Ed Barge

BARGE 1944 — Barge (pictured in 1944) with his daughters Edeana and Linda.

Edward John Barge (commonly known as Ed Barge) (August 10, 1910 – September 29, 1991) was an American animator.

History[]

Early life[]

Born and raised in San Jose, California, he and his family moved to Bakersfield. By 1936 he was still living there and was known for his landscape paintings, and in 1939 he married his wife.

Pre-MGM[]

He began his career at the Harman-Ising studio which shut down by August 1937, when Fred Quimby poached the studio for staff, including Jack Zander, and Joseph Barbera for his new studio.

MGM[]

Barge worked at MGM as an assistant animator and received his first screen credit as an animator on Innertube Antics (1944) directed by George Gordon. Gordon's unit had just been disbanded the year before, at which point Barge was placed in the William Hanna/Joseph Barbera unit which made the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Barge remained until around 1954-1955.

Hanna-Barbera[]

Although the H-B studio started earlier in 1957, Barge was fairly late to the punch, being recruited in 1965 to work on "The Man Called Flinstone" (1965). He would remain there working on the various cartoons the studio produced until 1982 when he retired.

Tom and Jerry[]

Style[]

Ed Barge's style is fluent (second only to Muse in fluency), and he is a big fan of doing "black eye smears" as opposed to the others which used exaggerated eyes and drybrush. He also draws his characters with a cuter, more rounder appearance. Here are some examples of his work;