Animator Joseph Barbera; Created Yogi Bear, Other Beloved Cartoons

Mr. Barbera, the son of an immigrant from Italy who was said to have been a barber, grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and went to high school there. As a boy, he engrossed himself in copying the drawings in magazines.

As the country sank into economic depression, Mr. Barbera saw little chance of supporting himself through art and took a job as a bank teller while attending classes in finance.

But he kept at his sketch pad.

Acceptance of a drawing by Collier's magazine encouraged him. He enrolled in the Art Students League and at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute and eventually got a job at a cartoon studio, starting at the bottom, as an inker.

One animation job led to another. He worked at Terrytoons, producers of the "Mighty Mouse" cartoon series.

Disney, perhaps the pinnacle of an animator's aspirations, reportedly turned him down, but MGM took him on in 1937, and the next year he paired with Hanna.

"Puss Gets the Boot," an early cat-and-mouse cartoon, was their first work together; it has been viewed as the artistic ancestor of Tom and Jerry.

Thomas Cat and Jerry Mouse, antagonists by nature, were nevertheless joined by an underlying mutual affection. So carefully were they drawn that their unspoken thoughts were evident on-screen. They tickled the nation's funny bone and captured its heart. Arguably, this was at least partially a consequence of their determination and resilience at a time when the United States was fighting World War II.

Later, television began to upset the economic balance of Hollywood, and in 1957 MGM shuttered its high-cost animation studio.

Unable to beat TV, Mr. Barbera and his partner joined it.

They pooled $3,000 in savings, leased a small office and hired a few other castoffs. The "Huckleberry Hound Show" was a 1958 television hit, winning an Emmy Award for children's programming. From that and from Yogi Bear, the Hanna-Barbera trail led to "The Flintstones." It was a hit. The "yabba dabba doo" cry of family patriarch Fred Flintstone entered the language.

Its creators branched into the merchandise licensing that has become a major source of income from TV shows and films. They created a record label and a theme park as well as many more TV shows.

By one account, they produced more than 150 shows, once working on 11 at a time. Other Hanna-Barbera shows included "The Smurfs" and a series involving animated adventurer Jonny Quest.

The studio was ultimately sold, but its creators stayed on.

Cartoons seldom go out of date, Mr. Barbera once noted. "People come up to me and say, 'I was raised on your cartoon and I enjoy it again with my kids,' " he told an interviewer in 1995.

Calling Mr. Barbera a passionate storyteller and creative genius, Warner Animation President Sander Schwartz said, "Joe's contributions to both the animation and television industries are without parallel."

The AP said that in addition to his wife, the animator is survived by three children from a previous marriage, Jayne, Neal and Lynn.