William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator, voice actor, and occasional musician who is best known for co-creating Tom and Jerry and providing the vocal effects for the series' title characters.

Hanna joined the Harman and Ising animation studio in 1930 and steadily gained skill and prominence while working on cartoons such as Captain and the Kids.

In 1957, they co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which became the most successful television animation studio in the business, creating or producing programs such as The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear.

[1]: 9  His father was a construction superintendent for railroads as well as water and sewer systems throughout the Western United States, requiring the family to move frequently.

[1]: 6 When Hanna was three years old, the family moved to Baker City, Oregon, where his father worked on the Balm Creek Dam.

[3] After dropping out of college, Hanna worked briefly as a construction engineer and helped build the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.

[15] While working there, Hanna's talent for drawing became evident, and in 1930 he joined the Harman and Ising animation studio, which had created the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series.

[16] For the first several years of Hanna's employment, the studio partnered with Pacific Title and Art's Leon Schlesinger, who released the Harman-Ising output through Warner Bros.

When Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising chose to break with Schlesinger and begin producing cartoons independently for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1933, Hanna was one of the employees who followed them.

[16][17] Hanna and Barbera worked alongside animation director Tex Avery, who had created Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny for Warner Bros. and directed Droopy cartoons at MGM.

[1]: 33 [18]: 18 In 1940, Hanna and Barbera jointly directed Puss Gets the Boot, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best (Cartoon) Short Subject.

[3]: 75–76  Surprised by the success of Puss Gets the Boot, Hanna and Barbera ignored Quimby's resistance[1]: 45  and continued developing the cat-and-mouse theme.

Hanna and Barbera met with Quimby, who discovered that although Ising had taken sole credit for producing Puss Gets the Boot, he never actually worked on it.

Quimby, who had wanted to start a new animation unit independent of Ising, then gave Hanna and Barbera permission to pursue their cat-and-mouse idea.

[3]: 78–79 Modeled after the Puss Gets the Boot characters with slight differences, the series followed Jerry, the rodent who continually outwitted his feline foe, Tom.

[1]: 46  Over the next 17 years Hanna and Barbera worked almost exclusively on Tom and Jerry,[19] directing more than 114 highly popular cartoon shorts.

[16][25] Tom and Jerry also made guest appearances in several of MGM's live-action films, including Anchors Aweigh (1945) and Invitation to the Dance (1956) with Gene Kelly, and Dangerous When Wet (1953) with Esther Williams.

[25] During his last year at MGM, Hanna branched out into television, forming the short-lived company Shield Productions with fellow animator Jay Ward,[28] : 27–29  who had created the series Crusader Rabbit.

[1]: 77, 146 [3]: 120 [27] A coin toss determined that Hanna would have precedence in the naming of the new company,[1]: Foreword  first called H-B Enterprises but soon changed to Hanna-Barbera Productions.

[7][27] Barbera and Hanna's MGM colleague George Sidney, the director of Anchors Aweigh, became the third partner and business manager in the company, and arranged a deal for distribution and working capital with Screen Gems, the television division of Columbia Pictures, who took part ownership of the new studio.

[26][29] A parody of The Honeymooners, the new show followed a typical Stone Age family with home appliances, talking animals, and celebrity guests.

[8][26][30] Fred Flintstone's signature exclamation "yabba dabba doo" soon entered everyday usage,[26][31] and the show boosted the studio to the top of the TV cartoon field.

[26] Among the more than 100 cartoon series and specials they produced were: Atom Ant, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy (an imitation of the earlier Spike and Tyke MGM cartoons), Jonny Quest, Josie and the Pussycats, Magilla Gorilla, Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, Quick Draw McGraw, and Top Cat.

[10] The company also produced animated specials based on Alice in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cyrano de Bergerac, as well as the feature-length film Charlotte's Web (1973).

[17][33] The number of drawings for a seven-minute cartoon decreased from 14,000 to nearly 2,000, and the company implemented innovative techniques such as rapid background changes to improve viewing.

[11][26][41] Hanna died of esophageal cancer at his home in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on March 22, 2001, at the age of 90.

[43] Leonard Maltin says the Hanna–Barbera team "[may] hold a record for producing consistently superior cartoons using the same characters year after year—without a break or change in routine.

Animation dedicated a wall sculpture at the Television Academy's Hall of Fame Plaza in North Hollywood to Hanna and Barbera.