Joseph Barbera Quotes & Sayings

I was convinced there as only one actor to play Templeton the Rat, and that was Tony Randall. — Joseph Barbera

After I had done a handful of cartoons I was satisfied with, I started submitting them to the magazines. — Joseph Barbera

One of the most attractive things about writing your autobiography is that you're not dead. — Joseph Barbera

Publicity gets more than a little tiring. You want it, you need it, you crave it, and you're scared as hell when it stops. — Joseph Barbera

I first pitched the idea of doing a series of cartoons based on Bible stories. They didn't much like it. — Joseph Barbera

Creating fantasy is a very personal thing, but you can't take the process too personally. — Joseph Barbera

What about Mickey Mouse? Disney tried very hard to make him a star. But Mickey Mouse is more of a symbol than a real character. — Joseph Barbera

So the stock market could have a negative wealth effect and weigh on capital spending, but a sharp decline in long-term interest rates would be an important counterweight. — Joseph Barbera

Despite the rejection, and in violation of all the rules, I came back year after year. — Joseph Barbera

That's what keeps me going: dreaming, inventing, then hoping and dreaming some more in order to keep dreaming. — Joseph Barbera

I was 82 years old before Who's Who thought I was enough of a big shot to do a piece on me. — Joseph Barbera

When animators weren't sleeping, they were drinking. — Joseph Barbera

What the real world of 1941 needed most was the release and relief provided by laughter. — Joseph Barbera

I hate fishing, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to hike when you can get in the car and drive. — Joseph Barbera

I don't know anyone who enjoys going to the hospital. To help remedy this, I got an idea to create what a Laugh Room in the pediatric ward of hospitals. — Joseph Barbera

I don't know that I spent any more time alone than any other kid, but being by myself never bothered me. — Joseph Barbera

My last days at MGM were like the fall of the Roman Empire in fast motion. — Joseph Barbera

I never got tired of Tom and Jerry, but I did have a dream of doing more with my life than making cartoons. — Joseph Barbera

Faced with the choice of enduring a bad toothache or going to the dentist, we generally tried to ride out the bad tooth. — Joseph Barbera

Bill Hanna and I owe an awful lot to television, but we both got our start and built the first phase of our partnership in the movies. — Joseph Barbera

Making cartoons means very hard work at every step of the way, but creating a successful cartoon character is the hardest work of all. — Joseph Barbera

There is no law that says a man who earned a hundred million dollars in his first half-dozen years on the job has to be a decent human being, but Mike Eisner is that and more. — Joseph Barbera

Not once in six years did I make it to the office by 9 on the dot. — Joseph Barbera

I have spent a lot of years on the outside looking in. — Joseph Barbera

Parents look at me like I'm somebody pretty important, and say, We were raised on your characters, and now we're enjoying them all over again with our children. — Joseph Barbera

Among the great glories of the MGM lot were the vast outdoor sets that had been constructed over the years. — Joseph Barbera

I learned long ago to accept the fact that not everything I create will see the light of day. — Joseph Barbera

Ted Turner sailed into the meeting, and I mean sailed. He holds himself as if he were at the helm of his sailboat, in the process of winning the race. — Joseph Barbera

I hope we don't get to the point where we have to have the cat stop chasing the mouse to teach him glassblowing and basket weaving. — Joseph Barbera

You keep pitching. Most of the pitches run wild. A few are caught. — Joseph Barbera

My biggest kick comes from the individual fans I run into. Middle-aged men ask me when we're going to do more Johnny Quest cartoons. — Joseph Barbera

Except for me, no one in my family could draw. — Joseph Barbera

I cannot say who, precisely, came up with the idea of a Stone Age family. — Joseph Barbera

Los Angeles was an impression of failure, of disappointment, of despair, and of oddly makeshift lives. This is California? I thought. — Joseph Barbera

Friends don't necessarily made good business or creative partners. — Joseph Barbera

High-level, big-deal publicity has a way of getting old for me, but what never fails to thrill me is when I make personal appearances. — Joseph Barbera

My marriage had been impulsive. That marriage should have been short-lived instead of the 23 years it spanned. — Joseph Barbera

In those days, boxing was very glamorous and romantic. You listened to fights on the radio, and a good announcer made it seem like a contest between gladiators. — Joseph Barbera

While I have never been a regular churchgoer, I'm anything but immune to the power and the majesty of the religious experience. — Joseph Barbera

The Christmas parties were orgies of drinking and singing and groping and pawing. Cartoon staffers invested their own money in preparatory liquor. — Joseph Barbera