us, almost by rote, an anecdote right after we ordered and the exact same anecdote once again just before dessert. Paul and I exchanged uncomfortable glances. Mr. Barbera was on Autoplay, no longer thinking clearly but still determined to be entertaining and to not disappoint his audience.
The twice-told tale was about how they'd sold The Flintstones, arguably their best show and the one that established the studio as the top animation company of its day. He related some of the obstacles they'd faced, including sponsors who questioned whether anyone over the age of twelve would ever watch cartoons. And even if it was all from primal memory, he spoke with great satisfaction of how the whole crew — he made a point of spreading the credit around widely — had triumphed over all the skepticism. They'd not only created a show that was popular then but popular still. They'll be watching The Flintstones when The Jetsons is a period piece.
After the replay of the anecdote, we got to talking about the little side comments that were made by the animals in the show — a bird that functioned as Fred's record player or a monkey that did the dishes for Wilma. Everyone around the table recounted a favorite they recalled and suddenly, Mr. B. started inventing new ones, suggesting animal-based inventions that could be in the next Flintstones cartoon, whenever that occurred. It was a momentary flash of the real Joe Barbera, the creative guy, the man who'd helped launch so many great shows that you could forgive him the non-great ones. He came up with one gag, apparently on the spot, that was so funny that our table burst into laughter that startled other diners. It caused someone in our party to say, "I wish you were producing a new Flintstones show right now."
Mr. Barbera sighed and said, "I wish I was doing a lot of things I used to do." I wish he was still with us, still doing a lot of the things he used to do, too. But wherever he is now, I bet he just sold three shows and a special.