William Hanna and Joseph Barbera "Legends" Biography Released on Digital Audiobook

PHOENIX - Aug. 8, 2013 - PRLog -- Author Jeff Lenburg's insightful biography, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera: The Sultans of Saturday Morning ($34.95), has been released on audiobook.  Produced and read by Barry Abrams, the unabridged edition, based on the illustrated hardcover edition, is part of Lenburg's eight-book Legends of Animation series published by Chelsea House. The downloadable digital audiobook ($14.95) sells exclusively online at Audible.com, an Amazon platform company, Amazon.com, and iTunes.

Lenburg's book chronicles the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of film and television's most prolific and awarded animators, their colorful partnership, their inspirations for their classic cartoons and characters, and their legacy of achievements that included dreaming up a menacing cat and cherubic mouse, better known as Tom and Jerry. Featured in 114 outrageous slapstick theatrical cartoon shorts in the 1940s and 1950s for MGM, Hanna and Barbera earned a record 13 single-series Oscar nominations (and two more for unrelated films), winning seven gold statuettes--a feat to which no other animator or director can lay claim.

In 1957, after MGM closed its cartoon department, Hanna and Barbera formed their own studio and went on to pioneertelevision animation with a less expensive style of animation that allowed them to produce the hundreds of memorable cartoon series still shown today around the globe. Their 50-year, eight-time Emmy-winning partnership resulted in the creation of some of the most beloved and popular characters in 20th-century animation and pop culture, including Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo.  Hanna-Barbera was a top producer of television animation that dominated the medium for nearly three decades.

A 20-plus year veteran producer at ESPN, Abrams is a two-time Sports Emmy and one-time Cable Ace Award-winning documentary writer and television producer. He is also the host, producer, and editor/engineer of ESPN.com's weekly thoroughbred racing podcast, In the Gate, and of ESPN's audio presentation of ESPN: the Magazine, available to the blind through Connecticut Research Information Systems (CRIS). A voice talent, he is also a producer and narrator of audiobooks, including The Oz Factors.

Lenburg's William Hanna and Joseph Barbera: The Sultans of Saturday Morning is available in print as well through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and most major booksellers. Critics hail his Legends of Animation series as "...well researched...will introduce readers to the individuals who were responsible for creating some of the most memorable characters on film."  

Check out the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/embed/uY7HKK6jJCk



For more information and to play a sample of the audiobook, please visit: http://www.audible.com/pd/?asin=B00E3DD7PK
 
To learn about the hardcover edition, click on the following link: http://www.amazon.com/William-Hanna-Joseph-Barbera-Animat...           

Jeff Lenburg is an award-winning author of 30 books, including celebrity memoirs, celebrity biographies, entertainment histories, popular references, and two national bestsellers. He is also a foremost authority on animation cartoons, having written seven books about its illustrious history, among them The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition, the definitive source on the subject chronicling every animated cartoon--some 3,100 in all--ever made, and Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, the first-ever biographical reference on more than 300 award-winning and legendary animators in animation's 100-plus year history.