With a career spanning over six decades, Ray Patterson participated in almost every aspect of
animation: Inking, storyboarding, animating, and directing.
Patterson started his career in
1929, at the
Charles Mintz studio. Ten years later, he was animating
Pluto cartoons for
Disney. He also worked on Disney features such as
Fantasia and
Dumbo. In
1941, he joined MGM's
Hanna-Barbera unit as an
animator. Over the next dozen years, he animated sixty
Tom and Jerry cartoons. He worked on several
Droopy cartoons with director
Tex Avery.
At Hanna-Barbera as a director in the late 1970s, he worked on cartoons such as
Superfriends and
Devlin. From
1982-
1983, he directed the
Gary Coleman Show. In
1986, he directed the feature film Go-Bots: Battle of the Rock Lords, based on the popular
GoBots cartoon series. Other cartoons he worked on include
The Jetsons Meet
The Flintstones. In
1992, he directed The
Addams Family animated series. He retired from Hanna-Barbera in
1993.
Ray Patterson passed away
December 30, 2001. He was 90 years old.
Obscure Trivia: Ray Patterson was also the name of the incumbent Sanitation Commissioner in the "Trash of the Titans" episode of The Simpsons.