Richard Bickenbach


Richard “Dick” Bickenbach was an American animator who worked for Warner Bros. Cartoons and as a layout artist and character designer for MGM and Hanna-Barbera Productions. He worked on animation for many cartoons, and drew the art for several comic book adaptations of Hanna-Barbera's shows, including Yogi Bear and The Flintstones.

Career

Bickenbach first began his career at Warner Bros., working as an animator on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series for directors Friz Freleng, Frank Tashlin, and Robert McKimson in a span of roughly 11 years. He also provided his voice for a few cartoons, mostly portraying caricatures of Bing Crosby.
He later left and moved to MGM in 1947 and animated close to eighty Tom and Jerry shorts during the decade he was there. When he moved to Hanna-Barbera, he was one of their first employees and he was there for two decades as an animator and layout artist. He had a large influence on Hanna-Barbera's early cartoon styles and was credited with creating the first official Yogi Bear model sheets. He was the recipient of the 1984 Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Golden Award.