McCartney Times

Ron Campbell was a young animator in Australia in the mid-1960s when he got the job offer that changed his career and life — working on a Saturday morning cartoon series about the Beatles. He barely recognized its importance.“I was only peripherally aware of rock and roll,” Campbell recalled. Having started work at age 18, he was already a professional animator in Sydney working on characters like Krazy Kat, when he got a middle-of-the-night phone call from a producer inviting him to work on the Beatles series.“It took me aback a little bit. I said, ‘Jiminy Cricket was a great insect, but beetles are not going to make very good cartoon characters.’”The Beatles series debuted in 1965 and ran for four seasons, earning top ratings and leading to a chance for Campbell to work on the 1968 Beatles animated feature “The Yellow Submarine.”Campbell moved to Los Angeles in late 1966, worked with leading TV animation studio Hanna Barbera and ran his own animation shop. His credits include “The Flintstones,” “The Jetsons,” “The Smurfs,” “The Rugrats,” “Scooby Doo” and dozens more.

Source: ‘Yellow Submarine,’ ‘The Flintstones’ animator Ron Campbell coming to Santa Rosa | The Press Democrat