'Fast and noisy' cartoon memories

Joseph Barbera, who created cartoon characters including Scooby-Doo and The Flintstones with his partner William Hanna, has died aged 95.

His work left a lasting impression on Peter Lord, one of the founding directors of the company behind Wallace and Gromit, Aardman Animations.

Most recently, Mr Lord's company made animated film Flushed Away

I was brought up on Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

I still remember the impact of seeing, for the first time, The Huckleberry Hound Show.

To a child in the late '50s, whose previous TV experience mostly consisted of the polite nannies who presented Watch With Mother, it was like a religious experience to see a show that was fast, noisy, modern and - as it seemed to me - incredibly sophisticated.

If we'd had colour TV, I daresay I'd have been blown away by that too.

Hanna and Barbera's surprising achievement was to give us great animated comedy without a great deal of animation.

With great design, wonderful vocal performances and superb sound effects they created a string of utterly memorable comedies - the first animated sitcoms.

Only much later, when I was a committed fan of Yogi Bear, the Jetsons, Top Cat et al, did I realise that the creators of all my favourite TV comedies were also the inventors of the wonderful, fully-animated Tom and Jerry.