The saddening news has come in that Jerry Eisenberg has died. He was 87.
Jerry was one of the crew at MGM under Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. He was a second-generation animation artist as his dad Harvey had worked with Barbera at Van Beuren in New York. Harvey later laid out cartoons for the Hanna-Barbera unit (Harvey is on the right of the photo).
Jerry also worked under Ken Harris in the Chuck Jones unit at Warner Bros.
His name first shows up on the Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw shows in the 1961-62 season, providing layouts for Magician Jinks, Chilly Chiller and Person to Prison (both with Snooper and Blabber). He laid out the half-hour prime time shows in the 1960s and there are other credits you can find on-line.
Our sympathies go to Jerry’s wife, who is from the Maillardville area near Vancouver.
Jerry was kind enough to spend an hour and a half with me on the phone some years back. The interview has been transcribed in six parts. You can read part one here. He has a lot of fun stories because he was a fun guy, liked by everyone in the animation business, as best as I can tell. I'm sorry we never got a chance (due to technical issues on my end) to do another interview as there was so much more of his career we never discussed.
