I was just about to start a thread on this. His work is imprinted on the DNA of people of a certain age. RIP, Joe.
People know them mostly for the TV stuff, but Hanna & Barbera were prodigious forces in the realm of cinematic animated shorts for years. The films they directed went on to get 14 Oscar nominations and 7 gold statuettes (a record that’s never been beaten by any other director of animation), usually starring Tom & Jerry.
RIP. 
(Hanna died in 2001)
The next time I see cartoon characters running and running, with the same cactus, rock, sofa, painting, tree, whatever appearing at regular intervals in the background, I will remember Mr. Barbera.
Heavens to Murgatroid!
Zoinks! Tom and Jerry are two of the greats of classic cartoon animation, and the whole corral of television characters, though of mixed quality, will go down in history too. Farewell, Joe.
So, which did you like better – The Flintstones or The Jetsons?
An interview I heard on the Beeb with a coworker of his was really interesting. Joe apparently was working on cartoons right up until the end of his life, despite being in very poor health. He also said that Joe was one of the nicest people he’d ever met and that disagreeing with Joe was easier than agreeing with some people he knew.
His work isn’t as dear to me as that of Chuck Jones, but there’s no denying that Hanna Barbera was a powerhouse of animation and all of their work shows a warmpth that is lacking from the majority of modern cartoons.
His stuff was fun.
Thank you, Joe.
Okay, maybe he was a swell guy, and condolences to his friends and family who probably aren’t Dopers, but…
After the original Tom & Jerry’s, Hanna & Barbera’s cartoons sucked ass. Every last one of them. I deeply regret the time I wasted in front of the TV waiting for their characters to do/say something funny. It never happened. Flat drawings, limited animation and flat scripts all combined to make for some of the worst cartoons of all time.
But the originals are just so good. Those alone put them in the top tier of animators.
I don’t hold the later cartoons against them. The whole cartoon industry had just collapsed. They managed to keep making cartoons, at the cost of much lower quality. Better than nothing, I guess.
That’s mostly what I think too (although, upon reviewing, I did find some of the early work H-B did for TV like Yogi Bear and Quickdraw McGraw did have their moments). Hanna-Barbera became pretty much the McDonald’s of animation.
Heavens to Mergatroid!! Exit stage left…