JOHNNY HART DIES AT 76

Johnny Hart's B.C.

It is sad that more and more significant people of the golden era of cartoons and animation are passing away. This past weekend saw the death of Johnny Hart, creator of the beloved comic strip B.C. He was 76 when he suffered a fatal stroke on Saturday while he was at his drawing table.

B.C. began its forty-nine year run on February 17, 1958 and is one of the longest running comic strips continually drawn by its original creator. In fact, Hart drew the daily strip up until the day he died!

The cartoon follows B.C., a caveman whom Hart says is modelled after himself. Along with his friends, Peter, Wiley, Clumsy Carp, the Fat Broad, the Cute Chick, Curls, Thor, and Grog, they live their daily prehistoric lives together contemplating life. The jokes often involve puns, dry wit and topical humour. While they live in caveman days, there are many out of context references to modern things like Wal-Mart and the United States.

Hart often brought his religion into the strips which has brought some controversy surrounding his Christian beliefs. The Easter 2001 strip below had Jewish readers complaining that Hart thought Christianity was above their religion. Hart later stated that he was trying to pay tribute to both religions.


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Johnny Hart will be missed. His legacy lives on through the many cartoonists that Hart's work has influenced.

SNEAKY PETE KLEINOW (1935-2007)

Another great animator has passed away. On January 6, Pete Kleinow passed away at the age of 72. He was best known in the animation world for his stop-motion work on Gumby, Davey & Goliath, and the Pilsburry Dough-Boy. Pete wrote the theme song for Gumby

He left animation to pursue a career in alt-country and rock. He became quite a well-known guitarist with his band the Flying Burrito Brothers and worked with many famous musicians including John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and Ringo Starr, just to name a few.

In 1981, Pete went back into the world of film and created wonderful special effects for The Empire Strikes Back, Gremlins and the Terminator movies.

JOSEPH BARBERA: 1911-2006

We've decided to take a break from our Christmas themes today to mention the passing of one of animation's great contributors, Joseph Barbera.

You know the name because of his partnership with William Hanna (Hanna-Barbera). Barbera was the actual cartoonist of the two. Hanna had a very good sense of comedic timing, but apparently wasn't much of an artist. Together they produced some of the most popular, long-lasting and award winning cartoons in animation history. Their first joint project was Puss Gets the Boot (the very first Tom and Jerry film from 1930). This was the first of fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons to be nominated for Academy Awards.

The team was put in charge of MGM's animation department in 1955 and two years later they formed their own animation studio (due to the fact that MGM closed their animation division). As Hanna-Barbera Productions they produced The Flinstones, Jonny Quest, and The Jetsons along with many others. They perfected the technique of limited animation which made production faster and allowed them to charge the networks less money for their cartoons.

Joseph Barbera died on December 18th, 2006 at the age of 95 after an amazing 70 year animation career. His cartoons are some of the most recognizable and popular animation icons of the past 50 years, and they will continue to be watched and loved for many years to come.