Animation great William Hanna created along with his partner Joseph Barbera a cartoon empire that included #The Flintstones, #Yogi Bear, #Jonny Quest, #The Jetsons, #Scooby Doo, #Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, #Atom Ant, #The Banana Splits, among many others. The duo, whose partnership lasted over 50 years, also created the cat and mouse pair, #Tom and Jerry for MGM. Another Hanna-Barbera hallmark was the cartoons' sensational soundtracks created under the supervision of Hoyt Curtin. Rhino has issued a number of releases based around Hanna-Barbera cartoons including Hanna-Barbera Classics, Vol.1, Hanna-Barbera: Pic-A-Nic Basket of Cartoon Classics, The Flintstones: Modern Stone-Age Melodies, Scooby-Doo's Snack Tracks: The Ultimate Collection, and Toon Tunes: 50 Favorite Classic Cartoon Songs.

Hanna attended college before getting a job as a construction engineer. Losing his job because of the Great Depression, Hanna went into animation; first working for #Leon Schlesinger's Pacific Art and Title. #Schlesinger would later work at Warner Bros.' cartoon department on their #Looney Toons series. In 1930, Hanna went to work for Harmon-Ising Studios on #Looney Toons and #Merry Melodies series as a writer, lyricist, and composer. Hanna met Barbera in 1937 when both worked for MGM's animation department. Their cartoon creation #Tom and Jerry won seven Academy Awards and was featured in a classic live action/animation movie scenes with Gene Kelly in #Anchors Aweigh and #Esther Williams in #Dangerous When Wet. When MGM closed their animation department, the two decided to go in business for themselves.

Starting their own Hanna-Barbera productions in the late '50s, the produced the #Huckleberry Hound and Friends TV series; which was the first animated series to win an Emmy. The duo also created the first, successful prime time cartoon series with #The Flintstones, a long-running Top 20 hit in the '60s; thus laying the foundation for other nighttime cartoons as #Rocky and Bullwinkle, #The Simpsons, and #Futurama.

At the age of 90, William Hanna died in his north Hollywood home on March 22, 2001. ~ Ed Hogan, Rovi