LOS ANGELES, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Joe Barbera, half of the creative team that created Tom and Jerry, Huckleberry Hound, the Flintstones and the Jetsons, died Monday at the age of 95.
Warner Brothers, in an announcement, said that Barbera's wife, Stella, was with him at his home in the Studio City district of Los Angeles.
"Joe Barbera truly was an animation and television legend," said the company's chairman and CEO, Barry Meyer. "From the Stone Age to the Space Age and from primetime to Saturday mornings, syndication and cable, the characters he created with his late partner, William Hanna, are not only animated superstars, but also a very beloved part of American pop culture."
Barbera, who grew up in the Little Italy section of Manhattan, started out in banking. But he switched careers when Colliers magazine published his cartoons.
Hanna and Barbera met as animators for MGM, where they created Tom and Jerry, the cartoon cat and mouse who also appeared in musicals with Gene Kelly and Esther Williams.
MGM eliminated its animation department in the 1950s, and Hanna and Barbera former Hanna-Barbera Studios and decided to create TV cartoons.
Hanna died in 1991.
