Industrial Ed

Ed Love adapted to Hanna-Barbera’s limited animation system when he arrived at the studio in 1959, having worked at Disney in the ‘30s, and for Tex Avery and then Walter Lantz (under Dick Lundy) in the ‘40s.

His early TV cartoons had an interesting style. There would be movement almost every frame, although not like at MGM where he’d make a complete character drawing on a frame. At H-B he might move an arm on one frame. The next frame, the head would move. The next, an eye and an arm might move. Most of the other animators generally held drawings for two frames.

Love did the same thing in what I’m presuming was a freelance assignment for Chuck Couch in the early ‘60s (I cannot find a copyright date for the film). Talking of Tomorrow was an industrial film for Bell Telephone. It appears Love was handed the assignment of animating the nefarious uncle (voiced by, I think, Jerry Hausner) who calls his nephew hoping to steal some ideas. I’m not going to try to show off Love’s animation style. Instead, here are some of the poses he (and perhaps his assistant) came up with.



Corny Cole and Tom Yakutis are responsible for the designs, which have moved away from the flat, stylised ‘50s characters into something in tune with the early ‘60s.