William Hanna was an animator, a voice actor, and a musician. He was known for co-creating a famous show “Tom and Jerry”, and more. Hanna provided voice effects for the series, he co-founded the Hanna-Barbera with his partner Joseph Barbera.
William Hanna attended Compton City College where he was learning about Journalism and structural engineering during this time it was the Great Depression and it really affected his family and he had to drop out of college and look for work to help his family, first he started to work as a construction engineer then as a car wash employee, last a family friend convinced Hanna to seek a job for Leon Schlesinger’s company “Pacific Title & Art Studio”, which designed title cards for films.
Hanna was displayed a talent for drawing and this helped him get hired at an upstart animation studio connected to Schlesinger , the Harman and lsing animation studio, which was producing the “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” series. Hanna was promoted to head of their ink and paint department.
In 1933 the studio’s heads which was Hugh Harman and Rudolf lsing dissolved their business relationship with Schlesinger and he started to retained the rights to “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” while Harman and Ising kept the rights to their own popular character Bosko and Hanna followed them into their subsequent projects.
In 1936 Hanna was promoted to film director and directed a few short films in their “Happy Harmonies” film series. Then in 1937 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stopped distributing animated films by Harman and Ising, and created their own animation subsidiary Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, then they started to hire away most of the staff of the Harman and Ising studio including Hanna himself. In q938 Hanna became a senior director for the Captain and the Kids film series, an adaptation of the popular comic strip “The Katzenjammer Kids”. The series failed to find an audience, and was terminated in 1929. Hanna was demoted from director to story man.
During this time Hanna started to work with another animator Joseph Barbera on the idea of a film series featuring a cat and mouse duo named “Puss Gets the Boot” which was released in 1940 and it was introducing the characters of the name of Tom and Jerry and the film became popular with critics and the audience. From 1940-1957, Hanna and Barbera co–directed 114 short films starring Tom and Jerry. The series was a critical and popular success, winning 7 Academy Awards and being nominated for other 7 but sadly MGM shut down the studio in 1957.
Hanna started to work with another animator named Jay Ward in creating their own animation studio, it was named “Shield Productions ” they parted ways before even producing anything. Hanna and Barbera started to work together again creating their own company Hanna-Barbera Productions, in 1966 Hanna-Barbera Productions was sold to Broadcasting for 12 million dollars.
Hanna and Barbera continued serving as studio heads until 1991, the studio was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, with Hanna and Barbera reduced to an advisory position in 1996 the studio was once again sold to Time Warner with Hanna remaining an advisor until his death.
In March 2001, Hanna died of esophageal cancer at his home in North Hollywood, LA , he died at the age of 90, he was known for producing more than 100 animated series, multiple films and television.
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