Buzz Potamkin

Biography

Potamkin is known for founding Perpetual Motion Pictures (later called Buzzco Associates) with Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafarelli in 1968, which led to the production of hundreds of television advertisements, including the Hawaiian Punch series, MTV's "Top of the Hour" (the moon man), and MTV's "I Want My MTV" campaign. He also established the companies Visionary Media, Project X, and Southern Star Productions, an Australian/American subsidiary of Hanna-Barbera. Potamkin produced the animated specials The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree in 1979 and Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue in 1990, among others. After working at The Walt Disney Company for a short period in 1991, Potamkin was hired by Fred Seibert as Hanna-Barbera Cartoons' Executive Producer & Head of TV, where he oversaw all the studio's output and produced shorts for Cartoon Network's "What a Cartoon!" series through 1996. Potamkin died from pancreatic cancer on April 22, 2012, and was survived by his wife Rosie.