"Flintstones" designer Ed Benedict dead at 94

Posted:
Aug 31, 2006

Ed Benedict, the designer of most of Hanna-Barbera's early stars, died Monday, just five days after his 94th birthday.

Benedict died in his sleep, character designer David Sheldon and Johnny Bravo producer Van Partible said Wednesday evening.

Born on August 23, 1912, he designed such H-B favorites as Fred and Wilma Flintstone, Barney and Betty Rubble, Dino the Snorkasaurus, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and Snagglepuss, as well as Ruff and Reddy, who were Hanna-Barbera's first TV characters.

"My favorite cartoon designer of all time is Ed Benedict," John Kricfalusi, creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, wrote on his personal blog in April. "He's the guy who created the original Hanna-Barbera style of the late 50s and early 60s."

"Ed taught me how to draw when I was a kid! He didn't know it, but he did. I used to sit in front of the TV watching Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and The Flintstones with my drawing pads every day and draw as fast as I could," Kricfalusi added.

"You can tell just by looking at Ed's designs what the character is like. They aren't just wallpaper."

Benedict's career began at Disney in 1930; although uncredited, he animated the studio's early films, such as The China Plate and Blue Rhythm, according to the Cartoon Brew Web site.

He moved to Universal in 1933. His first screen credit came the following year as a animator for Walter Lantz's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon Dizzy Dwarf. He stayed at Universal for much of the decade, although he also worked for Columbia's Charles Mintz and, in partnership with Jerry Brewer, ran his own studio, Benedict-Brewer, for a while.

In the 1940s, Benedict returned to Disney, handling layout on industrial and educational films. His only credit as a layout artist on a Disney film was in the 1946 feature Make Mine Music.

Benedict worked at Paul Fennell's Cartoon Films in the mid-1940s.

Former Universal co-worker Tex Avery recruited him in 1952 to become Avery's lead layout artist and designer at MGM. There, he became a layout artist for Deputy Droopy, The First Bad Man and Cellbound (all 1955); One Droopy Knight, Blackboard Jumble, Mucho Mouse and Grin and Share It (all 1957); and Droopy Leprechaun, Mutts About Racing and Sheep Wrecked (all 1958).

Following Avery's departure from MGM, Benedict remained working on Droopy shorts directed by Mike Lah.

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera spotted Benedict at MGM. Hanna asked Benedict to design a dog and a cat for a TV project by their own studio. This would become The Ruff and Reddy Show,the first Hanna-Barbera TV series.

In the 1960s, Benedict moved to Carmel, California. He was a layout artist for the H-B series Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines (1969) and Hong Kong Phooey (1974), but also freelanced for several other studios in the 1960s and 1970s before his retirement.

"I have to say that Ed was certainly one of the most memorable of the artists that I've interviewed over the years. He was a study in contrasts," Amid Amidi, author of Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation, wrote in Cartoon Brew. "He made it very clear that he disliked the Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons, the work that he was most known for, and that he didn't care particularly that people liked his work so much. And yet, you could hardly find a person more passionate when it came to discussing art, design and animation.

"I had the opportunity to visit Ed a few times in northern California, and I can't ever remember a visit lasting less than ten hours. Ed would keep you enthralled with a fascinating range of opinions on every conceivable topic from why organs sound better than pianos to lamenting the deteriorated state of contemporary car design."

At the Annie Awards in 1994, Benedict received the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement. He won the Golden Award from The Animation Guild Local 839 in 1985.

In accordance with Ed Benedict's wishes, there will be no service. He will be cremated and his ashes scattered over Carmel Bay, where his wife Alice's ashes were also spread.





(Picture from Cartoon Brew)