Joe Barbera, of ‘Yogi Bear’ team, dies

‘A passionate storyteller and creative genius’
Hanna-Barbera, meanwhile, received eight Emmys, including the Governors Award of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1988.

“Joe Barbara was a passionate storyteller and a creative genius who, along with his late partner Bill Hanna, helped pioneer the world of animation,” said friend, colleague and Warner animation President Sander Schwartz. “Joe’s contributions to both the animation and television industries are without parallel — he has been personally responsible for entertaining countless millions of viewers across the globe.”

Neither Hanna, born in 1910, nor Barbera, born in 1911, set out to be cartoonists. Barbera, who grew up in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, originally went into banking. Soon, however, he turned his doodles into magazine cartoons and then into a job as an animator.

Hanna, who had studied engineering and journalism, originally went into animation because he needed a job.

Although not the hit factory it was in the ’50s and ’60s, the Hanna-Barbera studio remained active through the years. It eventually became a subsidiary of Great American Communications Co., and in 1991 it was purchased by a partnership including Turner Broadcasting System, which used the studio’s library when it launched cable TV’s Cartoon Network in 1992. Turner is now part of Time Warner.

Funeral arrangements were pending, Miereanu said. In addition to his wife, the animator is survived by three children from a previous marriage, Jayne, Neal and Lynn.

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