In 'Tom and Jerry,' there was hardly any dialogue at all. It was all action. It required a great many drawings to make.
I used to watch 'The Honeymooners' and laughed so much I'd fog up the inside of the lenses of my glasses.
Greatest thing in our partnership is the sharing of responsibility; if one of us has to go away, we always know someone vitally concerned is on the spot.
Initially, it was sort of devastating to lose full animation and go limited.
We work in vertical and horizontal planes. We avoid depth characteristics as much as possible. This reduces the number of pictures in a five minute segment from 12,000 to 1,200. And the public likes the technique better.
I think 'The Simpsons' is in the right time slot because it's not a show for kids. It's too vulgar. And 'Ren and Stimpy' is worse. We would never do anything like that.
I was never a good artist.
We are trying to build a family image of wholesome movie entertainment.
We're delighted that Freddie Flintstone and his friends have made such a hit. The comedy is not the old cartoon slapstick. Most of it is situation stuff and dialogue.
We almost decided on a dog and a fox before we hit on the idea of using a cat and mouse.
The concept of the characters in animal skins and us satirizing modern technology made it fun. But the voices we cast and the characterization of Fred Flintstone had a lot to do with it.
You can compare Fred and Barney Rubble with Gleason and Carney.
In my opinion, animation will continue to thrive as long as there are children, parents, television, movies and the need to laugh.
Disney did well with human characters but only in dramas, not comedy.
We've never tried to educate children. We've never tried to preach to them, just entertain.
The early years of Hanna-Barbera were more fun than the later ones. I was working more in the creative areas of timing and direction then. But as the studio grew, I became more involved in administration and got away from the creative aspects.
I started out with three creative jobs - painter, janitor and gag writer.
Italian work is excellent but it takes them six months to do what we do in a week.
The novelty business is astounding. We can't keep up with it.
We became very good in developing comical sight gags when we made 'The Flintstones.'
