Gave the best Christmas parties of ALL TIME!! Halloween a close second. EVERYONE got smashed! It was a company requirement to be able to drinks alot of booze at the drop of a hat…Their large complex was built on the former site of ‘Monkey Island’. That place folded prior to World War 2 when a couple hundred monkeys escaped and ran amok for a few weeks all over Cahuenga Blvd and Barham in the brushy hillsides. They expanded a few times, so, connected the buildings with a big bridge on the second floor. Mr. Hanna and Mr. Barbera had their offices on the second floor, right next to each other. I came into the picture after P.B.X. school. They had five old cord pair switch boards, side by side in their main lobby. They kept them long after most had been replaced all over town because they were LOYAL. Most of their switch board gals had been on the job since day one. As one retired, so would her switchboard…The main phone room had a common wall with Mr. Barbera’s office. Since I would go past his door all the time, he would start saying things to me to throw me off. I finally figured out he was just jerking me around for fun and gave it back to him. One party they gave would have to be the best I ever went to. All the illustrators were in hand made costumes they had worked on for weeks, drinking right out of blenders and running amok. Since no one really knew who was who, it was time to pull out all the stops. Security ended up locking the gates and calling cabs for about three hundred people. One gal had a Yogi bear painted on her using her giant breasts as Yogi’s eyes. There was food EVERYWHERE! Different departments had different music blasting. I got into a conga line that went up the stairs to corporate, smashing pictures off the walls from the giant paper mache heads they were wearing getting spun around and had them dancing blind. Finally, the cops show up. THEY PARTIED WITH US!!! I’ve been to HUNDREDS of big parties. None can ever top this one. My side hurt for days from laughing so hard. One gal did the best Fog Horn, Leg Horn using helium from a balloon. I heard later she made Mr. Barbera wet his pants while chasing him in costume with a giant dildo…
