My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century

As the cartoonist who invented Tom and Jerry, the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and Scooby-Doo, Joe Barbera knows the story line needs suspense. And so his autobiography, My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century, gives each chapter a cliff-hanger. Will the Kellogg's Corn Flakes executives like Yogi Bear? Will the network bosses buy the Flintstones? Do we care? This book could have been subtitled The Art of the Deal. It's a shame, because when Barbera gets out of the boardroom and back to the drawing board, he's fascinating. It took up to 30,000 drawings to animate one five-minute Tom & Jerry movie cartoon. Imagine being the guy who, given drawings number 1, 3, 5, and 7, had to come up with 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. That's how Barbera got his start back in the Depression days. The former bank clerk soon became amazed at the amount of money you could make underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Apparently, he never got over it. B-