"Sleeping Beauty" Animator and Longtime Hanna-Barbera Artist and Writer Tony Benedict Dies at 89

Tony Benedict, an important contributor to scores of iconic animated projects as both an artist and writer, has passed away at the age of 89.

As noted by Cartoon Brew, Benedict served in the Marine Corps until 1956 before coming to Los Angeles where he began his animation career at Disney. Benedict's time at Disney included working as an in-betweener on 1959's Sleeping Beauty. In addition, he would help in the repurposing of previously produced animated shorts for their use on the Walt Disney's Disneyland TV series and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color.

After being part of layoffs at Disney, Benedict would eventually work on the animated series Mister Magoo, which is when he began a new facet of his career as a writer. After submitting a script to Hanna-Barbera, he was hired as both an artist and writer during that company's boom period, as their animated series began to dominate family television. The many Hanna-Barbera series Benedict contributed to as both a writer and board artist include The Flintstones, Top Cat, Magilla Gorilla, and Huckleberry Hound. Beyond that, he played an even bigger role behind the scenes on The Jetsons, as the creator of what would become one of the core characters on the series, the family dog, Astro. Astro was introduced in The Jetsons' fifth episode, which was written by Benedict.

Benedict would go on to writer, direct and produce his own animated Christmas special, 1970's independently financed Santa and The Three Bears. Bitterness over the trouble he had distributing that special led him to leave the animation business for a time, but he would return by the 1980s, both back at Hanna-Barbara (including on a new version of The Jetsons) and at other studios, with stints on shows like Heathcliff, Tiny Toon Adventures and Tom & Jerry Kids. From there, he ventured into writing video games, including 1995's The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain.

You can watch a video interview with Benedict about his career above. And I'll echo Cartoon Brew in saying I'd highly recommend checking out the images Benedict posted to Facebook, which are filled with great art and memorable photos from his amazing career.