Biography: John K Interviews Bill, Joe and Friz Part One

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This post is going to have a lot of words, so I'll keep my comments short. Here is the first installment of a 1992 interview conducted by John Kricfalusi with Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera and Friz Freleng. Rarely do we have the opportunity to listen in as directors speak filmmaker to filmmaker. Although the candidness of some of the comments may surprise you, I think you'll agree that this may be one of the most illuminating interviews on the subject of animation ever conducted. -Stephen Worth

INTRODUCTION by John Kricfalusi

Strictly speaking, the Renaissance was not primarily a forward-looking movement. It turned its back in disgust upon the recent past, called the works of its immediate predecessors "barbaric"... and concentrated its main interest upon those arts which seem to be pervaded with that curious substance known as the "classical" spirit. -Hendrik Van Loon, "Tolerance" 1927

There has lately been a lot of talk of an animation Renaissance. Where is it? It hasn't happened. We're confusing quantity with quality. It could happen. There certainly is a great upsurge of interest in cartoons, especially from adults. We all want it to happen. Animators want it to happen. Studio Executives want it to happen and most importantly; the public wants it to happen.


Luckily we have a great heritage to learn from. In the 1940s, men like Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, Friz Freleng and their contemporaries, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, brought animated cartoons to their height of glory. They forged America's other great art form. During this period they created a huge stable of the most popular characters (live or otherwise) of all time. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom and Jerry- the MGM and Warner Brothers stars are still successful today, 50 years later. They still make considerable profits for the studios that own them. How did these cartoonists do it? Even more remarkable- why has no one asked them how they did it and why no one is doing it now?

Actually, I should credit Betty Cohen of The Cartoon Network who did ask them for advice. What I heard at that meeting needed to be shared with others, thus this interview. Noe Gold from the Hollywood Reporter and I met with Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna and Friz Freleng in Mr. Barbera's office. I felt like a 14th century Italian who magically found a way to meet with some classical Greeks face to face and ask them directly for their secrets. These fellows were incredibly candid and generous with their knowledge. Some of their statements are revelations; others seem blatantly obvious bits of common sense. If we put some of their techniques into practice and build on them intelligently, rather than continue to ignore the lessons of their superior work, surely we will drag ourselves out of animation's dark ages to experience a renaissance after all. -John Kricfalusi

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WHO MAKES CARTOONS?

John Kricfalusi: In your opinion, on a cartoon project, who is the key man on the cartoon? Is it the writer, the director? Let's say in the "golden age" of cartoons.

Friz Freleng: If you're trying to find out what it is that made the cartoons what they were in those days, it's easy. The whole secret is that one man controlled it- not a comittee- the director.

John K: How did you men get your start as directors?

Bill Hanna: Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising were making Bosko cartoons. I can still remember that very first Bosko picture and the cels on that. That was back when we used to wash the cels after a picture- wash the painting off and reuse them. Bob Edmond, one of the writers, and I were washing off these cels down in the garage and working on story material as we were washing the cels.

John K: It's interesting how those two jobs link together-- washing cels and writing the stories for a cartoon.

Joe Barbera: Well, that's where the writers are- the bottom of the barrel. At Disney's I heard that the animators were like gods. You had Bill Tytla and Art Babbitt, and Jack Hannah over there. They even had a special dining room. But the writers were way down there somewhere... It was the animators that were the kings of the whole setup.

John K: Well, I guess that's why they call it "animation". In those days how would you get into writing stories? Was that easier to get into?

Friz F: There were no stories really.


JOE'S EARLY DAYS:
FLEISCHER, VAN BEUREN, TERRY

Joe B: You know, I worked at Fleischer's for four days. I was working at a bank and I got to know one of the animators there through an art director at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where I used to go at night. He called me and asked if I wanted to try out there.

So I took a vacation, and I snuck up there and worked there for four days. For two days, I was painting. But I had magazines with me that I had sold cartoons to, and that made an impression on Dave Fleischer- Max Fleischer's brother. He called me in and a whole committee took a look at me. Dave said, "We've decided we will offer you a dollar a gag for any gag you give us that we use." Can you believe that statement? I could go in there with fifty gags and they might buy one and give me a buck. That's what they thought of creative people. The king-pins were the animators, they didn't even have story men there. They made it up as they went along.

John K:How did you get started directing?

Joe B: Well, it was an evolution. I got into the Van Beuren Studio in New York by telling them I was an animator. Actually, I had never animated. I worked in a bank, and at night I would go home and draw cartoons. It seemed to titillate me when I would see a magazine like a Colliers or a Life or a Judge. So I began drawing cartoons and suddenly they began to buy them. It was very bad times, and finally the bank closed its doors... So, I'm strolling down the street and I meet a fraternity brother, and he says, "Go across the street to 729 7th Avenue and tell them you're an animator." I didn't even know what that meant. So I went in and I had four magazines with me which had my printed material in it. It made enough of an impression on them to decide to hire me.

They walked me into a room and sat me down at a desk with a light board and gave me a scene which had about thirty pages in it, and I stared at it. I didn't know what the heck it was all about. But fortunately, a fella next to me- named Carlo Vinci said, "You don't know what to do, do ya?" I said, "Noooo..." So he said, "Well, I'll show ya..." He put drawing one down and drawing three and showed me the job of an Inbetweener. He said, "You have to make that drawing inbetween these two drawings." He described motion to a degree, and that's how I got started in that end of the business.

Now what happened was I was doing such good work in cleaning up these drawings at the same time, that I graduated up to an assistant- a cleanup man. You know, the animator has one assistant that breaks his stuff down and another one cleans it up... Well, in the meantime, at home at night, I had a light board and I was making up animation. I created animation, working there by myself. I had worked there about a year and a half, and in about six months working on my own, I became an animator. Now that's how I got into animation.

When Van Beuren closed, I started animating at Terrytoons; but what I really wanted to do was story. So on my own, I did a storyboard. I didn't even know what a storyboard was. But Paul Terry had come up with a character he liked called Kiko the Kangaroo- unbelievable! So I did a storyboard of Kiko in a race with Dirty Doug- He was the villain.

View a Kiko the Kangaroo Cartoon, "Farmer Al Falfa's Prize Package".

We finally convinced Terry to let us make a cartoon- Jack Zander and myself and Dan Gordon. We worked on the story at night. One was about pink elephants...

View the cartoon Joe Barbera is referring to, "Pink Elephants".

Back then, I was doing animation mostly, but whenever I got a chance, I would be into the story end of it. Dan Gordon was sketching it up and I was still animating, but my ideas were going into the stories. We were about to become a regular working unit up there, which eventually I became with Bill when we got the offer to go to California. That offer broke the whole thing up.

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Please see PART TWO of this interview

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Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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