Yogi, Beatles, Banana Splits, Regular Show, Winky Dink and Robert Alvarez

Six-time Emmy-Winning animator/director Robert Alvarez candidly recalls over 50 years of animation artistry, from Yellow Submarine, Star Wars Clone Wars and What a Cartoon to Scooby-Doo, Samurai Jack, and Smurfs.

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Hanna
Barbera. Welcome to the fantastic world
of Hanna and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah,

(00:31):
Joe, Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Airbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony.
Welcome to the fantastic world of Hannah and Barbera.
And I am Greg Airbar, author of Hannah Barbera, the recorded
History from Modern Stone Age toMeddling Kids today.

(00:55):
We have a person who just embodies the and of Hanna and
Barbera because this show is dedicated to, as you heard Chris
Anthony say, the thousands of people who made it great.
And Bob, I can call you Bob, right?
Well, yeah, almost no one does, but you may call me Bob Robert.
Well, then I'll call you Robert.Robert Alvarez, animation

(01:16):
director, has not only worked for Hanna Barbera for many years
and some of their greatest projects and seeing the
transition of Hanna Barbera intoits various phases, also worked
for Disney, has won Emmy Awards,been nominated for even more of
them. I mean, the programs he's worked
on are so iconic and there's so much to talk about.

(01:38):
I don't think we can fit it intoone show.
But first and foremost, welcome to the fantastic world, Robert
Alvarez. I'm glad and happy to be here.
Thank you. What we usually do, especially
with such a vast body of work and I don't know if you mind me
saying it's over 50 years of experience in the industry.

(02:00):
I'd like to start back when you began your interest in art and
animation and how you got into the business.
I had an interest in animation from an early age because I like
most kids from my era. I watched a lot of television
and I watched a lot of cartoons and I also read comic books and
I liked comic books and I was watching cartoons a lot as well

(02:23):
as old movies. And then my parents moved to
California from New York in 1959.
I still have the interest and all that.
And I met a good friend of mine who you probably have heard of,
Tim Walker. We met in the 7th grade and Tim
knew where Hanna Barbera was andwe would constantly ride our

(02:44):
bikes after school to Hanna Barbera UPA format films and
just look through the trash. And whatever was in the trash
that we found, we would take as far as drawings and cells and
all that. And that kind of got me
motivated thinking about, you know, animation might be
something fun to do or might be something I could do.
And eventually in 1967, I was accepted to Shannard Art

(03:09):
Institute 2, which is now calledCal Arts.
But this Chenard school was downtown, and Tim and I both
started there at the same year in 67.
And in 1968, while I was still at Chenard, I got my first job
in animation, working at Fred Calvert Studio on the Banana
Split Show, which had Arabian Nights and Three Musketeers as

(03:31):
the cartoons. And that was where I started in
1968. For those who aren't as familiar
with the Banana Splits AdventureHour, the Banana Splits for live
action and they did comedy routines and songs between what
was largely animated shows. The show was about 80% and I
would say 70 because there was Arabian Nights, 3 Musketeers and

(03:55):
later micro venture and also danger Island, which was the
Richard Donner directed the adventure series.
Very groovy, Lots of zooms, but it was mostly animated and gosh,
that's quite a way to get started.
Is on a. It was just lucky because a
friend of mine who was also going to Shanar at the same time

(04:15):
and was a bunch of us that went to the same high school and just
happened to get into Shanar. He called me up 1 summer, it was
in 68 and he said hey, you stillwant to get into animation?
I said sure. And he's the one that was
already working at Fred Calvert's and he said come on
over and meet Fred, which I did.And he just sat me in a room

(04:36):
with two drawings and two extremes and said yeah, you do
the in between. He came back in and checked in
in about 20 minutes or half an hour.
I said OK, you can start tomorrow and that's how I got
in. I didn't realize they did
additional animation and banana splits, but that's pretty
common. Disney would farm out where is
far back as the 30s. Farm at work.
Yeah that's surrounding studios because the load was so huge.

(04:59):
Also Fred Calvert that year I believe Hot Wheels was one of
their shows. Well, he didn't do Hot Wheels
pantomime pictures. Did.
Oh, sorry. Pantomime did Hot Wheels and
Skyhawks and they set up a little studio for anyone that's
listening to this that is familiar with North Hollywood.
They had us a secondary studio set up above the El Portal

(05:21):
Theater on Lancashire Blvd. where Skyhawks and Hot Wheels
were done. And I remember going over there
once to see if I could maybe getsome freelance.
I didn't get any freelance, but I know some people that worked
on those shows and they were lowbudget shows, you know, limited
the amount of cells that they were going to be used and all
that. And I never worked on it and I
don't believe Fred had anything to do with it.

(05:42):
Fred Calvert did then, I know this for sure, the Rodger Ramjet
show a couple of years before. Yeah, He was production manager
on Rodger Ramjet for pantomime, and they were at a different
location. And that was after he had
already left Disney because he and his wife Kimmy were
assistants at Disney in the 50s.After Rodger Ramjet, just about

(06:04):
that time, shortly thereafter heset up his own studio and then
he was like doing all kinds of things and commercials and, and
the year before I started in 67,he did subcontract work on the
George of the Jungle show for Jay Ward.
How did you get involved in Yellow Submarine?
Because I was working at Fred Calvert and it was just being in

(06:27):
the right place at the right time.
There were two animators that were there, Ron Campbell and
Dwayne Crowler, and they got subcontracted work from the
production company in England because Ron had actually worked
on The Beatles TV show while he was still in Australia and so
they already knew him. So they subcontracted work to

(06:48):
Ron and Dwayne and what happenedwith those guys was they tended
to be two false, you know, if they would do other things.
Dwayne was notorious for that, doing whatever he needed to get
done at the last possible moment.
So because I was at Fred's and they got behind schedule, it was
like a thing where I guess as a favor to Ron and Dwayne, I don't

(07:10):
know how they worked out the payon that, but he said, OK,
everybody's got to jump on and help these guys out.
So there was a short period of time where I worked on Yellow
Submarine doing in betweens. It was just being in the right
place at the right time. Do you remember the sequence you
worked on or sequences? Yeah, it was the splotching
sequence at the end of the film where the roses start popping up

(07:31):
on Max and Cheap Rumini. I don't have a lot of vivid
memories of the actual work, butI do remember drawing those tiny
roses on the characters. We're talking now 55 years ago
or more, You know, let's do the math. 68 from where it is now,
it's like it's over 55 years. Wow though, that being attached
to something that iconic, That'spretty cool though.

(07:52):
Then you worked on the backgrounds for a personal
favorite of mine, Winky Dink andYou in 69.
That was just being in the rightplace at the right time.
And it wasn't like they were a complicated subject matter
because they were really simple.The background, they were done
with markers. So, you know, you go from the
layouts and you trace layout andyou're coloring with Marcus.
It was really simple stuff. I didn't do a real lot.

(08:15):
It's just that, once again, right place at the right time
and helping out some people thatwere already working.
Fred Calvert's was set up originally.
It was a small house, not too small, but it was a small house
that was originally a farmhouse.And on the same piece of
property, there was a apartment building that had two units up
and two units down. So people rented space there.

(08:37):
That's why Ron and Dwayne renteda room and Norm Godfritsen, Al
Wilsbach, lots of other people would come and go and rent space
there and do their work. Fred got the contract, I guess,
to do, because I don't remember all the details to do those.
I can't remember who it was, butfrom New York to do the stuff,
it wasn't very long. It was a short period of time

(08:59):
and I don't think anybody that was working there at the time
really cared very much about theproject.
But for me, in those days, I didn't care what I was working
on. I just wanted to work.
I wanted to get into the business which I was in and I
just was having fun because I finally got into what I wanted
to do for a long time. Wiki Dink was a unique show.
First of all, it was made originally 1957.

(09:22):
It was a live show with Mae Questel as Wiki Dink's voice and
Jack Berry is the host. And it was not even really
animated, they just moved cutouts around and you you
bought a magic screen by mail. Sometimes they sold them in the
stores and a set of crayons, magic crayons and filled in.
It was unbelievably cool at the time, filling in like a bridge

(09:45):
if they needed to walk across. And then 69 when it was, it was
even cooler because it was a color cartoon made at rock
bottom prices. Yeah, like you said, you could
tell. But it is sort of charming.
Magic Marker backgrounds, you know, lines and colors and one
voice actor, Lionel Wilson, who was all the voices on that and
on Tom. Terrific.

(10:06):
No music except a theme that came off an old Decker record
with Jack Berry singing. Al Cazal I think was the.
Al Cazal. Cazal, Yeah.
Yeah, he was from New York. Yeah, So it was a New York
production, but they formed out that animation.
I never knew that. I never knew that the animation
was done in LA, but it's on video.
It's probably on YouTube. Raise my kids on it another

(10:28):
generation. They called it the first
Interactive TV show. Winky Ding and you Winky Ding
and me always have a lot of fun together.
Winky Ding and you. Winky Ding and me.

(10:51):
We. Are.

(11:19):
I haven't seen any of that stuffin, well, it's 100 years.
It's not elaborate, but it's kind of cute.
I have artwork from the stuff that was done at Fred Keller's.
I have some backgrounds and somecells and stuff, but it's not
something I'm dying to see again.
Because what happens a lot of times, at least for me, in
animation, you work on what's presented to you, what's in

(11:41):
front of you, not necessarily what you would like to do.
And then years go by and you might see something on
television and you go, oh, God, that looks awful.
And you know, it might bring back memories.
But for me, that was just another opportunity.
I only worked for Calvert for two seasons, 68 and 69.
And for all you boys and girls out there are listening to this,

(12:05):
he was not the most honest guy. I was grossly underpaid the
first year, but I was so naive and wide eyed at Babylon I
didn't realize what I should have been paid.
I don't believe Calvert ever didanymore work for Disney unless
it might have been a commercial or something, which I don't
think he did, but he did other things based on some other live

(12:26):
action shows. And the last project I know
because I did a little bit of work for him on it was the
Muhammad Ali show. I am the greatest for NBC, which
was terrible. And he did I guess the
unforgivable thing as far as NBCwas like he pocketed too much
the money and then they were notpleased.
And that was the last animation project to the my nose, except

(12:48):
for when we Fast forward. He was a guy that worked with
the bonding companies for features because he did that for
one of the Hannibal Bears features.
So the last thing I know he had anything to do with animation
was when he got control of the thief and the cobbler because
the insurance company took it away from Dick Williams.
Because Williams have worked on it for so long and spent so much
money, they finally said that's it, you're done.

(13:08):
And Calvert got the gig and finished it up in North
Hollywood. But I didn't do any work for him
on that. So I just worked for him on 6869
and then that little bit of workon Muhammad Ali's show and that
was it. In 1970 I started working for
Tony Love, Bill Hutton and Ed Love.
Even the cobbler had a long and painful history.
It was the pet project of Richard Williams and he was so

(13:31):
meticulous that it never really got done.
And then it was finished withouthim.
And I think originally they called it Arabian Nights to tie
in with Aladdin. It had a different title
originally. I think the final release was
Thief and the Cobbler. But there's a lot of stories
about, you know, depending on who you listen to about Richard
Williams. You can look at a lot of videos
on YouTube about them, but you're not going to get the real

(13:51):
story about the real man. I think.
I think he was a victim of his own doing because he was
constantly changing and changingand changing stuff and doing
stuff and working on it. And he spent, I don't know,
maybe 20 plus years working on athing.
They finally said that's it. Yeah, just like you're mentioned
earlier, procrastination, being too OCD on a project and not

(14:14):
letting it get done can be devastating as well.
And it's kind of a balancing actto say I got to step back now
because this has to get done otherwise it can fall or your
your organization can get in trouble for that.
It's different in TV animation. You don't have the luxury of
time. Everything I've ever worked on
in TV, most of my career was TV.I think I worked maybe 5 or 6

(14:38):
features, none of which were except for Yellow sub.
I would consider none of them very good.
But in TV it's always the deadline and you've always got
to finish your work by a certainamount of time because things
have to get finished. Shortly after I was started
working, things got sent to overseas studios to get finished
and all that. You just have to meet your

(14:58):
deadlines and you don't have theluxury of a feature where you
can spend two to three years. In TV, an animated half hour
show might get animated and fully animated by a good group
of animators probably in two weeks and it was into assistant
work, and then after that it wasink and paint and all that.
You just don't have the luxury of time.

(15:18):
One of the things that I had heard from, I think it was Spike
Brandt about some of the direct to video features is that it is
misunderstood that everything onATV or direct to video project
is animated overseas for the really intensely crucial
intricate things. Some of Hollywood's best

(15:39):
animators will still do animation, maybe not the in
betweens. And that's why when you watch a
feature length TV budgeted thing, there are moments that
are fluid, moments that are not.I would say at least, at least
and probably more. 90% of anything that's TV animated,
especially nowadays, it's not done here in LA.

(15:59):
It's just not done. It's too expensive, the things
that he's talking about. He might be talking about
something where they were producing a long form and they
had the ability and the budget to hire in some guys to come in
and do some animation that's notTV animation, even though it
might show up eventually on Warner Station or something like
that. In TV animation, especially
nowadays, it's just not the way it's done.

(16:21):
You have your pre production andthen the animations done in some
other country and then post production done back here that
started way back. Well, Jay Ward was the first one
that started it in 59. And then it became the norm in
the in the late 60s it started more and then by the 70s it was
being done almost everywhere with the exception of maybe

(16:41):
filmation. They were the last hold out.
And then eventually before they closed down, they were sending
their ink and paint out. But it's just not done here
anymore. And so if he's talking about a
long form where they've got the money and the time to do some
animation here, but that's. I think you're saying it better
than I did. I think what he was saying was

(17:01):
we were specifically talking, I think now that I remember, about
Tom and Jerry, Willy Wonka, and he said if for the Slugworth
sequence, which is a standout sequence, that was Dale Baer.
And I think that was the exampleof, yeah, it's farmed out, But
in those kind of features, Well,you worked on Scooby-doo on

(17:21):
Zombie Island, which had some incredible sequences and also
had standard animation, and thatwas a feature length.
Well, that was done before Cartoon Network opened up and
was in the late 90s. Hanna Barbera had been moved off
the lot because unfortunately Ted Turner merged with Time
Warner and that was the downfallof Hanna Barbera as far as I'm

(17:42):
concerned. And so we were on the 14th floor
of the Imperial Bank building and the producer that was Davis
Doy and I had done a lot of workwith Davis.
So we did it just like we had done all the other stuff.
Pre production stuff was like, you know, models, scripts,
storyboards, direction and all that.
Color keys, you know, BG keys and all that in LA.
And I don't know where it was sent because I don't remember.

(18:05):
And it was the same thing. Came back and then edit it and
maybe it was sent to a studio that did excellent work.
Honestly I haven't seen that in so long I can't even remember
anything about it. But that was just like ATV show
pre production, work overseas somewhere and then post
production. You'd be surprised how many
people really love that film. I was at Malton Fest that is run

(18:27):
by the Malton family, Leonard and Jesse and Alice.
And they screen films that they feel need to be seen more, you
know, lesser known, wonderful films from different eras.
And there was a whiteboard outside the Egyptian Theatre,
and they said put down your requests.
And I was surprised because I was thinking maybe Zombie Island

(18:50):
might be something, and someone had already written up there to
screen that in the theater maybemore than once.
So wow, that was kind of a nice thing.
Anyway, When did you get to Hanna Barbera originally?
Well, I did all of my work starting in 68 and through the
70s was Hanna Barbera work. I did some work for other
places, but I was doing a lot ofwork in the 70s for Tony Love,
Bill Hutton. They would do work for other

(19:12):
places, which because I was doing work for them, I got to
work on those projects. But in 1983, Hannah changed the
way things were getting done andhe decided he wasn't going to
use subcontractors in town. Prior to that, there were like
four or five subcontractors and I was doing work for about three
of them. And he said, OK, just bring them

(19:34):
in on staff, the animators. So in 83, I went on staff to
Hanna Barbera, but I was still working at home through the 80s
and into the early 90s. When I got the phone call from
Bill Hannah, he wanted me to help him do retakes on the
Jetson feature. And then I started working in
and then. So from that point on, I was

(19:55):
working in at Hanna Barbera until we moved off the lot and
all that. And then when we started Cartoon
Network, from day one I was working in there.
So the firm that you work for, mostly that was Tony Love, who
was part of Hanna Barbera. And did they become independent
at that point? What happened was Tony's father

(20:16):
was Ed Love. Ed Love was a great old animator
that started at Disney in 1930 and he was a fantastic animator,
did a lot of work for Walter, Lance, MGM and a lot of other
places in 1970. I think what happened was
probably Tony Love and Bill Hutton said, hey look, Hannah's
subcontracting worked out. We can do this.
We can make a lot of money because what they did was Hannah

(20:36):
would pay X amount of dollars per foot to get work done.
So those guys were taking X amount of dollars off the top
and then paying a few whatever it was, per foot to get the work
done by people like myself. So they opened up their
subcontracting company with Ed. For a couple years.
Ed was a partner, but then somehow they pushed Ed out the
door even though he continued working for him because Tony was

(20:59):
his son. And they did a lot of work for
Hannah Barbera through the 70s and maybe into the early 80s, I
can't remember. And then they also did a lot of
work for other places. And they also did some of their
own stuff that they got on to syndication.
I did a lot of work for them during that decade of the 70s.
I think Ray Patterson may have done that too in the 60s because

(21:19):
yes he did. Alice in Wonderland has in the
credits Grant Ray, which I thinkis Lawrence.
Yeah, he had a his partner and they had a company they started
and I think it was in the late 50s, but he closed up, you know,
when they did the Spider Man show.
I think they went belly up afterthat.
Because I remember when I was trying to get into the business

(21:40):
in 67, I was already starting. I knew where their studio was.
It was on Lancashire Blvd. rightacross the street from
Universal, and I went knocking on the door.
Of course, no one was there. I didn't realize that they had
closed. And then I think he might have
freelanced around doing various things, and eventually he came
into Hanna Barbera when Nick Nichols left to go to Ruby
Spears. And then he basically took over

(22:01):
what Nick was doing. But yeah, he had his own company
for a brief period. It's kind of cool when you think
about you had UPA, which was I think the building's still
there. No, it's gone.
Oh, it's gone. It used to be behind the
smokehouse. It was right next to the
smokehouse, right next to the parking lot there.
And what happened to UPAA, lot of people don't realize is that

(22:22):
building was designed by a very famous architect, John Lautner,
who was a student of Frank LloydWright.
And it was an unusual studio. And it was really nice if you
could see inside, and I've got abook, a lot of photos of the
interiors. It was not like any other
animation studio. Roy Disney Junior bought the
place when Hank Saperstein was basically closing everything
down and selling the property. Disney basically leveled it and

(22:45):
put up another building, something else.
So that building is long gone, but it's in the same spot where
UPA used to be, which is right next to the Smokehouse, which is
right across from Warner Brothers.
So that's where Shamrock Holdings was the.
Yeah, thank you, Roy, for destroying a piece of art.
Well, he helped restore Disney. At least.

(23:06):
You know, it keeps getting restored every few years.
But at the time, that's what he was doing, and he did it two
times. But the Smokehouse is where Jim
Backus and the artists would go to have drinks before a session
or have lunch. It's still really good.
It's a historic place. And you mentioned also where
format was Playhouse Pictures. Playhouse was in Hollywood

(23:29):
format. Films used to be on like Laurel
Canyon, right near the corner ofLaurel Canyon and Riverside Dr.,
which was right near Tim's house.
So it was really simple for us. We could ride our bikes over
there, go back, and they actually were nice because they
actually let us in once to watchthem work.
And so they were really pleasantpeople there.
And it was a small studio, two-story building, but we would

(23:52):
go there periodically to check the dumpster in the in the
parking lot to see if there's anything.
I have a few drawings that I pulled from that period.
And, but they weren't the only place that we would go to.
But sometimes, like my dad droveus once on a Saturday afternoon
down to Hollywood so we could jump into the dumpster at
Clampett Studio and pull drawings out.
And I still have those drawings.And he also would drive us

(24:15):
sometimes on a Saturday over to Hanna Barbera so we didn't have
to ride our bikes and, you know,get stuff.
But we were constantly doing that.
And then once we had our our ownlicense, you know, we could
drive then it was like, you know, we sometimes would drive
over. We were in high school by that
time. But sometimes like we would
drive over on a Saturday or something that and check some

(24:36):
stuff out. But when we were young we were
doing that constantly, riding our bikes to those studios.
The idea of dumpster diving sounds odd perhaps to some, but
it was a thing that a lot of people did because at the time,
and this is also historic, a lotof The MGM library is, I think
the four O 5 or the one O 1. You know, it's paved, It was

(24:59):
paved over, they destroyed it. A swimming pool was loaded with
old materials and a dumpster dive you'd yield not only sells
original production cells, but sometimes real bills of film.
They didn't have places to storethem and they didn't think it
would matter. You know, sales were a dollar at
Disneyland. They were not a thing by the 80s

(25:21):
and suddenly you're getting catalogs of it and now it's
another industry. At the time, it wasn't as big of
a deal. No, the only place that kept
stuff consistently was Disney. But all the other studios, it
was of no value to them so they would throw stuff.
I'm sure there were plenty of times if we had had the
knowledge to get driven down to some of the other studios we

(25:42):
would have found a lot more stuff.
But they threw the stuff away. Hanna Barbera would throw their
cells out as soon as a show aired.
Then they knew it was safe. They didn't have to keep the
artwork. They threw in the dumpster cells
constantly, but for some reason,I don't know why, and they
obviously threw it away eventually They didn't throw the
paper drawings out. What they did with that I don't

(26:05):
know, but eventually they must have got rid of it because I
know when I was working in HannaBarbera, they had a warehouse
next to the studio there and it would have been there.
You would have been able to findthe stuff UPA was throwing paper
drawings out, but they almost never threw cells away.
On rare occasions you would findsomething that they would throw
away on a cell format was the same way, paper drawings all the

(26:27):
time. But I never saw any cells in the
trash. And I'm saying it never
happened. And I'll tell you something
about The MGM which you mentioned.
In the early 70s, there was a security guard.
This is a story that was explained to me and and my
friend Tim and my other friend Mark Hauser.
We would all go to Eddie Brandt's, which was a place that

(26:48):
I don't think exists anymore andhis original location was on
Lankershim and we were buying lobby cards and movie posters,
all that. But a security guard somehow
connected up with, I think Eddie, and he had recovered in a
bunch of the animation art from the old MGM studio, because it
was probably still sitting around and they were going to
throw it away. And he brought it to Eddie and
probably sold Eddie. And then Eddie was selling it to

(27:09):
guys like Tim and and Mark. But that stuff, you know, all
the stuff that was done at MGM was eventually probably trashed.
The same thing happened at Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers eventually burned a lot of their artwork in
the early 60s because they wanted to make room for some
accounts or something. They got rid of the stuff so
most places were throwing it away because it had no value to

(27:30):
them and the only one that really cared about it was kids
like myself. Yeah, and Disney more than any
other company. And starting in 1970 when Dave
Smith started the archives, theyhave worked really hard to not
only restore things, but locate things, catalog things because
there are assets and all these assets can be monetized over and

(27:53):
over again. So it was wise.
Now, the building you're describing, that was kind of the
warehouse to the left of the studio, and that's the LA
Fitness now. LA Fitness was the annex, and
that was a pretty good that was production.
Tony, which way you're looking at it from the street or the
parking lot? If you're looking from the
parking lot, it's the building on the left, which is now
completely different. They eliminated the warehouse

(28:13):
and made it into a thing called Orbit City, but originally it
was the warehouse. And in the warehouse, sometimes
would probably furniture and allkinds of stuff.
But Hanna Barbera just did not keep a lot of the stuff because
it was of no value to them. I guess if they tried to store
everything that they ever did, they would need a warehouse just
for all that stuff. There was no value so they just

(28:36):
tossed everything. They were always moving at such
a clip. You know, Hanna Barbera moved as
fast as the 101 traffic through production and they didn't stop
to, I think really craft their brand and their history enough.
They tried, but there was other things they had to do.

(28:56):
You know, there were other companies that had dedicated
people to that that wasn't so, you know, would cost money and
it would again, would they got to keep the doors running.
They got to keep people working.There were certain people that
worked all the time at the studio because they were
considered that, you know, I'll give you an example.
Ewo Takamoto, I guarantee you, after he established himself
there, he wasn't getting laid off when there was between

(29:18):
seasons because he would be developing stuff.
There were a number of other people just like that, but it
was all about getting the work done as quick as they could and
under budget or within the budgets.
And then and then back in when, when I started, the way the
show's work was like this, you'dwork six months and you'd be off
6 months collecting unemployment.

(29:39):
Or if you went around town and maybe hustled and found some
commercial house that was in, get some work on a commercial or
something. But not everybody worked all
year long. And that didn't start changing
until probably later on in the late 70s.
But even into the mid 80s, it was still seasonal.
Because I remember probably like85 and 86, I was working on

(30:01):
Hannibal Bear shows, but I wouldget laid off when there was
nothing to do and you'd wait forthe shows to start up again the
following year. It's.
Kind of like actors in a series that they're not sure if it's
going to get picked up again or there's going to be a new series
and you have that hiatus period and they're hustling to do
pilots. You're always trying to get your
next gig because it's a gig system and hoping that things

(30:25):
will come along. So it's a great career, but it
takes the fortitude of living that way.
I do think that they became morelike that when Taft bought them
around 67, because according to the Hanna Barbera Conversations
book, they found out when Taft bought them that while the
company had a lot of monetization potential, they

(30:47):
also kind of did what Disney did.
They spent way too much money onespecially the prime time shows,
and so they had to find ways of making the animation even more
modest, especially after Huck Finn, which was wildly
expensive. So that's kind of why you saw
that change in the 70s. For that reason, they had to
answer to, I mean, Hanna and Barbera were in charge, but they

(31:10):
had to defer to the networks andthe Taft and all that.
You lived through some pretty dramatic moments because Taft
became Great America, and then that folded, and then the first
step was Turner coming in and buying the library and hiring a
boss over Hanna Barbera. Yeah, when Turner came in,

(31:32):
that's when Fred Cyber came in to run the studio.
But Bill and Joe was still there.
Is this? But they really had no say in
anything. They were getting paid and the
studio was being run by Fred. Jane Barbera was still there for
a while and then they pushed herout the door and they got rid of
the writers. And prior to that, the writers

(31:52):
were king going way back to, youknow, the 60s.
They were deciding everything. And then Fred changed all that
and he started eventually havingartists create stuff and produce
things. And the writers went out the
door and they merged with Time Warner.
And then you could see the handwriting on the wall, how

(32:14):
it's going to change. Because then Warner Brothers
became the studio that was in charge or the company that was
in charge. And right after that, they sold
the property and they moved us all out of the Hannah Barbera,
off that lot to Sherman Oaks, where Warner Brothers was
already established. Yeah, and the 1A cartoon series
that Fred developed was going tobe artist driven in the way the

(32:36):
cartoons used to be. And those really, really popular
series originated at the Hanna Barbera studio.
Right. Yeah, yeah, I worked on a lot of
those shorts. I probably worked on more of
those shorts than anybody else because I was there already
directing. And so I would get assigned to
people's shorts to direct them because they were novice.

(32:58):
They didn't. They wouldn't know how to do it.
And then I also did two of my own shorts there and that's
where you got the series like Dexter's lamp, pop up Girls, Cow
Chick and Johnny Bravo, Kurtz the Cowardly Dog.
They all came out of what, a cartoon series?
Why don't we talk about the stuff that you look back on and
say that was kind of cool to work on?

(33:20):
Well, early on, even the stuff that I look at now that I don't
think is all that great, it was fun at the time because I was
enjoying the career of working in animation, which I had wanted
to do when I was in the 7th grade, that I wanted to become
an animator. And it was fun.
But when I look back on my past,there's some shows that I I
liked more than others. I worked on a lot of stuff that

(33:42):
I did not like. A lot of stuff.
Pick any of the shows that I worked on for Filmation and I, I
don't care for those. I did not like work for that
studio because I always tell people Filmation was like high
school with ashtrays. They were very strict,
especially the last location they were in.
There was only two doors, a front one and a back one and
everybody had a card key and that was your time card and if

(34:04):
you were 5 minutes late you weredocked and you couldn't make up
the time. And they were just ridiculously
strict. I didn't particularly like any
of the product that I ever worked on for them.
But and Hanna Barbera, I liked The Smurfs.
I thought it was a an easy show to work on and I like that.
I like the water cartoon series because that was a good I like
the two shorts that I got to do that were my own creation.

(34:26):
I enjoyed working on Dexter's Lab and Powerpuff Girls and Cow
and Chicken. They were all excellent shows.
I especially like my favorite show probably I worked on was
Samurai Jack and I liked Star Wars Clone Wars for Gendi,
Symbiotic Titan for Gindi, and then when he came back to the
studio to revive Samurai Jack tofinish off the story, I worked

(34:47):
on that. So there are a lot of shows that
I worked on in the past that I like very much, but I would say
that I can't recall anything in the 70s that I worked on.
I'm like, wow, that was great. It was just keeping your head
above water and working because I think a lot of the stuff that
was done in the 70s was really not very good, even into the
80s, But I was working and that's all I cared about.
What? Were the the two specials that

(35:09):
were yours? Oh, you mean what?
A cartoon. There were two that you created.
Yeah, the first one I did was called Pizza Boy, and the title
of it was No Tip. And for anyone listening to this
and they haven't seen it, you can go to YouTube and find it.
It's on YouTube. We've got to deliver these
pizzas anywhere in 5 minutes or less.
Hey, hey, no, no, no, not aroundthe block, but anywhere.

(35:32):
If you expect to make big chips,make big, big chips like this,
then you've got to deliver thesepizzas in 5 minutes or less.
Make big chips. Do you hear me?
Yes, Dan. And the other one was Tumbleweed
Texts and the title of his cartoon was School Days DAZE.

(35:53):
And now class. Today we will start with
arithmetic. Timmy Precious was 5732 * 26149
thousand 32. Sure, you give the easy ones to
this little buckaroo. Damn.
Fair. All right.
Fire door? What is 1 + 1?
One take away plus care finger add the thumb.

(36:18):
That's a tough one. Say Timmy, can you help me?
What's the correct solution to that mystery 55 you?
Didn't do the homework. I wrote them, I did the
storyboards, I art directed them, character design, more
than half of the layouts which were practically animating it
and I also directed them. So that was a lot of fun because

(36:42):
once you got greenlit, it was like something that you created
and no one was going to tell youyou can't do that.
So that was really enjoyable. I like doing that.
Isn't that something that every once in a while, those little
golden moments of bliss when youget a project where it's like
this is coming along so beautifully and I feel like so
fulfilled because a lot of projects are either very fast or

(37:05):
it gets changed where you don't recognize it that.
I'll tell you something I would tell a lot of young people when
they would come into my office when I was working in at Cartoon
Network, they would always bringin the new interns to talk to me
because I was the old Fossil I'dbeen around so long.
And I would always tell them thesame thing.
Once you get into the business, you don't always work on

(37:27):
something you like. You work on what is available
and what's presented to you. If you only work on shows that
you like, you're going to be very poor because that's just
not the way the business is. Some people might be enjoying
every little thing that they do and thinking every little thing
they do is great. But I worked on a lot of shows
that I forgot. I simply forget about them until

(37:48):
someone says it and I go, Oh yeah, I worked on that.
It was terrible. You just do what you can.
I also did half hour specials and one of them was I think
nominated and I watched this every year.
The town that Santa forgot with Dick Van Dyke.
Yep, Davis Doy was the producer of that.
When I worked with Davis at Hanna Barbera, it was always the

(38:08):
same crew he was producing. Bob Onorado, who has since
passed away, was working on it myself.
I was doing the animation direction.
Jim Stenson would be Lance Fawk,and the usual suspects were
always working on whatever the projects were.
That was nice. I like that.
Come here, my little ones, Come take my hand.
I think you're both old enough to understand this Christmas

(38:31):
story I want to tell. So listen, grandchildren, and
listen well about a boy not mucholder than you who wanted
everything from Santa, too. It was enjoyable.
It was OK. And the same is true of when I
worked for Davis when we did Capital Critters because that
was slightly different in the sense that we were now working

(38:53):
in connection with 20th Century Fox or I should say Steven
Bochco production. And I worked with the executive
producer closely. Nat Malden and I would have
meetings all the time over at onthe Fox lot with Nat Malden
going over the storyboard. I enjoyed that.
I'm not saying it's a great show, but I I enjoyed working on

(39:15):
it. I I enjoyed working on SWAT
casts with Davis, another show that I don't think is
particularly all that great, butthere are a lot of people out
there that like it and. Are fancy and.
People. Who absolutely love it.
That has a huge following. You know, I will say something
about because when you were talking about scooby-doo and
Zombie Island, I think you were bringing up, I tell this about
Scooby all the time to people. Scooby is like a vampire.

(39:38):
You can't kill it. It's never gone away and it
never because it makes money. I never liked working on Scooby.
I animated on some Scooby shows,I worked on directing on a
number of them and I never, especially when I had to draw
those characters, I never liked them.
Once again, just another job of what was presented in front of
you and you just do the work. Yeah, but scrappy.

(40:00):
I hated him, didn't like them. Think about this.
Scrappy Doo is really small in stature compared to all the
other characters. So when the characters are
walking, the human characters walk at a certain pace and so
does Scooby and all that. But because Scrappy is so short,
his legs have to move a lot faster to keep up with everybody

(40:20):
else. You know, you're always figuring
this stuff out, especially if it's on a pan, because you have
to figure out the pan speed for all the characters and they're
not all walking at the same rate.
Because if the distance between the front foot and the back foot
on, let's say Shag is of inch and Scrappy Doo is so small his
feet got to move left it, it wasjust like a math problem.

(40:41):
I just never cared for those characters.
But I think I would have liked them if I was like a really
young person when they first came on telling because I know
to this day there are people, I see them on Facebook all the
time that worship scooby-doo andthink it's still the greatest
thing ever. But by the time Scooby came out
in for the first time in. 69. Oh see, I was already 2021 so it

(41:05):
just didn't appeal to me becauseI wasn't a little kid.
But I can understand why other people like it.
Scooby has the durability and there are some that say, oh,
it's always the same, but that'sactually formula worked real
well for the B movies in Hollywood.
And the entry and a mystery is aformula.
The inherent mystery and the horror like Abbott and Costello

(41:27):
meet Frankenstein is a surefire thing.
And I think the combination of two and sometimes the self
parody of the ability to laugh at the format, it just goes on
and on and on and on. So I think that's why.
But you worked with other classic characters.
You did, Yogi. The Easter Bear and the Jetsons
the later Jetsons. Yogi, the Easter Bear special

(41:49):
was once again with Davis. It turned out nice.
I see clips of it every once in a while and it's like nice
animation. I don't think Mr. Ranger's going
to like this, Yogi. Don't worry, Boo Boo boy, I'm
only borrowing it for a little while.
Besides, where's your Easter spirit?
I've got the Easter spirit, I just don't want to get into
trouble. You worry too much, boob.

(42:11):
Easter is a celebration, Yes, Celebrate springtime with life
starting anew. It also happens to be the start
of camping season. But it's not the campers that
make you happy, Yogi. It's their picnic baskets.
Right you are, chum. But right now I'm in the mood
for some Easter candy. The Ranger won't like you taking

(42:31):
that candy, Yogi. Yeah, I'll only take what they
can spare. Now it's lunchtime for this
Easter bear. Yeah.
I have a feeling that that animation on that was done at
Cuckoo's Nest in Taiwan. I can't really recall, but yeah,
that was nice. And I worked on the the newer
Jetsons that were done in the sometime in the early 90s.
I can't remember maybe. It was like 85 and then the

(42:54):
movie was I think 90 or. 90 Well, I worked on this stuff
that was the new syndication stuff and not very good because
they only did a few of them in house and then it was strictly
directing stuff. I did animate and work on the
Jetson feature, but I also work a lot with Bill Hannah.
I was at working at home one dayand the phone rings and I pick
out and it's Hannah. I later found out he got my

(43:16):
number from Ray Patterson because I've been doing a lot of
work with Ray. And Hannah said his typical
voice is, hey, would you mind coming in and helping me out on
the Jetson feature? Well, asking you was like really
telling you when it came from Bill Hannah.
So I said, yeah, sure. So then I started work inside
the studio and I would meet withhim usually on every day, and he

(43:38):
would go over whatever the dailies were for the feature on
the flatbed, and he would tell me what he wanted change.
And then I would have to get those scenes and change them.
Which presented a problem down the road with one animator who
had a really bad fit came into my room and yelled and screamed
at me. But I worked with him on the
Jetson feature and it was nice. At that point, Hannah was

(44:00):
already slipping because, you know, he had Alzheimer's.
But he was the exceptions of therule with most people.
The Alzheimer's, he was really pleasant at that point.
He wasn't agitated, he didn't get angry or he was really nice.
So when I worked with him on theJetson feature, he was really
the pleasant Mr. Hannah, as opposed to when he was rough and

(44:21):
tough in the earlier days. Yeah.
So I worked on those and it was OK.
I also want to talk to you aboutmy son's favorite animated show.
1 of it. He loves several, but the
Regular Show? I worked on the Regular show
with JG and I had a really good time working on that series

(44:41):
because JG is genuinely one of the nicest people I've ever
worked with. I've never seen him angry.
He is really, really nice. He would give young people or
novice people opportunities thatno one else would.
He would see their artwork and say, hey, do you want to take a
test and see if you want to workin it.
He would give people chances. I always enjoyed working with

(45:04):
him. I worked on every episode of the
Regular Show, the exception of 1, and that was freelance to
somebody else. That particular person now is
doing what I used to do at Cartoon Network because you
know, Regular Show is being doneagain.
And that person is basically replaced me because I had
retired. Although JG asked me if I would

(45:27):
consider coming out of retirement to do it and, and I
told him and I'll be brief aboutthis because I don't want to
bring down the audience, but I said no, I've got some health
issues. I went through something serious
in the end of 2022. And I said no, you know, I'm,
I'm done. I don't want to have to deal
with the dress anymore, thank you very much.
But I, I just don't want to workanymore.

(45:47):
But I, I really liked the Regular Show because it was an
easy show. At times.
It actually made me laugh when Iwould listen to the animatics
and some of the characters. It was pleasant.
I enjoyed it. I think that comes across,
you're mentioning JG Quintel. Was it?
Yes. The general low key pleasantness

(46:07):
of the series and how the construction, it was like a
classic sitcom. It was like an I Love Lucy.
It would build with practically nothing.
We're setting up chairs for an event or you know, we're looking
at Avhs tap and it would build to complete insanity.
Sometimes it would go way off into the Galaxy, but it was so

(46:29):
beautifully story constructed and the characters were fun and
gosh, we both really liked it. The only sad thing is they never
released the complete series. I'm sure it's on streaming but
in the movie and my son talks about this all time they showed
the complete set on screen as ifthey were going, you know like
hint hint but it did not exist. I'm sure that eventually,

(46:53):
especially because of the new series Got that's they're doing
20 half hours of new half hours,which will be 40 episodes
because they're 11 minute episodes and they'll probably be
on in 2026. They'll probably release it.
But you know, I'm kind of surprised that there's nothing
available on DVD. I would have thought there are.
But they'll release that stuff eventually because, look,

(47:14):
Discoveries wants to make money,and if they can make money over
that, they will. I always got the impression with
Regular Show that Adventure Timewas sort of the breakout and got
a lot of attention, and that allowed Regular Show to quietly
more do what it wanted to do. I'll tell you an interesting
story about the Regular Show andhow I got on it.

(47:34):
They were doing a new series of shorts at Cartoon Network at the
time, and they're called the Cartoon Institute.
And JG pitched his Regular Show thing and was going to do it as
a pilot. And I was working on those at
the time. And so I was talking to them one
day down in the lobby and I said, hey, I heard you're going
to do a short, and I look forward to working on it.

(47:56):
And he said to me, oh, I'm sorry, I've already got somebody
else that's going to direct it, which was a kind of an
embarrassing situation. So later on that afternoon, I
went up to his office and I said, Gee, I'm sorry, I want to
apologize. They want to embarrass you and
make you feel weird or anything like that.
I'm you know, and I left it at that.
So they started working on the pilot and the guy that was going

(48:17):
to do the animation direction onit did the first half and then
for some reason couldn't finish.So then they came to me and
said, Hey, would you do the second-half?
And I said, sure, why not? And then that was what opened
the door for me because when thethe pilot came back and he had
to start calling retakes, he called me into the editing room
with him to help him call retakes, which then launched me
into doing work on the show. Just luck to some degree.

(48:40):
And I'm glad it worked out because I had a really good time
working with JG and the other people on the show.
And I think it's one of the goodshows.
And one of the episodes, I can'tremember which one, won an Emmy.
Yes I do, it was the egg one my favorite.
Good morning, Sir. Are you ready to order?
The excellent challenge, please.Sir, while I am contractually

(49:01):
bound by the laws of this restaurant to bring you the
omelette, I highly suggest ordering something else.
Bring me the omelette. Good luck.
Thanks. No, don't.

(49:22):
Let him finish. Step aside.
Why don't you make us bro? All right, keep him away from
Mordecai. Sorry Sir, time is up.

(49:48):
That was always my stand out. Yeah.
You know, look, it's always fun to win an Emmy.
That's an enjoyable experience. Having gone to the Emmy Awards,
being nominated a number of times.
It's no fun when you go there and you don't win, and then you
see somebody else win and you know, they're dancing around and
holding their trophy and you go,Gee, I wish I had won and get

(50:09):
depressed and all that. But once you win, it's great.
And I was very fortunate that I won six times.
Yeah, Star Wars Clone Wars was another one.
Samurai Jack and Star Wars CloneWar were the first two on these.
I won in the same night. Wow.
And you've also benefited from the fact that they come back to
you. They want your expertise.

(50:30):
And with some of the reboots, they don't always do that or
they might do it sparingly or they won't do it at all.
And I would think that's anotherpiece of wisdom.
Have people who could at least take a look at it and say, you
know, you know here how I can solve that, that problem because
we had that. I was very lucky because
especially once I was at Cartoon, I did a lot of

(50:52):
directing. When I was already at Hanna
Barbera, it was like, especiallya Cartoon Network.
I was established as a director there.
And so people would come to me and ask me to work on their show
or work on a pilot, whatever. And I would say sure.
I would always say yes. And I had a standard thing.
I would always tell them, I'll do whatever you want, tell me
what you want. I never went in there saying,
OK, you got to do this, you got to do that, and I'm going to

(51:14):
check. I never pushed them around.
I always gave them what they wanted, even if I thought what
they wanted was something I didn't necessarily agree with.
But it was their show, not mine.So I got a lot of people coming
to me because they would see something that was already a
success that I had worked on. So they figured, OK, let's ask
Robert. So I've got a lot of work that

(51:35):
way because I had a lot of experience.
I'm very grateful for that. I know I was already looked and
I'm happy that I had all those opportunities.
So the message to the young eager people is be prepared to
be delighted as well as bored with projects you're not
necessarily thrilled with. But take them.
Take them eagerly. Be sure to choose your battles

(51:57):
and defer as much as you possibly can.
It's very hard to do because youget attached to your work and
they're in charge and you have to respect that.
What I found is you can offer explanations of a choice or
offer another solution, but if they're set on it, don't push,
but don't whine later. It's a big mistake.

(52:18):
I tell people, especially young people that want to get into
businesses, First off, showing up as half the battle.
Make sure you're there, show up on time, do your work, don't
miss your deadlines, don't take long lunches, and don't goof
off. And you have to have discipline.
You get stuff done by sitting down at the desk and doing the
work. And here's an important thing,
try not to get people angry at you for at least the 1st 20

(52:41):
years of your career, because after that you're established.
But you don't want people being angry at you for something that
you may or may not have really deserved or done because you're
going to work with the same people over and over and over
again. But there's no avoiding if
somebody dislikes you for no explainable reason.
And that happened to me over several times over my career.

(53:02):
But you just have to get along with everyone, especially if you
don't like them. Do the job and get it done on
time and don't make trouble. And for those who are going
through that, there's a lot of good books on it.
Sometimes just holding your teeth closed when you would
rather say especially something clever, not a good idea.

(53:24):
I know you have a great presenceon the social media sharing a
lot of your art and the things you've done.
What else can we talk about? How people can enjoy what you're
doing now and the stuff that you've done.
Well, the only thing I could sayis I do have that Facebook page,
which you've obviously seen and I post on the Facebook page just
from my collection animation artthat I've accumulated over the

(53:45):
past going back to 1961, places I've worked and all that.
I don't do political stuff on myFacebook page.
I have a political point of viewin my life, but I don't express
that and I don't allow anyone else to express their political
point of view on my Facebook page because to do I just delete
it or I will make sure that you're blocked if you can be a
nuisance. It's just strictly for people

(54:06):
who have appreciation and love with the animation art.
And sometimes I tell stories about places I've worked or how
I acquired the art or something like that.
I'm not really on anything else.I'm not on Instagram, I'm not on
anything. And your audience has to realize
something. I'm an old fossil.
I'm 77 years old, so I'm not themost tech savvy person when it

(54:27):
comes to computers and all that.Facebook's easy to do and I have
those two shorts. If they want to look them up on
YouTube that I mentioned, they can reach me on Facebook if they
want to look at my stuff and send a frame request.
And also I'll answer questions if they send me questions
through messaging. As long as that's anything
that's ridiculous, you know, like I'm not going to tell you

(54:48):
what I was paid to work on any particular show or anything like
that. I would tell the story of what
my first salary was because it'sfunny now, but send me questions
and I answer people's questions all the time and give advice all
the time. I'm always happy to talk about
the career history of animation stuff that I've done.
Well, you're very generous with all of this and you have been

(55:11):
blessed. But we've been blessed with all
the great work you've done and the kind of person that you are.
And I'm so happy and so gratefulthat you took the time to share
so much of it. You're very kind and and nice to
ask me to do this and I feel like you.
I feel very blessed that I had avery nice, good career and I
consider myself very lucky. I thank also everybody for

(55:33):
listening. I thank you for subscribing
wherever you subscribe and liking where you like and
writing nice reviews. All of that means so very much.
And all I have to add now is until next time.
Bye bye. We hope you enjoyed the
fantastic world of Hannah and Barbera with Greg Airborne.
Please join us again and Many thanks for listening.