THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED Sorry for any inconvenience
Masters of Animation: The Three Tooners…Live!
Saturday, May 13,
5:30 p.m.
Please join us for a live interview with The Three Tooners! These gentlemen animated, wrote, and created characters for such series as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Wacky Races, The Super Friends, and dozens more! They will recount their time at Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s, and share personal stories about Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, and the other animators and writers who helped create Saturday Morning Cartoons!
Tony Benedict began at Disney as an in-betweener on Sleeping Beauty in 1956, then worked briefly for UPA as an assistant animator and storyboard artist before joining Hanna-Barbera in 1960. At Hanna-Barbera, Benedict was an animator, writer, and storyboard artist for such cartoons as The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Yogi Bear Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Top Cat, and many more. In 1962, Benedict penned the episode of The Jetsons in which their dog, Astro, is introduced. After
leaving Hanna-Barbera in 1967, he produced his own cartoon, Santa and the Three Bears (1970), and continued to animate well into the 1990s. Benedict is currently producing a documentary of his life in animation.
Jerry Eisenberg began his career in 1956 as an inbetweener at MGM, where he worked for just seven months until the animation unit closed. He then became assistant to Ken Harris at Warner Bros. until 1961 when he joined Hanna-Barbera. During his
time with the company, Eisenberg was an animator, storyboard artist, and character designer, working on the character Peter Potamus and designing numerous others for Wacky Races, Secret Squirrel, Super Friends, and many more. He left Hanna-Barbera in 1977 to join the Ruby-Spears animation studio, but later rejoined Hanna-Barbera in the 1990s.
Willie Ito joined Disney in 1954 where he became Iwao Takamoto’s assistant as an in-betweener on the “Lady” unit of Lady and the Tramp. He then worked alongside Chuck Jones at Warner Bros. before joining Hanna-Barbera during development of The Jetsons. Ito remained at Hanna-Barbera for the next fourteen years, where he worked on layouts and backgrounds for such series as The Flintstones and The Yogi Bear Show, and designed characters like the title character from Goober and the Ghost Chasers. Ito continues to draw and speak to audiences about his career at the leading animation studios.
Masters of Animation: A Special Series
Meet the masters of animation during this exciting series of talks with the field’s most accomplished visionaries. A reception will follow each program. Free for Museum members, or included with Museum admission.