Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/William Hanna

William Hanna

Nominator(s): — Rlevse • Talk •

• Featured article candidates/William Hanna

American animator. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose as most boring FAC intro ever. :P Anyway, image notes:
  • Image:WilliamHanna.png - nonfree image with rationale, source noted, no author stated; Image:Bill-hanna-and-joe-barbera.jpg - nonfree image with source, no author, and fair use rationale. Obviously the fact that he's dead makes it hard to get free images, but have you tried getting permission from an author for free use? -Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
    • FIXED. FYI, that template doesn't have an author parameter, so I stuck it in the description field for both images. As for Image:Bill-hanna-and-joe-barbera.jpg and "no FUR", there are three FURs on that image page, including for this article. Please advise. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I meant no author, but it does have a FUR (bad comma or whatever). As stated previously though, any effort to grab free images would be good (though I currently see nothing missing from the images in place.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
        • Several people have looked for a free image of Hanna, but none has been found. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
          • Reworded opening Lead sentence for better "hook".JGHowes ^talk - 17:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Please have Fuchs clarify his bolded oppose. Are images set here or not? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments - sources look okay, links check out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk) 22:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)

• Inline citations need to be in numerical order—examples:
  • "They decided whose last name would appear first in the company name on a coin toss. Hanna-Barbera was key in the development of pioneering animation techniques for television.[8][22][13][30]"
  • "Barbera's skill was as a gag writer and sketch artist while Hanna's gift was for timing, story construction, and recruiting top artists.[16][23][12][2]"
  • ordered those refs and others
• "In 1937, Hanna met Joseph Barbera while working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where they are most noted for producing Tom and Jerry and live action films until 1957; when they co-founded Hanna-Barbera." Who are "they", the Hanna-Barbera tandem or MGM? Either way, change "most noted" to "best known".
  • Did a ce, is this better?
• "In 1967, Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting for $25 million, with Hanna and Barbera remaining head of the company until 1991." Change "with" to "but" and remaining to remained. At least that's how I would read it.
  • Fixed.
• "He attended Compton High School from 1925 through 1928, where he showed a creative flair he got from his mother, including playing the saxophone in a dance band." Rather POV, don't you think?
  • reworded
• "This interest in music continued throughout his life as he helped write songs for his cartoons.[5] Hanna became an Eagle Scout as a youth and remained active in Scouting throughout his life." It says "throughout his life" in 2 consecutive sentences; change it up.
  • changed it
• "He also lost that job to the Great Depression." Was there a previous job he lost to the Great Depression?
  • not that I know of, changed
• "Hanna and Barbera sat across from each other at that time and they quickly realized they would make a good team." Don't need two back references—delete "they".
  • cut they, and seems to need to stay. don't see what you're talking about with the refs. can you explain?
    • I meant basically that the sentence referred to them three times. Not talking about inline citations. Don't worry, you fixed it. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• "By 1939 their winning 50–year partnership had become permanent." Three things:
  • MOS problem: en dash needs to be hyphen.
  • "winning" seems to be another POV word, as well as vague in this context.
  • What does "become permanent" mean?
    • reworded
• "While the characters in Puss Gets the Boot looked slightly different, they were the model for the Tom and Jerry cartoons." While should be although.
  • fixed
• "Puss Gets the Boot was so successful that MGM let the pair continue developing the cat and mouse theme and their most famous creation; Tom and Jerry was the result; with Tom being a bully and Jerry a thorn in his side." First semicolon should be a comma. The second phrase ("with Tom being a bully and Jerry a thorn in his side") is just weird.
  • fixed the comma
    • Yeah, but that last phrase still bothers me. I'll figure out a way to fix it tomorrow. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Reworded entire paragraph for better flow and interest. JGHowes ^talk - 17:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• "It was the 11th Tom and Jerry short, The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943)—a war-time adventure—that was their first Academy Award win." "that was"-->and.
  • fixed

I'll try to finish up my comments tomorrow. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

• "These Academy Awards are more than any other character-based theatrical animated series and more than any other series with the same characters." Delete the second "more than".
  • fixed
• "The 11th Tom and Jerry short, The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943)—a war-time adventure—was the first one to win an Academy Award." "one" is unnecessary.
  • fixed
• "Despite all its popularity, Tom and Jerry has often been criticized as excessively violent." "all" is nondescriptive here, get rid of it.
  • fixed
• "Cartoonist Tex Avery, Hanna, and Barbera worked under the animation producer Fred Quimby, who often clashed with his workers." In this context, the word "the" makes the sentence a bit awkward.
  • fixed
• "Tom and Jerry was also ground breaking by being mixed with live action stars such as Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and Invitation to the Dance (1956), and Esther Williams in Dangerous When Wet (1953)." Needs major rewording and rearranging. Information about the exact episodes is unnecessary in an article about an American animator.
  • broke apart. but disagree about episodes. I can guarantee if they're cut someone will say they need to be added. open to ce on this.
    • No problem. Too much info is easier to handle than not enough, I guess. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
    • BTW, I think groundbreaking is one word. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
      • it is, fixed
• "Hanna branched out into television, forming the short-lived company Shield Productions to partner with animator Jay Ward," Awkward...try: "Hanna branched out into television, forming the short-lived company Shield Productions with fellow animator Jay Ward,"
  • fixed
• "This fizzled, and in 1957 he reteamed up with his old partner Joseph Barbera, first working from Charlie Chaplin's old studio, with a view to producing cartoon films for television as well as for theatrical release." Issues:
  • "first working from Charlie Chaplin's old studio"—don't know what this is talking about and you might change the commas to em dashes
  • "with a view to producing"—too long and wordy, try "to produce"
  • "as well as for"—shorten to "and"
    • fixed all
• "about a dog and cat that are pals". Add "a show" to the beginning of the phrase.
  • fixed
• "One of the effects of television's lower budgets was the use of more dialog instead of detailed animation." Rewrite: "Because of television's lower budget, the animators focused more on character dialogue instead of detailed animation."
  • fixed
• "Parodying The Honeymooners, its premise of a typical Stone Age family with home appliances, talking animals, and celebrity guests enabled The Flintstones to attract both children and adults." Premise is the not the word we're looking for here, maybe setting?
  • fixed
• "The Flintstones became a phenomenal success and was the first animated prime-time show to become a be a hit."
  • fixed

That's not all the issues, but it should be enough to work on. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• "Barbera's skill was as a gag writer and sketch artist while Hanna's gift was for timing, story construction, and recruiting top artists." Clear up the writing: "Barbera was a skilled gag writer and sketch artist; Hanna's gift was for timing, story construction, and recruiting top artists."
  • fixed
• "Major business decisions were made together." Put this in the actice voice: "They made major business decisions together."
  • fixed
• "Both shows reappeared in many forms in the 1970s and 1980s."
  • fixed
• "though it has been reported in error that Sgt. Bilko was the basis for Yogi Bear." in error-->wrongly; alternatively, you could use erroneously, but wrongly is shorter and simpler.
  • fixed
• "As popular as their cartoons were with 1960s audiences, they were disliked by artists on artistic grounds." Why else would artists dislike the cartoons?
  • fixed
• "The Hanna-Barbera studio was still going strong with shows such as Scooby-Doo (1969-1986) and The Smurfs (1981-1989)." We need a better phrase than, "still going strong". Also, those hyphens should be en dashes.
  • fixed
• "Hanna was one of the first animators to see the enormous potential of television." see-->realize
  • fixed
• In the sentence listing the awards, there are three dashes used (hyphen, en dash, em dash); em dashes should be used. One of the em dashes that is used is spaced, that shouldn't be so.
  • fixed
• "several environmental awards for various series episodes, and were recipients of numerous other accolades on their way to being inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994." This phrase is filled with vague words; edit them out as you see fit.
  • fixed
• "They had an influential and lasting impact on television animation." "Influential" and "lasting impact" are about the same.
  • fixed
• "In March 2005 the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and Warner Bros. Animation dedicated a wall sculpture dedication ceremony at the Television Academy's Hall of Fame Plaza in North Hollywood to Hanna and Barbera." How can you dedicate a dedication ceremony? ;)
  • fixed

Dabomb87 (talk) 12:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• "Hanna and Barbera both found this no-notice closing puzzling since Tom and Jerry had been so successful." "since"-->because, reduces vagueness.
  • fixed
• "Their cartoons have become cultural icons, with numerous characters appearing in other media such as films, books, and toys, while ." A sentence that got caught up in a copyedit, perhaps?
  • fixed
    • The sentence makes sense now, but it needs to be rewritten.
      • Fixed it myself. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
• Overlinking of shows (Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo', etc.)
  • fixed, let me know if I missed any
    • I got some more overlinking. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
    • When unlinking, you accidentally removed the italic markup on some of them.
      • fixed ones I found
• "After dropping out of college, Hanna briefly worked" Switch "briefly" and "worked".
  • fixed
• "Their cartoons often make greatest lists, even cultural icons." Unclear.
  • rm'd ', even cultural icons'
• "Hanna was among those first hired away from Harman-Ising for this new MGM animation unit and became a senior director on MGM's Captain and the Kids series during 1938-19." Which year is that?
• ah, something else messed up during a copyedit, fixed it
• During a copy-edit of the "Film" section, I reworded a sentence to read like this; "After dropping out of college, Hanna worked briefly as a construction engineer; in fact, he helped build the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood." I'm unsure whether that demonstrates encyclopedic tone , but I couldn't leave the original sentence as it was.
• ok
  • Will leave this unstruck in case other concerned editors/reviewers have a problem.

Dabomb87 (talk) 02:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC))

Karanacs items

Oppose for now by karanacs. I think the article has a good start, but it needs polishing to be an FA. I don't get a good feel from the article of who he was. I think the article takes for granted that people are familiar with his cartoons (and most probably are), but the lack of context for some of the information can read like a bunch of dry facts. I know that Hanna did incredibly interesting and innovative things, but I don't feel like the article gives that impression as much. I also recommend getting a new set of eyes to look at the prose. It doesn't always flow well and information is sometimes repeated in paragraphs or even within a paragraph.

• I think that the Personal life section needs to be reorganized a bit. We seem to jump from Scouting to other things back to Scouting and then on to other things.
  • I did it chronologically. If you still want it by topic, let me know
• I'm not very fond of the organizational technique used here. I am easily distracted, and it distracts me to jump forward and then backward in time. I read about him studying structural engineering (what an odd choice to pair with journalism!) and that he had to drop out. This would roll effortlessly into the first job he got after dropping out, but instead I first jumped to 1936 then to 2001. I suspect you made this choice because there is not a lot of information about his death, but I think it could be worked into the end in a Later years section.
  • Please elaborate on what you think is better in the personal section. In your preceding stmt you want by topic, here you want chronological. This perplexes me.
• Is there any information on Hanna's reaction to being the only boy among all those girls?
  • added info from book
• "He lost that job to the Great Depression. " - this phrasing just seems a bit dramatic to me. Did sources say exactly what the circumstances were of his job less - company went out of business, etc?
  • don't exactly say, but it was the height of the Depression, so it's not hard to figure out
• "While working at a car wash, he met a boyfriend of one of his sisters" - The first time I read this I thought that he met the boyfriend at the car wash, but now I think that was not so. Perhaps a reword?
  • fixed
    • Still reads confusingly to me. Karanacs (talk) 21:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Can you be more specific or just edit it yourself? It reads fine to me and I can't tell what you want here.
• Leon Schlesinger, of Leon Schlesinger Productions, paired Harman and Ising with Warner Bros. - I think I'm missing some context here. I don't quite get what was going on. The next sentence starts with "He", which would mean Schlesinger, and that is likely not intended
  • fixed
• There is some repetition in the second and third paragraphs of the Film section. Both mention the 1937 establishment of the MGM animation division and that Hanna was one of its first members
  • merged 2nd one into 1st one
• I think there is something missing in this sentence - "It was the 11th Tom and Jerry short, The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943)—a war-time adventure—and first Academy Award win.[3]"
  • ah, a victim of other copyedits, clarified it
• "Avery, Hanna, and Barbera worked under the producer Fred Quimby, who often clashed with his workers." - who is Avery, and is it important the Quimby clashed with his workers? Any notable incidents between him and Hanna?
  • tweaked Avery, no clash details found, just that Quimby was hard to work with
• any information on why the MGM animation division was closed?
  • TV, added it
• any information on why his partnership with Ward fizzled so quickly? That was the same year it was created, right?
  • none, they all simply say it didn't last long
• This is important information: "of the effects of television's lower budgets was the use of more dialog instead of detailed animation" - but it is not fleshed out well. How did this affect Hanna or his work? Were there any difficulties in adjusting to this? - I see that this detail is in the next paragraph. That information needs to be put together.
  • performed surgery and copyedited
• Any information on how large the company was when they first founded it?
  • Nope
• "However, by reducing the number of drawings for a seven-minute cartoon from 14,000 to nearly 2,000, and innovative techniques such as rapid background changes to improve viewing, many people in the industry were put back to work" - first, we haven't been told about people in the industry being out of work, and second, I think it needs to be made more clear why reducing the number of drawings helps people go back to work.
  • elaborated
• Who actually ran Hanna Barbera? Hanna or Barbera? It would be interesting to see exactly what his responsibilities were
  • elaborated
• "ran not only through Hanna and Barbera's close friendship," - the article says that they had a close friendship, but the only evidence it gives is that they formed a company together. Is there any way that this could be fleshed out?
  • this was a business partnership and friendship, not personal/social. I've clarified and expanded.
• There are some ellipses issues in the quotes in the Legacy section, and I think a hyphen instead of an ndash.
  • 'fixed, I think ;-)
• It mentions Tex Avery but doesn't explain who he was so that we know that it is a big deal that Hanna is compared with him.
  • tweaked
    • I think this still needs a bit more detail. I don't know who Tex Avery is, and it would be nice to have a bit of an explanation here on why he is someone to be compared to so that I don't have to go to another article to find out. Karanacs (talk) 23:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly, but I added a bit about Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. If that wasn't it, please be more specific.
• Personal life mentions that Hanna wrote some music for the cartoons, but this is never elaborated on later. Which cartoons? did he do push the musical boundaries of the cartoons? If so, how?
  • they only say he helped, not which cartoons specifically, except the Flintstones, so I added that and more refs
• ""masterpieces of animation" largely because of their music.[24]:34 [25]:133" - I think this needs a bit more explanation. The music makes them better animation examples?
  • added CLASSICAL music, that what the scholarly ref says
• The list of awards is essentially a (long) list without bullet points. Either we need more information about those awards or we might as well break it up into a table.
  • I asked SandyGeorgia about this. She said to leave it as prose as is.
• I see that Barbera also wrote a book. I would think that this might have useful information on Hanna as well.
  • There is an online copy of Hanna's book, but not of Barbera's. I'll see if I can find a copy

Karanacs (talk) 18:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Addendum - I also believe that Image:WilliamHanna.png is not appropriate fair use, as it contains likenesses of copyrighted characters (Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear). I also don't know if it is really irreplaceable - he died at a time when cameras were everywhere, so there may be someone who has one that would be PD. I recommend asking an image expert like User:Elcobbola. Karanacs (talk) 20:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

At least 4 people looked for a free image of Hanna and couldn't find one. One of them was East718, whom most would consider an image expert. It was East718 who uploaded and added that image too. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I did a copyedit of the television section - please review and make sure I didn't inadvertently misplace sources or change the meaning of what the source said. I think the remainder of the article still needs an independent copyedit, and I'd like to see what is in the Barbera book. Karanacs (talk) 23:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Nice ce. Looks good. I feel Dabomb has been doing a good job of copyediting. I have a copy of the Barbera book coming from a library. — Rlevse • Talk •

I just did a final copyedit on the other sections, and I'm satisfied with the prose now. Please let me know what type of information you find in the Barbera book when you get it; I'll be willing to support if I am assured that the article is comprehensive. Karanacs (talk) 04:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Anything specific in the Barbera book you're looking for? — Rlevse • Talk • 11:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)