He attended Compton High School from 1925 through 1928.
Hanna started his career in
1932 when he learned that
Leon Schlesinger Productions, producers of
animated cartoons for
Warner Bros., were hiring staff. He gained his employment without any formal training and soon became head of their
Ink and Paint Department. When
producer-directors Hugh Harman and
Rudolph Ising left Schlesinger and Warners in
1933 to become independent and produce cartoons for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (
MGM), Hanna was one of the employees who followed them.
In
1936, Hanna directed his first cartoon, </i>To Spring
, one of the Harman-Ising Happy Harmonies
series entries. In 1937, MGM made a business decision to stop outsourcing to Harman-Ising and bring production in-house. Hanna was among those hired away from Harman-Ising, and he became a senior director on MGM's Captain and the Kids series. The same year, they hired storyman Joseph Barbera from Terrytoons, and in 1939 the two began what was to be a winning partnership as co-directors.
The first cartoon directed by Hanna and Barbera together was Puss Gets the Boot
, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best (Cartoon) Short Subject and introduced their most famous creation from this period, the cat and mouse duo Tom and Jerry. Hanna supplied all the screams and yelps of Tom in the shorts without credit. Leonard Maltin says that "Barbera's strength was in gags and story development, while Hanna saw himself more as a director, with a solid sense of timing; they complemented each other perfectly."
Hanna and Barbera's 17-year partnership on the Tom & Jerry
series resulted in 7 Academy Awards for Best (Cartoon) Short Subject, and 14 total nominations, more than any other character-based theatrical animated series. Hanna and Barbera were placed in charge of MGM's animation division in late 1955; this was short-lived, as MGM closed the division in 1957.
From here, Hanna branched out into television, forming the company Shield Productions to partner with animator Jay Ward, who had created the series Crusader Rabbit. This fizzled, and in 1957 he reteamed up with his old partner Joseph Barbera to produce the series The Ruff & Reddy Show, under the company name H-B Enterprises, soon changed to Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Hanna-Barbera Productions became by the late-1960s the most successful television animation studio in the business, producing hit programs such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! by the end of the decade.
Hanna-Barbera had been a subsidiary of Taft Broadcasting (later Great American Communications) since 1967. The studio thrived until 1991, when it was sold to Turner Broadcasting. Hanna and Barbera stayed on as advisors and periodically worked on new Hanna-Barbera shows, including the What-a-Cartoon!'' series.
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