Joe Barbera of the famous Hanna-Barbera cartoons died of natural causes on Monday at the age of 95. Hanna-Barbera cartoons were a huge influence on the cartoon industry and the Hanna-Barbera company was and still is considered to be animated superstars.Hanna-Barbera was one of the pioneers of computer assisted animation when the company started using computer animation before Pixar or Disney. In fact, Disney rejected the idea of using computer animation from computer graphics researcher Marc Levoy back in the late 70s / early 80s. Whereas Disney rejected the idea, Hanna-Barbera embraced it. The animation technology was successful in reducing labor costs which helped save the company. The computer animation technology was used until 1996.
