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Joe Barbera almost became a boxer instead of a cartoonist!
Could you imagine cartoons without Joe Barbera?
Joe Barbera, one half of the creative team behind the many wonderful cartoons of Hanna-Barbera, always had a talent for drawing. In his autobiography, My Life in Toons, he reminisced about discovering his artistic skills as a child and how the nuns at his elementary school took him out of class to have him draw biblical murals all over the school.
However, during his senior year of high school at Erasmus Hall, Barbera nearly left his artistic pursuits behind him to become a champion prizefighter. His interest was sparked from hearing boxing matches on the radio and when his school started a boxing class, he eagerly enrolled. He won six fights and suddenly found himself competing for Erasmus Hall's lightweight champion.
According to Barbera, his classmate Toomey was his adversary and he said, "Now, Toomey was good, very good, and he knew it, and he liked it. He brought his entire family with him to the fight to witness my destruction."
As scary as this was, Barbera continued training, preparing, and studying boxing films of his favorite boxer, Al Singer.
The stakes were high, but Barbera won.
He said of the match "Before the eyes of his entire family, I beat him, and I won a silver medal for it."
Barbera was declared the lightweight champion but that wasn't the greatest victory. The manager of his boxing idol, Al Singer, was in the audience. At the time, Barbera reports Al Singer was making $125,000 a year, which is a lot of money now and even more money in 1927. Al Singer's manager wanted to manage Barbera too and gave him a training plan.
When Barbera arrived at the boxing gym, he was overwhelmed "At sixteen, I found myself inhaling the sweat-sharp air of the most famous training gym in the world of professional boxing...(And) there was Al Singer". The lightweight champion of the world, Barbera's idol, was right there. The experience of seeing his idol felt like an out of body moment for Barbera, who then looked from Singer to what he describes as "...a clutch of elegantly attired men wearing blue suits that harmonized with their blue jowls, men with big cigars and pinkie rings. They were the managers."
Most sixteen year olds would have ignored the men in the blue suits, said "hi" to the champ, and continued pursuing professional boxing. But not Barbera, who saw the managers and realized that he would make more money as a manager than as a boxer.
He writes "I heard myself saying to myself: I'm getting into this business at the wrong end. With that, I turned around, walked out the door, and never thought about prizefighting again."
We are so glad he did! He had a much greater career in the animator studio than he would have had in the boxing ring.
Now, Barbera did admit that his former rival, Toomey still haunted him. While Barbera hung up his boxing gloves, Toomey went on to become the lightweight champion of the University of Pennsylvania.
Barbera remembered his fear: "For years I anticipated a midnight knock at the door followed by Toomey's avenging fist in my face.".
