WHAT MAKES A TEAM?

Laurel and Hardy. Lennon and McCartney. Hanna and Barbera. What makes
these teams great? Is it that both partners were talented? Yeah, but that's not enough.
Putting two talented people together can just as often be a disaster. (Who remembers the
comedy team of Jimmy Durante and Buster Keaton?) The secret to a successful team
seems to be the way the two members complement each other. That's complement with
an "e," meaning "to complete." (Of course, Lennon & McCartney may have
complimented each other very often as well, but that's another matter.) What one party
lacks the other supplies. Or, the talents of one individual help to bring out the best in the
other.

Look at some of the great pair-ups. Even physically, Laurel and Hardy were a
great match: fat and skinny. Likewise their personalities fit like two pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle. Stan Laurel's childlike innocence and Babe Hardy's bombastic oafishness.
Completely different, and yet each giving what the other lacked. It's been long debated
what it was that made The Beatles one of the most popular, and enduring, musical acts
of our time. And what made their song writing outlast the hype of Beatlemania.
Perhaps Paul McCartney's sweeter, romantic sensibilities were just what was needed to
temper John Lennon's rebellious rock 'n roll attitude. Or, was it John's energy that
redeemed Paul's sentimentality

Which brings us to the team nearest and dearest to our hearts: Hanna and Barbera.
William Hanna, a quiet spoken, California musician and story man with prodigious
organizational skills and a razor-sharp sense of comedy timing. Joseph Barbera, an
extroverted, energetic New Yorker and a terrific draftsman with an uncanny skill for
comic inventiveness. Together the are a team among teams. Each brings out the best in
the other. Interestingly, neither man took the leads in business and management. That's
not what they were about. In fact, for all the years that they ran the company, Bill and
Joe took turns being president of Hanna-Barbera. Bill would head the company one
year and Joe would take it the next. Like Laurel and Hardy, Lennon and McCartney, and
scores of other successful partnerships, Hanna and Barbera functioned as one -- two
halves of a greater whole, with neither one dominant in a leadership position. Even as
they were starting out, they knew that great teams are made of opposites that
complement each other. Just take a look at their most long-lasting property, Tom and
Jerry.

Bill Burnett
Creative Director
Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc.