Hanna-Barbera
Encyclopedia
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. (icon) was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century. The company was originally formed in 1957 by former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
animation directors William Hanna
and Joseph Barbera
in partnership with Columbia Pictures
' Screen Gems
television division as H-B Enterprises, Inc. Established after MGM shut down its animation studio and ended production of its animated short films (such as the popular Tom and Jerry
series), H-B Enterprises, Inc. was renamed Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. in 1959.
Over the next three decades, the studio produced many successful animated shows, including The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Flintstones
, The Yogi Bear Show
, Top Cat
, The Jetsons
, Jonny Quest
, Space Ghost
, Wacky Races
, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and The Smurfs
among others. The studio also produced several feature films and cartoon shorts for theaters along with a number of specials and movies for television.
While Hanna and Barbera's theatrical work awarded them seven Oscars, their television productions have earned the company eight Emmys
and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
. In the mid-1980s, the company's fortunes declined somewhat after the profitability of Saturday morning cartoons was eclipsed by weekday afternoon syndication.
In 1991, the company was purchased by Turner Broadcasting System
, who began using much of the H-B back catalog to program the Cartoon Network
the following year. Both Hanna and Barbera went into semi-retirement after Turner purchased the company, continuing to serve as ceremonial figureheads for and sporadic artistic contributors to the studio. In 1994, the company was renamed Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., and in 1996, Turner merged with Time Warner
.
By the time of the merger, Turner had turned Hanna-Barbera towards primarily producing new material for Cartoon Network, including the successful Cartoon Cartoons
shows such as Dexter's Laboratory
, Johnny Bravo
, Cow and Chicken
, I Am Weasel
and The Powerpuff Girls
. With William Hanna's death in 2001, the studio was folded into Warner Bros. Animation
, and Cartoon Network Studios
continued the projects for Cartoon Network output.
Joseph Barbera remained with Warner until his death in 2006. Hanna-Barbera currently exists as a production subsidiary of Warner Bros. Animation and its name is today used only to market properties and productions associated with the company's "classic" works such as The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear.
Melrose, New Mexico
native William Hanna
and New York City-born Joseph Barbera
first teamed together while working at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio
in 1939. Their first directorial project was a cartoon entitled Puss Gets the Boot
(1940), which served as the genesis of the popular Tom and Jerry
series of cartoon theatricals. Hanna and Barbera served as the directors and story men for the shorts for seventeen years, winning seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)
between 1943 and 1953 for their work. By 1956, they had become the producers in charge of the MGM animation studio's output.
Outside of their work on the MGM shorts, Hanna and Barbera moonlighted on outside projects, including the original title sequences and commercials for the hit television sitcom I Love Lucy
. MGM decided in early 1957 to close its cartoon studio, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release.
Hanna and Barbera, contemplating their future while completing the final Tom and Jerry and Droopy cartoons, began producing animated television commercials. During their last year at MGM, they developed a concept for an animated television program entitled The Ruff & Reddy Show
, about a dog and cat pair who found themselves in various misadventures. After Hanna and Barbera failed to convince MGM to back their venture, live-action director George Sidney
, who'd worked with Hanna and Barbera on several of his features (most notably Anchors Aweigh
in 1945), offered to serve as their business partner and convinced Screen Gems
, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures
, to establish a deal with the animation producers.
Screen Gems took a twenty percent ownership in Hanna and Barbera's new company, H-B Enterprises, and provided working capital to produce Ruff and Reddy. H-B Enterprises opened for business in rented offices on the lot of Kling Studios (formerly Charlie Chaplin Studios
) on July 7, 1957, two months after the MGM animation studio closed down. Sidney and several Screen Gems alumnae became members of H-B's original board of directors, and much of the former MGM animation staff – including animators Carlo Vinci, Kenneth Muse
, Lewis Marshall, Michael Lah
, and Ed Barge
and layout artists Ed Benedict
and Richard Bickenbach – as H-B's production staff.
Their first cartoon series for television, The Ruff & Reddy Show
, featuring live-action host Jimmy Blaine and several older Columbia-owned cartoons as filler, premiered on NBC
in December 1957. In 1958, H-B had their first big success with The Huckleberry Hound Show, a syndicated series aired in most markets just before primetime. The program was a ratings success, and introduced a new crop of cartoon stars to audiences, in particular Huckleberry Hound
and Yogi Bear
. The show won the 1960 Emmy Award
for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming. The studio began to expand rapidly following the success of Huckleberry Hound, and several animation industry alumnae – in particular former Warner Bros. Cartoons
storymen Michael Maltese
and Warren Foster
, who became H-B's new head writers – joined the staff at this time.
By 1959, H-B Enterprises was reincorporated as Hanna-Barbera Productions, and was slowly becoming a leader in television animation production. After introducing a second syndicated series, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, in 1959, Hanna-Barbera migrated into network primetime production with the animated ABC
sitcom The Flintstones
in 1960. Loosely based upon the popular live-action sitcom The Honeymooners
yet set in a fictionalized stone age of cavemen and dinosaurs, The Flintstones ran for six seasons in prime time on ABC, becoming a ratings and merchandising success.
It was the longest-running animated show in American prime time television history until being beaten out by The Simpsons
in 1996. Hanna-Barbera moved off of the Kling lot in 1963 (by then renamed the Red Skelton
Studios), when the Hanna-Barbera Studio, located at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. in Studio City, California, was opened. This California contemporary office building was designed by architect Arthur Froehlich
, its ultra-modern design included a sculpted latticework exterior, moat, fountains, and after later additions, a Jetsons-like tower. The Columbia/Hanna-Barbera partnership lasted until 1967, when Hanna and Barbera sold the studio to Taft Broadcasting
while retaining their positions there
Hanna-Barbera was one of the first animation studios to successfully produce cartoons especially for television. Previously, animated programming on television had consisted primarily of rebroadcasts of theatrical cartoons. During the early and mid-1960s, the studio debuted several new successful programs, among them prime time ABC series such as Top Cat
, The Jetsons
and Jonny Quest
. New shows produced for syndication and Saturday mornings included The Yogi Bear Show
(a syndicated spinoff from The Huckleberry Hound Show), The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series
featuring Wally Gator
, The Magilla Gorilla Show and The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show
. Hanna-Barbera also produced several television commercials, often starring their own characters, and animated the opening credits for the ABC sitcom Bewitched
(the Bewitched characters would appear as guest stars in an episode of The Flintstones).
The studio also produced a few theatrical projects for Columbia Pictures, including Loopy De Loop
, a series of theatrical cartoons shorts, and two feature film projects based on its television properties, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!
(1964) and The Man Called Flintstone
(1966) and two TV specials, Alice in Wonderland (or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?) (1966) and Jack and the Beanstalk (1967), the first ever Hanna-Barbera television production to be done in live-action/animation. Starting in 1965, Hanna-Barbera tried its hand at being a record label for a short time. Danny Hutton
was hired by Hanna-Barbera to become the head of Hanna Barbera Records or HBR from 1965 to 1966.
HBR Records was distributed by Columbia Records
, with artists such as Louis Prima
, Five Americans
, Scatman Crothers
(who later lent his voice to a few Hanna-Barbera cartoons, such as Hong Kong Phooey
), and The 13th Floor Elevators
. Previously, children's records with Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters were released by Colpix Records
.
The Hanna-Barbera studio especially captured the market for Saturday morning cartoon
s. After the success of The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show in 1965, H-B debuted two new Saturday morning series the following year: Space Ghost
, which featured action-adventure, and Frankenstein, Jr. and The Impossibles, which blended action-adventure with the earlier Hanna-Barbera humor style. A slew of H-B action cartoons followed in 1967, among them Shazzan
, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio
, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor
, Young Samson and Goliath, The Herculoids
and an adaptation of Marvel Comics
' Fantastic Four
along with new shows based on famous celebrities such as, The Abbott and Costello Cartoon Show and Laurel and Hardy. Between these programs and others remaining on the air (reruns of The Flintstones, Jonny Quest and The Jetsons).
Hanna-Barbera cartoons aired on all three networks' Saturday morning lineups, and dominated the CBS and NBC schedules in particular. While the action programs were notably popular and successful, pressure from parent-run organizations such as Action for Children's Television
forced the cancellation of all of them by 1969.
In 1968, Hanna-Barbera mixed live-action and animated comedy-action for its NBC anthology series, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, while the successful Wacky Races
(and its spinoffs The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines
), aired on CBS, returned H-B to straight animated slapstick humor. Hanna-Barbera's next runaway hit came in 1969 with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
, a CBS program which blended elements of the H-B comedy series, the action series, and rival Filmation
's then-current hit program The Archie Show
. Scooby-Doo centered on four teenagers and a dog solving supernatural mysteries, and was popular enough to remain on the air and in production until 1986.
A cavalcade of H-B Saturday morning cartoons featuring mystery-solving/crime-fighting teenagers with comic pets soon followed, among them Josie and the Pussycats
, Goober and the Ghost Chasers
, The Funky Phantom
, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan
, Clue Club
and Jabberjaw
. Cattanooga Cats
came next and aired on ABC in 1969. By 1977, Scooby-Doo was the centerpiece of a two-hour ABC program block titled Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics
, which also included Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels
, and Laff-a-Lympics
. During the 1970s in particular, most American television animation was produced by Hanna-Barbera. The only competition came from Filmation
, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
, Ruby-Spears, and a few other companies that specialized primarily in prime time specials (e.g. Rankin-Bass, Chuck Jones
and Lee Mendelson
-Bill Meléndez
).
Filmation, in particular, lost ground to Hanna-Barbera when the failure of Filmation's Uncle Croc's Block
led ABC president Fred Silverman
to drop Filmation and give Hanna-Barbera the majority of the network's Saturday morning cartoon time. Besides Scooby-Doo and the programs derived from it, Hanna-Barbera also found success with new programs such as Harlem Globetrotters
, The Addams Family
and Hong Kong Phooey
along with the hit 1973 feature film Charlotte's Web
. The syndicated Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
returned Hanna-Barbera to adult-oriented comedy, although the show was more provocative than The Flintstones or The Jetsons had been.
The studio revisited its 1960s stars with Flintstones spin-offs such as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show
and The Flintstone Comedy Hour
, both aired on CBS. In 1980, all four Flintstones specials (New Neighbors
, Fred's Final Fling
, Wind-Up Wilma
and Jogging Fever
) aired in prime time on NBC as a limited-run revival
of the original 1960s series. "All-star" shows featuring Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and other H-B animal stars included Yogi's Gang
and Yogi's Space Race
and the Scooby-Doo spin-offs, The New Scooby-Doo Movies
and Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo.
Hanna-Barbera also produced new shows starring older cartoon characters from the theatrical era of cartoons such as Popeye
(The All-New Popeye Hour
), Casper the Friendly Ghost
(Casper and the Angels
) and its founders' own Tom and Jerry (The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show
). Super Friends
, a Hanna-Barbera produced adaptation of DC Comics
' Justice League of America
comic book, remained on ABC Saturday mornings from 1973 to 1986.
The 60-minute shows CB Bears
and The Skatebirds
aired on NBC and CBS respectively in 1977. H-B introduced new shows and specials like, The Kwicky Koala Show
, Yogi's First Christmas
, Jokebook, A Flintstone Christmas
, Amigo and Friends
(a remake of the Mexican
animated series Cantinflas Show
, it was a joint venture between Hanna-Barbera and Televisa
), Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper
, The New Fred and Barney Show
, the 1982 feature film Heidi's Song
, The Flintstone Comedy Show
, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone
, Casper's First Christmas
, Scooby Goes Hollywood
and A Christmas Story. A slew of live shows and rides based on classic Hanna-Barbera series and characters were made for various theme parks including Kings Dominion. The studio also made a string of live-action television and film projects, including The Gathering
, C.H.O.M.P.S.
and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park
.
Annual specials on both The Flintstones and Hanna-Barbera aired, including Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue
, centering on Fred Flintstone's birthday, The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration
, focusing on the show's 25 years on air, The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special, focusing on Fred and the gang refusing to do drugs and Hanna-Barbera's 50th: A Yabba Dabba Doo Celebration, centering on the 50-year partnership of Hanna and Barbera in animation.
Over three decades, Hanna-Barbera produced prime-time, weekday afternoon, and Saturday morning cartoons for all three major networks in the United States, and for syndication. The small budgets television animation producers had to work within prevented Hanna-Barbera, and most other producers of American television animation, from working with the full theatrical-quality animation the duo had been known for at MGM. While the budget for a seven-minute Tom and Jerry entry of the 1950s was about $35,000, Hanna-Barbera was required to produce five-minute Ruff and Reddy episodes for no more than $3,000 a piece.
To keep within these tighter budgets, Hanna-Barbera modified the concept of limited animation
(also called semi-animation) practiced and popularized by the United Productions of America
(UPA) studio, which also once had a partnership with Columbia Pictures. Character designs were simplified, and backgrounds and animation cycles (walks, runs, etc.) were regularly re-purposed. Characters were often broken up into a handful of levels, so that only the parts of the body that needed to be moved at a given time (i.e. a mouth, an arm, a head) would be animated.
The rest of the figure would remain on a held animation cel. This allowed a typical 10-minute short to be done with only 1,200 drawings instead of the usual 26,000. Dialogue, music, and sound effects were emphasized over action, leading Chuck Jones
, a contemporary who worked for Hanna and Barbera's rivals at Warner Bros. Cartoons
when the duo was at MGM (and one who, with his short The Dover Boys
practically invented many of the concepts in limited animation), to disparagingly refer to the limited TV cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera and others as "illustrated radio". In a story published by The Saturday Evening Post
in 1961, critics stated that Hanna-Barbera was taking on more work than it could handle and was resorting to shortcuts only a television audience would tolerate.
An executive who worked for Walt Disney Productions said, "We don't even consider [them] competition." Ironically, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hanna-Barbera was the only animation studio in Hollywood that was actively hiring, and it picked up a number of Disney artists who were laid off during this period. The studio's solution to the criticism over its quality was to go into features. The studio produced six theatrical features, among them higher-quality versions of its hit television cartoons and adaptations of other material. They were also known to have some of their animated cartoons done in Japan and the far east.
and She-Ra: Princess of Power
and Rankin/Bass's Thundercats
. The Hanna-Barbera studio fell behind; for the most part they continued to produce for Saturday mornings, although they no longer dominated the market as before. Hanna-Barbera also aligned themselves with Ruby-Spears Productions
, which was founded in 1977 by former H-B employees Joe Ruby
and Ken Spears
.
Hanna-Barbera's then-parent Taft Broadcasting purchased Ruby-Spears from Filmways
(to which Taft had sold syndicator Rhodes Productions several years before) in 1981, and Ruby-Spears often paired their productions with Hanna-Barbera shows (For example, NBC
aired The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks
and Snorks in their 80s Saturday morning cartoon lineup).
Taft also bought Worldvision Enterprises in 1979. This company became the syndication distributor for most of Hanna-Barbera's shows throughout the 1980s. It was also during this time that the studio switched from cel animation to digital ink and paint for some of their shows. In addition, both Worldvision and Hanna-Barbera had their own home video label (Worldvision Home Video, Hanna-Barbera Home Video). Many of the studio's shows, films and specials were released by other VHS distributors. Hanna-Barbera followed the lead of its competitors by introducing shows based on familiar licensed properties like The Smurfs
, Pac-Man
, Mork and Mindy, Snorks, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Pound Puppies, Richie Rich
, Challenge of the GoBots
, Laverne & Shirley in the Army
, Shirt Tales, The Dukes
, Monchhichis
, The Little Rascals
, The Gary Coleman Show
, and Foofur
, and also produced several ABC Weekend Specials.
The popularity of The Smurfs inspired new Smurf-type shows The Biskitts
and Trollkins
, along with a string of 7 new specials (The Smurfs' Springtime Special, The Smurfs' Christmas Special, My Smurfy Valentine, Smurfily Ever After, The Smurfic Games, Tis the Season to be Smurfy) and a TV movie, Smurfquest. Some of their shows were produced at their Australian-based studio, a partnership with Australian media company Southern Star Entertainment, including Drak Pack
, The Berenstain Bears
, Teen Wolf
and almost all of the CBS Storybreak
specials. The studio also worked on other special cartoon projects with less fanfare during the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Rock Odyssey
, The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible
, The Little Troll Prince: A Christmas Parable, GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords
and Star Fairies
.
After the success of CBS's hit 1984 Saturday morning cartoon series Muppet Babies
, which featured toddler versions of the popular Muppets characters, H-B began producing shows featuring "kid" versions of popular characters, based upon both their own properties (The Flintstone Kids
, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
) and properties from other companies (Pink Panther and Sons
, Popeye and Son
).
In 1985, Hanna-Barbera launched The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
, a weekend-only syndication package which introduced new versions of old favorites like Yogi Bear (Yogi's Treasure Hunt
) and Jonny Quest (The New Adventures of Jonny Quest
) alongside reruns of Saturday morning shows and brand-new originals such as Galtar and the Golden Lance
, Young Robin Hood
, Paw Paws
, Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone
, Paddington Bear
, Fantastic Max
and Sky Commanders
along with the block's filler segment HBTV. Joseph Barbera, along with Los Angeles county supervisor Michael Antonovich
, did a special project starring Yogi Bear about earthquakes for Yogi Bear's Quakey Shakey Schoolhouse. Also in 1985, DC Comics named Hanna-Barbera as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great
for its work on the Super Friends series.
H-B also made new shows featuring Scooby-Doo (The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
) and Yogi Bear (The New Yogi Bear Show
) along with The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, Wildfire and a revival of The Jetsons, with 51 new episodes featuring a new character named Orbitty. In 1987, Hanna-Barbera started Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10
, an anthology series of ten original televised movies based on their popular stable of classic characters (Yogi's Great Escape
, The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
, Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
, Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose
, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats
, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
, Rockin' with Judy Jetson
, Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears
, The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
, Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
).
Throughout all of this, both Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears were subject to the financial troubles of parent company Taft Broadcasting, which had just been acquired by the American Financial Corporation in 1987 and had its name changed to Great American Broadcasting the following year. Many of the business deals were overseen by CEO of Taft Broadcasting, Charles Mechem. Along with much of the rest of the American animation industry, Hanna-Barbera had gradually begun to move away from producing everything in-house in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much of the Hanna-Barbera product was outsourced to studios in Australia and Asia, including Wang Film Productions
, Cuckoo's Nest Studios, Fil-Cartoons, Mook Co., Ltd.
, and Toei Animation
.
In 1989, much of Hanna-Barbera's staff responded to a call from Warner Bros.
to resurrect their animation department
. Producer Tom Ruegger
and a number of his colleagues left the studio at this time, moving to Warners to develop hit cartoon programs such as Tiny Toon Adventures
and Animaniacs
.
In the late-1980s and 1990s, the Hanna-Barbera characters were licensed to Universal Studios
, who produced the live-action film adaptations (The Flintstones, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
) of The Flintstones, the pre-show and ride film for The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
attraction for Universal Studios Florida
and a feature-length version of The Jetsons
. Hanna-Barbera teamed with Hallmark Cards
to launch Timeless Tales from Hallmark, a series of adaptations based on classic fairy tales (done in live-action/animation) hosted by Olivia Newton-John
.
was appointed as the head of the Hanna-Barbera studio in 1989, with Hanna and Barbera remaining as co-chairmen In 1990, burdened with debt, Great American put both Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears up for sale. In November 1991, the Hanna-Barbera studio and library, as well as much of the original Ruby-Spears library, were acquired by Turner Broadcasting (which, coincidentally, by that point had also bought the pre-May 1986 MGM library) for $320 million. Turner's president of entertainment Scott Sassa
hired Fred Seibert
, a former executive for MTV Networks
, to head the Hanna-Barbera studio.
He immediately filled the gap left by the departure of most of their creative crew during the Great American years with a new crop of animators, writers, and producers, including Pat Ventura, Craig McCracken
, Donovan Cook
, Genndy Tartakovsky
, David Feiss
, Seth MacFarlane
, Van Partible
, Stewart St. John
, and Butch Hartman
and new production head Buzz Potamkin. In 1992, the studio was renamed H-B Productions Company, changing its name once again to Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. a year later.
In the early 1990s, the studio introduced new versions of classic properties such as Yo Yogi!
, Tom & Jerry Kids and its spin-off Droopy: Master Detective. It also assumed production of TBS's Captain Planet and the Planeteers
in 1993, renaming it The New Adventures of Captain Planet. Joseph Barbera served as creative consultant for the feature-length film Tom and Jerry: The Movie
, released to theaters in 1992. Hanna-Barbera made 13 episodes for the first season of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures
. The studio also introduced shows that were quite different from their trademark signature cartoons, including Wake, Rattle, and Roll
(a.k.a. Jump, Rattle and Roll), SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
, Dumb and Dumber
, 2 Stupid Dogs
, Fish Police
, The Pirates of Dark Water
, Gravedale High
, Capitol Critters
and a new version of The Addams Family
.
From 1993 to 1995, Hanna-Barbera produced a slew of new specials and films for television such as I Yabba-Dabba Do!
, Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby
, A Flintstone Family Christmas
, A Flintstones Christmas Carol
, Jonny's Golden Quest
, Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects
, Yogi the Easter Bear
, Arabian Nights
, Daisy-Head Mayzie, The Halloween Tree and The Town Santa Forgot
. A new feature animation division led by David Kirschner produced Once Upon a Forest
, which underperformed at the box office when released by 20th Century Fox
in 1993. The feature division was spun off into Turner Feature Animation, which produced the two films, The Pagemaster
and Cats Don't Dance
. Near the end of production on Cats Don't Dance, the studio was folded into Warner Bros. Animation. Also in 1992, Turner launched Cartoon Network
, to showcase its huge library of animated programs, of which Hanna-Barbera was the core contributor. As a result, many classic cartoons – especially those by H-B – were introduced to a new audience.
In 1994, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera finally ended, so that Turner could refocus the studio to produce new shows exclusively for the Turner-owned networks, especially Cartoon Network. In February 1995, Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network launched World Premiere Toons (a.k.a. What A Cartoon!), a format designed by Seibert. The weekly program featured 48 new creator-driven cartoon shorts developed by its in-house staff. Several original Cartoon Network series emerged from the project, giving the studio their first bona-fide mass appeal hits since The Smurfs. The first series based on a World Premiere Toons short was Genndy Tartakovsky
's Dexter's Laboratory
in 1996.
Others programs followed, including Johnny Bravo
, Cow and Chicken
, its spinoff I Am Weasel
, The Powerpuff Girls
, and Courage the Cowardly Dog
(though Hanna-Barbera financed the short and was going to convert it into a full series, actual production occurred entirely at creator John R. Dilworth
's studio, Stretch Films in New York City). H-B also co-produced several new direct-to-video movies featuring Scooby-Doo with Warner Bros. Animation, as well as other new projects for television such as, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
, Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat and Cave Kids
.
After the merger between Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner in 1996, the conglomerate had two separate animation studios in its possession. Though under a common ownership, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Animation operated separately until 1998. That year, the Hanna-Barbera lot was closed and studio operations were moved into the same office tower (adjacent to the Sherman Oaks Galleria
) as the Warner Bros. Television Animation
division in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California
.
label. This came in handy with shows that were produced outside H-B, but Cartoon Network had a hand in producing, such as A.k.a. Cartoon's Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Kino Films' Mike, Lu and Og, Curious Pictures
' Sheep in the Big City
and Codename: Kids Next Door
, Renegade Animation
's Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
and Porchlight Entertainment
's The Secret Saturdays
, as well as shows the studio continued to produce, like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Samurai Jack
, Camp Lazlo
, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
, Ben 10
, Chowder
, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
, Regular Show
and Adventure Time
(co-produced with Frederator Studios
).
When William Hanna died of throat cancer, on March 22, 2001, an era was over. Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase
and The Flintstones: On the Rocks
featured a dedication to Hanna, but the actual production of Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase was done by Warner Bros. Animation. After 2001, Hanna-Barbera's animation studio was completely folded into Warner Bros. Animation but remained in-name-only, and further Cartoon Network projects were handled by Cartoon Network Studios. Joseph Barbera continued to work for Warner Bros. Animation on projects relating to the Hanna-Barbera and Tom and Jerry properties until his death on December 18, 2006. The films Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!
and Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale
were dedicated to Barbera.
Although the Hanna-Barbera name remains on the copyright notices of new productions based on "classic" properties like the Flintstones, the Jetsons and others, the studio that produces these works is Warner Bros. Animation. Most Cartoon Network shows previously produced by Hanna-Barbera are copyrighted by the channel itself. Today, Hanna-Barbera is currently an in-name-only unit of Warner's animation division.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
animation directors William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...
and Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
in partnership with Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
' Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
television division as H-B Enterprises, Inc. Established after MGM shut down its animation studio and ended production of its animated short films (such as the popular Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
series), H-B Enterprises, Inc. was renamed Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. in 1959.
Over the next three decades, the studio produced many successful animated shows, including The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
, The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions about a fast-talking picnic basket stealing bear named Yogi. The show debuted in syndication on January 30 and ran for 33 episodes until December 30 in 1961 and included two segments, Snagglepuss and Yakky...
, Top Cat
Top Cat
Top Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
, The Jetsons
The Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
, Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest is a media franchise that revolves around a boy named Jonny Quest who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures. The franchise started with a 1964-65 television series and has come to include two subsequent television series, two television films, and a video game.-1964–1965...
, Space Ghost
Space Ghost
Space Ghost is a fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera Productions and designed by Alex Toth for CBS in the 1960s. In his original incarnation, he was a superhero who, with his sidekick teen helpers Jan, Jace, and Blip the monkey, fought supervillains in outer space...
, Wacky Races
Wacky Races
Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and The Smurfs
The Smurfs (1981 TV series)
The Smurfs is an American animated television series that aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to August 25, 1990...
among others. The studio also produced several feature films and cartoon shorts for theaters along with a number of specials and movies for television.
While Hanna and Barbera's theatrical work awarded them seven Oscars, their television productions have earned the company eight Emmys
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
. In the mid-1980s, the company's fortunes declined somewhat after the profitability of Saturday morning cartoons was eclipsed by weekday afternoon syndication.
In 1991, the company was purchased by Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...
, who began using much of the H-B back catalog to program the Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
the following year. Both Hanna and Barbera went into semi-retirement after Turner purchased the company, continuing to serve as ceremonial figureheads for and sporadic artistic contributors to the studio. In 1994, the company was renamed Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., and in 1996, Turner merged with Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
.
By the time of the merger, Turner had turned Hanna-Barbera towards primarily producing new material for Cartoon Network, including the successful Cartoon Cartoons
Cartoon Cartoons
Cartoon Cartoons is a collective name for Cartoon Network original series. These cartoons were originally produced by Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network Studios, but over the years, studios like a.k.a. Cartoon, Kino Films, Stretch Films, Blanky Blook and Curious Pictures produced these series for...
shows such as Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
, Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
, Cow and Chicken
Cow and Chicken
Cow and Chicken is an American animated series, created by David Feiss. The series shows the surreal adventures of a cow, named Cow, and her chicken brother, named Chicken. They are often antagonized by "The Red Guy", who poses as various characters to scam or hurt them...
, I Am Weasel
I Am Weasel
I Am Weasel is an American animated television series produced by Cartoon Network Studios in co-production with Hanna-Barbera, created by David Feiss, and broadcast on Cartoon Network....
and The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series created by animator Craig McCracken and produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network...
. With William Hanna's death in 2001, the studio was folded into Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
, and Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
continued the projects for Cartoon Network output.
Joseph Barbera remained with Warner until his death in 2006. Hanna-Barbera currently exists as a production subsidiary of Warner Bros. Animation and its name is today used only to market properties and productions associated with the company's "classic" works such as The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear.
The beginnings of Hanna-Barbera
Melrose, New Mexico
Melrose is a village in Curry County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 736 at the 2000 census. The town is losing population due to rural exodus...
native William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...
and New York City-born Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
first teamed together while working at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio was the in-house division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture studio in Hollywood, California during the Golden Age of American animation, responsible for producing animated short subjects to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters...
in 1939. Their first directorial project was a cartoon entitled Puss Gets the Boot
Puss Gets the Boot
Puss Gets the Boot is a one-reel animated cartoon and the first Tom and Jerry short, although not billed as such in the cartoon. It was released on June 24, 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer...
(1940), which served as the genesis of the popular Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
series of cartoon theatricals. Hanna and Barbera served as the directors and story men for the shorts for seventeen years, winning seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
between 1943 and 1953 for their work. By 1956, they had become the producers in charge of the MGM animation studio's output.
Outside of their work on the MGM shorts, Hanna and Barbera moonlighted on outside projects, including the original title sequences and commercials for the hit television sitcom I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
. MGM decided in early 1957 to close its cartoon studio, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release.
Hanna and Barbera, contemplating their future while completing the final Tom and Jerry and Droopy cartoons, began producing animated television commercials. During their last year at MGM, they developed a concept for an animated television program entitled The Ruff & Reddy Show
The Ruff & Reddy Show
The Ruff & Reddy Show is a Hanna-Barbera animated series starring Ruff, a straight and smart cat voiced by Don Messick, and Reddy, a dumb and stupid dog voiced by Daws Butler...
, about a dog and cat pair who found themselves in various misadventures. After Hanna and Barbera failed to convince MGM to back their venture, live-action director George Sidney
George Sidney
George Sidney was an American film director and film producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Career:...
, who'd worked with Hanna and Barbera on several of his features (most notably Anchors Aweigh
Anchors Aweigh (film)
Anchors Aweigh is a 1945 American musical comedy film directed by George Sidney in which two sailors go on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood, accompanied by music and song, meet an aspiring young singer and try to help her get an audition at MGM...
in 1945), offered to serve as their business partner and convinced Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, to establish a deal with the animation producers.
Screen Gems took a twenty percent ownership in Hanna and Barbera's new company, H-B Enterprises, and provided working capital to produce Ruff and Reddy. H-B Enterprises opened for business in rented offices on the lot of Kling Studios (formerly Charlie Chaplin Studios
Charlie Chaplin Studios
Charlie Chaplin Studios is a motion picture studio built in 1917 by silent film star Charlie Chaplin just south of the southeast corner of La Brea and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California....
) on July 7, 1957, two months after the MGM animation studio closed down. Sidney and several Screen Gems alumnae became members of H-B's original board of directors, and much of the former MGM animation staff – including animators Carlo Vinci, Kenneth Muse
Kenneth Muse
Kenneth Lee Muse was an American animator. He is best known for his work on the Tom and Jerry series at MGM.-Biography:...
, Lewis Marshall, Michael Lah
Michael Lah
Michael Richard Lah was an American animator. He is best known for his work at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, primarily as a member of Tex Avery's animation unit....
, and Ed Barge
Ed Barge
Edward John "Ed" Barge was an American animator.Barge was born to Alfred Edward and Margaret G. Barge in San Jose, California. In 1916, the family moved to Bakersfield, where his father was employed by the Santa Fe Railroad and Pacific Western Oil Co. before retiring in 1954...
and layout artists Ed Benedict
Ed Benedict
Ed Benedict was an American animator and layout artist. He is best known for his work with Hanna-Barbera Studios, where he helped design Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear, and Ruff and Ready....
and Richard Bickenbach – as H-B's production staff.
Their first cartoon series for television, The Ruff & Reddy Show
The Ruff & Reddy Show
The Ruff & Reddy Show is a Hanna-Barbera animated series starring Ruff, a straight and smart cat voiced by Don Messick, and Reddy, a dumb and stupid dog voiced by Daws Butler...
, featuring live-action host Jimmy Blaine and several older Columbia-owned cartoons as filler, premiered on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in December 1957. In 1958, H-B had their first big success with The Huckleberry Hound Show, a syndicated series aired in most markets just before primetime. The program was a ratings success, and introduced a new crop of cartoon stars to audiences, in particular Huckleberry Hound
Huckleberry Hound
The Huckleberry Hound Show is a 1958 syndicated animated series and the second from Hanna-Barbera following The Ruff & Reddy Show, sponsored by Kellogg's. Three segments were included in the program: one featuring Huckleberry Hound; another starring Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo Boo; and a third...
and Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...
. The show won the 1960 Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming. The studio began to expand rapidly following the success of Huckleberry Hound, and several animation industry alumnae – in particular former Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...
storymen Michael Maltese
Michael Maltese
Michael "Mike" Maltese was a long-time storyboard artist and screenwriter for classic animated cartoon shorts.-Career:...
and Warren Foster
Warren Foster
Warren Foster , was a writer, cartoonist and composer for the animation division of Warner Brothers and later with Hanna-Barbera....
, who became H-B's new head writers – joined the staff at this time.
By 1959, H-B Enterprises was reincorporated as Hanna-Barbera Productions, and was slowly becoming a leader in television animation production. After introducing a second syndicated series, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, in 1959, Hanna-Barbera migrated into network primetime production with the animated ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
sitcom The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
in 1960. Loosely based upon the popular live-action sitcom The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...
yet set in a fictionalized stone age of cavemen and dinosaurs, The Flintstones ran for six seasons in prime time on ABC, becoming a ratings and merchandising success.
It was the longest-running animated show in American prime time television history until being beaten out by The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
in 1996. Hanna-Barbera moved off of the Kling lot in 1963 (by then renamed the Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
Studios), when the Hanna-Barbera Studio, located at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. in Studio City, California, was opened. This California contemporary office building was designed by architect Arthur Froehlich
Arthur Froehlich
Arthur Froehlich , of the firm Arthur Froehlich & Associates, was an architect from Beverly Hills, California, known for his mid-century supermarkets and racetracks.Buildings credited to Arthur Froehlich & Associates:...
, its ultra-modern design included a sculpted latticework exterior, moat, fountains, and after later additions, a Jetsons-like tower. The Columbia/Hanna-Barbera partnership lasted until 1967, when Hanna and Barbera sold the studio to Taft Broadcasting
Taft Broadcasting
The Taft Broadcasting Company, also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated, was an American media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio....
while retaining their positions there
Television cartoons
Top Cat
Top Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
, The Jetsons
The Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
and Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
. New shows produced for syndication and Saturday mornings included The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions about a fast-talking picnic basket stealing bear named Yogi. The show debuted in syndication on January 30 and ran for 33 episodes until December 30 in 1961 and included two segments, Snagglepuss and Yakky...
(a syndicated spinoff from The Huckleberry Hound Show), The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series
The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series
The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series, a.k.a. The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series or The Wally Gator Show, was a syndicated television package of animated cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, starting in 1962...
featuring Wally Gator
Wally Gator
Wally Gator is one of the segments from The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series. The other segments that compose this trilogy are Lippy the Lion & Hardy Har Har and Touché Turtle and Dum Dum. The segment consisted of 52 episodes over two seasons....
, The Magilla Gorilla Show and The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show
The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show
The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show was an hour-long Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1965 to 1967 for NBC.-Production:...
. Hanna-Barbera also produced several television commercials, often starring their own characters, and animated the opening credits for the ABC sitcom Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
(the Bewitched characters would appear as guest stars in an episode of The Flintstones).
The studio also produced a few theatrical projects for Columbia Pictures, including Loopy De Loop
Loopy De Loop
Loopy De Loop was the only theatrical cartoon short series produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera after leaving MGM and opening their new Hanna-Barbera Studios...
, a series of theatrical cartoons shorts, and two feature film projects based on its television properties, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!
Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!
Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! is a 1964 American animated feature film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and released by Columbia Pictures. The film stars the voices of Daws Butler, Don Messick, Julie Bennett, and Mel Blanc...
(1964) and The Man Called Flintstone
The Man Called Flintstone
The Man Called Flintstone is a 1966 American animated musical comedy film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and released by Columbia Pictures. It was the second Hanna-Barbera feature, after Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!...
(1966) and two TV specials, Alice in Wonderland (or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?) (1966) and Jack and the Beanstalk (1967), the first ever Hanna-Barbera television production to be done in live-action/animation. Starting in 1965, Hanna-Barbera tried its hand at being a record label for a short time. Danny Hutton
Danny Hutton
Daniel Anthony Hutton , is an Irish-American singer, best known as one of the three lead vocalists in the band, Three Dog Night. Hutton was the head of Hanna Barbera Records from 1965-1966...
was hired by Hanna-Barbera to become the head of Hanna Barbera Records or HBR from 1965 to 1966.
HBR Records was distributed by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, with artists such as Louis Prima
Louis Prima
Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...
, Five Americans
Five Americans
Five Americans was a 1960s American band, most famous for the song "Western Union", which reached #5 in the U.S. Billboard chart and was their only single to chart in the Top 20...
, Scatman Crothers
Scatman Crothers
Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980...
(who later lent his voice to a few Hanna-Barbera cartoons, such as Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey is a 16-episode Hanna-Barbera animated series that first aired on ABC Saturday morning from to . The main character, Hong Kong Phooey, is a superhero who uses Chinese martial arts to fight crime. Hong Kong Phooey is the secret alter ego of Penrod "Penry" Pooch, a "mild-mannered"...
), and The 13th Floor Elevators
13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators were an American rock band from Austin, Texas formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland, which existed from 1965 to 1969...
. Previously, children's records with Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters were released by Colpix Records
Colpix Records
Colpix Records was the first recording company for Columbia Pictures–Screen Gems. Colpix got its name from combining Columbia and Pictures . It was founded by Jonie Taps and Harry Cohn in 1958, and was based in New York City. Paul Wexler headed the label. Stu Phillips was in charge of A&R...
.
The Hanna-Barbera studio especially captured the market for Saturday morning cartoon
Saturday morning cartoon
A Saturday morning cartoon is the colloquial term for the animated television programming that has typically been scheduled on Saturday mornings on the major American television networks from the 1960s to the present; the genre's peak in popularity mostly ended in the 1990s while the popularity of...
s. After the success of The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show in 1965, H-B debuted two new Saturday morning series the following year: Space Ghost
Space Ghost (TV series)
Space Ghost is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It first aired on CBS from September 10, 1966 to September 7, 1968. The series was composed of two unrelated segments, Space Ghost and Dino Boy in the Lost Valley...
, which featured action-adventure, and Frankenstein, Jr. and The Impossibles, which blended action-adventure with the earlier Hanna-Barbera humor style. A slew of H-B action cartoons followed in 1967, among them Shazzan
Shazzan
Shazzan is an animated television series, created by Alex Toth and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1967 for CBS. The series follows the adventures of two teenage siblings, Chuck and Nancy, traveling around a mystical Arabian world, mounted on Kaboobie the flying camel...
, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio
Birdman and the Galaxy Trio
Birdman and the Galaxy Trio is an animated science fiction TV series created by Alex Toth and produced by Hanna-Barbera. It debuted on NBC on September 9, 1967, and ran on Saturday mornings until September 6, 1969...
, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor
Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor
Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor is a science fiction animated series created by Alex Toth for Hanna-Barbera Productions, which ran on CBS from 1967 to 1969. Despite Moby's name coming first, he had only one short per half-hour episode, sandwiched between two with Mightor; the same structure was used...
, Young Samson and Goliath, The Herculoids
The Herculoids
The Herculoids is a Saturday morning animated television series that was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show debuted on September 9, 1967 on CBS...
and an adaptation of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four (1967 TV series)
Fantastic Four is an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and the first animated series based on Marvel's comic book series Fantastic Four. The program, featuring character designs by Alex Toth, aired on ABC from 1967 to 1970. It lasted for 20 episodes, with repeat episodes airing...
along with new shows based on famous celebrities such as, The Abbott and Costello Cartoon Show and Laurel and Hardy. Between these programs and others remaining on the air (reruns of The Flintstones, Jonny Quest and The Jetsons).
Hanna-Barbera cartoons aired on all three networks' Saturday morning lineups, and dominated the CBS and NBC schedules in particular. While the action programs were notably popular and successful, pressure from parent-run organizations such as Action for Children's Television
Action for Children's Television
Action for Children's Television was founded by Peggy Charren and Judy Chalfen in Newton, Massachusetts in 1968 as a grassroots organization dedicated to improving the quality of television programming offered to children...
forced the cancellation of all of them by 1969.
In 1968, Hanna-Barbera mixed live-action and animated comedy-action for its NBC anthology series, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, while the successful Wacky Races
Wacky Races
Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
(and its spinoffs The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that premiered on CBS on September 13, 1969. The show lasted two full seasons, with a total of 17 half-hour episodes produced and released, the last first-run episode airing on January...
, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines
Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines
Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines is a cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for CBS. Originally the series was broadcast as a Saturday morning cartoon, airing from September 13, 1969 to January 3, 1970...
), aired on CBS, returned H-B to straight animated slapstick humor. Hanna-Barbera's next runaway hit came in 1969 with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Scooby-Doo, Where are You!
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 13, 1969 at 10:30 a.m. EST and ran for two seasons on CBS as a half-hour long show. Twenty-five episodes were produced...
, a CBS program which blended elements of the H-B comedy series, the action series, and rival Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...
's then-current hit program The Archie Show
The Archie Show
The Archie Show is a Saturday morning cartoon animated series produced by Filmation. Based on the Archie comic books, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show debuted on CBS in September 1968 and lasted for one season. A total of 17 half-hour shows, each containing two 11 minute segments,...
. Scooby-Doo centered on four teenagers and a dog solving supernatural mysteries, and was popular enough to remain on the air and in production until 1986.
A cavalcade of H-B Saturday morning cartoons featuring mystery-solving/crime-fighting teenagers with comic pets soon followed, among them Josie and the Pussycats
Josie and the Pussycats (TV series)
Josie and the Pussycats is an American animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo....
, Goober and the Ghost Chasers
Goober and the Ghost Chasers
Goober and the Ghost Chasers was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired on ABC from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975. A total of 16 half-hour episodes of Goober and the Ghost Chasers were produced. The show's episodes were later serialized as part of the syndicated...
, The Funky Phantom
The Funky Phantom
The Funky Phantom was a Saturday morning cartoon, produced for Hanna-Barbera Productions by Australian production company, Air Programs International in 1971 for ABC.-Plot:...
, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan The voice of Mr...
, Clue Club
Clue Club
Clue Club is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from August 14, 1976 to September 3, 1977 on CBS....
and Jabberjaw
Jabberjaw
Jabberjaw is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired from September 11, 1976 to September 3, 1978 on ABC.-Premise:...
. Cattanooga Cats
Cattanooga Cats
Cattanooga Cats is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC. It aired from September 6, 1969 until September 4, 1971.-Segments:...
came next and aired on ABC in 1969. By 1977, Scooby-Doo was the centerpiece of a two-hour ABC program block titled Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics
Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics
-DVD release:On January 19, 2010, Warner Home Video released Scooby's All-Star Laff-A Lympics - Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1. The single disc release features the first four episodes of the Laff-a-Lympics segment of the package. Target released an exclusive second volume with the next four episodes...
, which also included Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder is an American animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Hanna-Barbera about a Batman-esque super hero, the Blue Falcon and his assistant, a bumbling yet generally effective robot dog Dynomutt, who could produce a seemingly infinite number of mechanical...
, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels is an animated series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977 to June 21, 1980 on ABC....
, and Laff-a-Lympics
Laff-A-Lympics
Laff-A-Lympics was the co-headlining segment, with Scooby-Doo, of the package Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show was a spoof of the Olympics and the ABC television series Battle of the Network Stars, which debuted one...
. During the 1970s in particular, most American television animation was produced by Hanna-Barbera. The only competition came from Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...
, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises was a Hollywood-based animation production company, active from 1963 to 1981. They produced theatrical cartoons, animated series, commercials, title sequences and television specials. Notable among these is The Pink Panther film titles and cartoon shorts and the Dr....
, Ruby-Spears, and a few other companies that specialized primarily in prime time specials (e.g. Rankin-Bass, Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
and Lee Mendelson
Lee Mendelson
Lee Mendelson is an American television producer. He is best known as the executive producer of the many Peanuts animated specials....
-Bill Meléndez
Bill Melendez
José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Meléndez was a Mexican-American character animator, film director, voice artist and producer, known for his cartoons for Warner Brothers, UPA and the Peanuts series...
).
Filmation, in particular, lost ground to Hanna-Barbera when the failure of Filmation's Uncle Croc's Block
Uncle Croc's Block
Uncle Croc's Block was a short-lived, hour-long live-action/animated series on ABC, produced by Filmation Associates.-History:A spoof of kid shows, Charles Nelson Reilly played the titular Uncle Croc, who hated his job as the show's host. Also featured were Alfie Wise as his sidekick Mr...
led ABC president Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at the CBS, ABC and NBC networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo , All in the Family , The Waltons , and Charlie's Angels , as well as the...
to drop Filmation and give Hanna-Barbera the majority of the network's Saturday morning cartoon time. Besides Scooby-Doo and the programs derived from it, Hanna-Barbera also found success with new programs such as Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters (TV series)
Harlem Globetrotters was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera and CBS Productions, featuring animated versions of players from the basketball team, Harlem Globetrotters....
, The Addams Family
The Addams Family (1973 animated series)
The Addams Family is an animated adaptation of the Charles Addams cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1973.-Scooby-Doo appearance:...
and Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey is a 16-episode Hanna-Barbera animated series that first aired on ABC Saturday morning from to . The main character, Hong Kong Phooey, is a superhero who uses Chinese martial arts to fight crime. Hong Kong Phooey is the secret alter ego of Penrod "Penry" Pooch, a "mild-mannered"...
along with the hit 1973 feature film Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web (1973 film)
Charlotte's Web is a 1973 American animated musical film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions and based upon the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White...
. The syndicated Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was an animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974...
returned Hanna-Barbera to adult-oriented comedy, although the show was more provocative than The Flintstones or The Jetsons had been.
The studio revisited its 1960s stars with Flintstones spin-offs such as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show
The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show
The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series spin-off of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, which ran for 16 half-hour episodes from September 11, 1971, to September 2, 1972, and four 8-minute episodes from September 9, 1972, to September 1,...
and The Flintstone Comedy Hour
The Flintstone Comedy Hour
The Flintstone Comedy Hour is a one-hour Saturday morning cartoon anthology series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The program originally aired on CBS as an hour-long show from September 9, 1972 to September 1, 1973 on CBS...
, both aired on CBS. In 1980, all four Flintstones specials (New Neighbors
The Flintstones' New Neighbors
The Flintstones' New Neighbors was a 30-minute episode that was part of "The Flintstone Special" limited-run prime time television revival of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions which aired on NBC on September 26, 1980....
, Fred's Final Fling
The Flintstones: Fred's Final Fling
Fred's Final Fling was a 30-minute episode that was part of "The Flintstone Special" limited-run prime time television revival of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions which aired on NBC on November 7, 1980.-Summary:...
, Wind-Up Wilma
The Flintstones: Wind-Up Wilma
Wind-Up Wilma was a 30-minute episode that was part of "The Flintstone Special" limited-run prime time television revival of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions which aired on NBC on October 4, 1981.-Summary:...
and Jogging Fever
The Flintstones: Jogging Fever
Jogging Fever was a 30-minute episode that was part of "The Flintstone Special" limited-run prime time television revival of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions which aired on NBC on October 11, 1981...
) aired in prime time on NBC as a limited-run revival
The Flintstone Primetime Specials
The Flintstone Primetime Specials is a limited-run animated cartoon revival of the 1960s series classic, The Flintstones that premiered on NBC in primetime and ran from 1980 to 1981. Produced by Hanna-Barbera, it is a series of four specials starring the characters from the original show.-List of...
of the original 1960s series. "All-star" shows featuring Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and other H-B animal stars included Yogi's Gang
Yogi's Gang
Yogi's Gang is a 30-minute animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired 16 half-hour episodes on ABC from , to . The show began as Yogi's Ark Lark, a special TV movie on The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie in 1972...
and Yogi's Space Race
Yogi's Space Race
Yogi's Space Race was a 90-minute Saturday morning cartoon program block produced by Hanna-Barbera from September 9 to December 2, 1978 for NBC. The show also appeared on BBC in the United Kingdom...
and the Scooby-Doo spin-offs, The New Scooby-Doo Movies
The New Scooby-Doo Movies
The New Scooby-Doo Movies is the second incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. It premiered on September 9, 1972 and ran for two seasons on CBS as the only hour-long Scooby-Doo series...
and Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo.
Hanna-Barbera also produced new shows starring older cartoon characters from the theatrical era of cartoons such as Popeye
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...
(The All-New Popeye Hour
The All-New Popeye Hour
The All-New Popeye Hour is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Syndicate. Starring the popular comic strip character Popeye, the series aired from 1978 to 1983 on CBS.-Production:...
), Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. As his name indicates, he is a ghost, but is quite personable...
(Casper and the Angels
Casper and the Angels
Casper and the Angels was a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and aired for one season on NBC. Casper the Friendly Ghost was a guardian angel for two female motorcycle space cops named Minnie and Maxie in the year 2179...
) and its founders' own Tom and Jerry (The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show
The Great Grape Ape Show
The Great Grape Ape Show is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that was broadcast on ABC from 1975 to 1978.-Summary:...
). Super Friends
Super Friends
Super Friends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes, which ran from 1973 to 1986 on ABC as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup...
, a Hanna-Barbera produced adaptation of DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
' Justice League of America
Justice League
The Justice League, also called the Justice League of America or JLA, is a fictional superhero team that appears in comic books published by DC Comics....
comic book, remained on ABC Saturday mornings from 1973 to 1986.
The 60-minute shows CB Bears
CB Bears
CB Bears was a 60-minute Saturday morning cartoon program block produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired on NBC from September 10 to December 3, 1977...
and The Skatebirds
The Skatebirds
The Skatebirds was a 60-minute show on CBS Saturday mornings from 1977-78, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show featured four short segments hosted by live-action wraparounds featuring "The Skatebirds", three large birds played by actors in costumes.The Skatebirds, so-called because they...
aired on NBC and CBS respectively in 1977. H-B introduced new shows and specials like, The Kwicky Koala Show
The Kwicky Koala Show
The Kwicky Koala Show is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1981 for CBS. The TV program is notable for being among cartoon director Tex Avery's final works...
, Yogi's First Christmas
Yogi's First Christmas
Yogi's First Christmas is a 1980 holiday-themed television film first aired on November 21, 1980 and produced by Hanna-Barbera. Throughout the 1980s it was offered to U.S...
, Jokebook, A Flintstone Christmas
A Flintstone Christmas
A Flintstone Christmas is a 60-minute animated Christmas television special featuring The Flintstones. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and aired on NBC on December 7, 1977. This special is not to be confused with the episode "Christmas Flintstone" which aired during the show's run...
, Amigo and Friends
Amigo and Friends
Amigo and Friends is an educational children's cartoon that was based on the Mexican cartoon series Cantinflas Show in 1979...
(a remake of the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
animated series Cantinflas Show
Cantinflas Show
Cantinflas Show is a Mexican animated television series produced by Televisa. The series was created by Mario Moreno 'Cantinflas' and animated by Spanish animator Jose Luis Moro, who animated the pilot episode in 1972....
, it was a joint venture between Hanna-Barbera and Televisa
Televisa
Televisa is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate, the largest mass media company in Latin America and in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a major international entertainment business, with much of its programming airing in the United States on Univision, with which it has an exclusive contract...
), Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper
Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper
Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper is an animated television special starring Yogi Bear and company. It is the third and final Yogi Bear Christmas special...
, The New Fred and Barney Show
The New Fred and Barney Show
The New Fred and Barney Show was a 30-minute Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera as a 1979 series revival of The Flintstones from February 3 to October 20, 1979 on NBC...
, the 1982 feature film Heidi's Song
Heidi's Song
Heidi's Song is a 1982 animated musical feature film produced by Hanna-Barbera. The film is based on the novel Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Among the voice cast of the film are Lorne Greene as Grandfather, Margery Gray as Heidi and Sammy Davis Jr...
, The Flintstone Comedy Show
The Flintstone Comedy Show (1980)
The Flintstone Comedy Show was a 90-minute Saturday morning animated series revival of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired from November 22, 1980 to September 11, 1982 on NBC...
, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone
The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone
The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone is a 45-minute Halloween television special featuring the Flintstones. It was produced in 1979 by Hanna-Barbera Productions and first aired on October 30, 1980 on NBC.-Plot:...
, Casper's First Christmas
Casper's First Christmas
Casper's First Christmas is a 30-minute Christmas Television special and crossover produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that featured Casper the Friendly Ghost and his friend Hairy Scary from the show Casper and the Angels with guest stars Yogi Bear, Boo Boo, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Quick...
, Scooby Goes Hollywood
Scooby Goes Hollywood
Scooby Goes Hollywood was a prime-time hour-long television special starring the cast of Hanna-Barbera's Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo...
and A Christmas Story. A slew of live shows and rides based on classic Hanna-Barbera series and characters were made for various theme parks including Kings Dominion. The studio also made a string of live-action television and film projects, including The Gathering
The Gathering (1977 film)
The Gathering is a 1977 ABC made for television drama film. A rare live-action drama film from the Hanna-Barbera studios, it was directed by Randal Kleiser and starring Edward Asner and Maureen Stapleton.-Plot:...
, C.H.O.M.P.S.
C.H.O.M.P.S.
-Plot:A young inventor - Brian Foster creates a robotic dog for use as part of a home protection system. C.H.O.M.P.S. is an acronym for "canine home protection system." Ralph Norton is his boss who he constantly argues with. Norton's daughter Casey and Foster develop a relationship...
and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park
Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park is a 1978 television film, starring American hard rock band Kiss...
.
Annual specials on both The Flintstones and Hanna-Barbera aired, including Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue
Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue
Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue is a 60-minute live-action/animated television special produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with deFaria Productions which aired on CBS on Friday, January 13, 1978 at 8:00 pm EST....
, centering on Fred Flintstone's birthday, The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration
The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration
The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration was a 60-minute CBS live-action and animated television special produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with Robert Guenette Productions commemorating the 25th anniversary of television's first primetime animated series, The Flintstones,...
, focusing on the show's 25 years on air, The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special, focusing on Fred and the gang refusing to do drugs and Hanna-Barbera's 50th: A Yabba Dabba Doo Celebration, centering on the 50-year partnership of Hanna and Barbera in animation.
Quality controversy
To keep within these tighter budgets, Hanna-Barbera modified the concept of limited animation
Limited animation
Limited animation is a process of making animated cartoons that does not redraw entire frames but variably reuses common parts between frames. One of its major trademarks is the stylized design in all forms and shapes, which in the early days was referred to as modern design...
(also called semi-animation) practiced and popularized by the United Productions of America
United Productions of America
United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American animation studio of the 1940s through present day, beginning with industrial films and World War II training films. In the late 1940s, UPA produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures, most notably the Mr. Magoo series. In...
(UPA) studio, which also once had a partnership with Columbia Pictures. Character designs were simplified, and backgrounds and animation cycles (walks, runs, etc.) were regularly re-purposed. Characters were often broken up into a handful of levels, so that only the parts of the body that needed to be moved at a given time (i.e. a mouth, an arm, a head) would be animated.
The rest of the figure would remain on a held animation cel. This allowed a typical 10-minute short to be done with only 1,200 drawings instead of the usual 26,000. Dialogue, music, and sound effects were emphasized over action, leading Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
, a contemporary who worked for Hanna and Barbera's rivals at Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...
when the duo was at MGM (and one who, with his short The Dover Boys
The Dover Boys
"The Dover Boys at Pimento University" or "The Rivals of Roquefort Hall" is a 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions and directed by Chuck Jones. It was released by Warner Bros. on September 19, 1942...
practically invented many of the concepts in limited animation), to disparagingly refer to the limited TV cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera and others as "illustrated radio". In a story published by The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1961, critics stated that Hanna-Barbera was taking on more work than it could handle and was resorting to shortcuts only a television audience would tolerate.
An executive who worked for Walt Disney Productions said, "We don't even consider [them] competition." Ironically, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hanna-Barbera was the only animation studio in Hollywood that was actively hiring, and it picked up a number of Disney artists who were laid off during this period. The studio's solution to the criticism over its quality was to go into features. The studio produced six theatrical features, among them higher-quality versions of its hit television cartoons and adaptations of other material. They were also known to have some of their animated cartoons done in Japan and the far east.
The slow rise and fall
In the 1980s, competing studios such as Filmation and Rankin/Bass began to introduce successful syndicated cartoon series based upon characters from popular toy lines and action figures. These included Filmation's He-Man and the Masters of the UniverseHe-Man and the Masters of the Universe
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is an American animated television series produced by Filmation based on Mattel's successful toy line Masters of the Universe...
and She-Ra: Princess of Power
She-Ra: Princess of Power
She-Ra: Princess of Power is an American animated television series produced in 1985 by Filmation. It is a spinoff of Filmation's highly successful He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series, aimed primarily at a young girls' audience to counter-balance the latter show's popularity with boys...
and Rankin/Bass's Thundercats
ThunderCats
ThunderCats is an American animated television series that was produced by Rankin/Bass Productions debuting in 1984, based on the characters created by Tobin "Ted" Wolf. The series follows the adventures of a group of cat-like humanoid aliens...
. The Hanna-Barbera studio fell behind; for the most part they continued to produce for Saturday mornings, although they no longer dominated the market as before. Hanna-Barbera also aligned themselves with Ruby-Spears Productions
Ruby-Spears Productions
Ruby-Spears Productions is a Burbank, California-based entertainment production company that specializes in animation...
, which was founded in 1977 by former H-B employees Joe Ruby
Joe Ruby
Joseph "Joe" Ruby is commonly known for inventing scotch tape. Ruby was an American inventor who worked for Johnson and Johnson, Permacel Co., and 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he invented masking tape and cellophane tape.[1]Biography...
and Ken Spears
Ken Spears
Ken Spears is a TV writer and animator who is known as the co-creator for the Scooby-Doo series, Josie and the Pussycats, and Jabberjaw with his partner Joe Ruby. He is co-founder of the production company Ruby-Spears Productions.-References:...
.
Hanna-Barbera's then-parent Taft Broadcasting purchased Ruby-Spears from Filmways
Filmways
Filmways, Inc. was a television and film production company founded by American film executive Martin Ransohoff in 1958...
(to which Taft had sold syndicator Rhodes Productions several years before) in 1981, and Ruby-Spears often paired their productions with Hanna-Barbera shows (For example, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
aired The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks
Alvin and the Chipmunks (TV series)
Alvin and the Chipmunks is an American animated television series featuring The Chipmunks, produced by Bagdasarian Productions in association with Ruby-Spears Enterprises from 1983–87, and DIC Entertainment from 1988-90....
and Snorks in their 80s Saturday morning cartoon lineup).
Taft also bought Worldvision Enterprises in 1979. This company became the syndication distributor for most of Hanna-Barbera's shows throughout the 1980s. It was also during this time that the studio switched from cel animation to digital ink and paint for some of their shows. In addition, both Worldvision and Hanna-Barbera had their own home video label (Worldvision Home Video, Hanna-Barbera Home Video). Many of the studio's shows, films and specials were released by other VHS distributors. Hanna-Barbera followed the lead of its competitors by introducing shows based on familiar licensed properties like The Smurfs
The Smurfs (1981 TV series)
The Smurfs is an American animated television series that aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to August 25, 1990...
, Pac-Man
Pac-Man (TV series)
Pac-Man is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera based on the video game Pac-Man by Namco, which premiered on ABC and ran from 1982 to 1983. During the first airing of the show, the large number of advertisers sponsoring it caused commercial breaks to be double their normal length...
, Mork and Mindy, Snorks, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Pound Puppies, Richie Rich
Richie Rich (1980 TV series)
Richie Rich is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that aired on ABC from 1980 to 1984. Based upon Harvey Comics' popular Richie Rich comic book characters, shared time slots with Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The Little Rascals, and Pac-Man over its original broadcast...
, Challenge of the GoBots
Challenge of the GoBots
Challenge of the GoBots is an American animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera, based on the Gobots toy-line released from Tonka. Most of the toys were imported from the Japanese Machine Robo toy line. The show originally debuted in animated form as a five-part miniseries, which aired in...
, Laverne & Shirley in the Army
Laverne & Shirley in the Army
Laverne & Shirley in the Army is a 1981 Hanna-Barbera cartoon series based on the TV show Laverne & Shirley, with the title characters voiced by Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. The show aired on Saturday mornings for one season of 13 episodes on ABC...
, Shirt Tales, The Dukes
The Dukes
The Dukes is an animated series which ran on CBS in 1983 based directly on the popular live-action television series The Dukes of Hazzard.-Plot:...
, Monchhichis
Monchhichis
is a line of Japanese stuffed toy monkeys from the Sekiguchi Corporation. They are licensed by Mattel in the United States. Two television series were produced based on the characters: the Japanese anime series in 1980, and the American cartoon series Monchhichis in 1983.-History:The Monchhichi...
, The Little Rascals
The Little Rascals (animated TV series)
The Little Rascals was a 1982-1984 Saturday morning cartoon series produced jointly by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King World, and broadcast on ABC...
, The Gary Coleman Show
The Gary Coleman Show
The Gary Coleman Show is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera that originally aired on NBC during the 1982-1983 season.-Synposis:...
, and Foofur
Foofur
Foofur is a children's animated series made by Hanna-Barbera and Freddy Monnickendam. It aired on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The protagonist and title character was a skinny blue dog. The animated series was produced in part by William Hanna...
, and also produced several ABC Weekend Specials.
The popularity of The Smurfs inspired new Smurf-type shows The Biskitts
The Biskitts
The Biskitts is an animated cartoon TV series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1983 to 1984 and aired on CBS. The series lasted for only one season, Shirt Tales replaced the show in its time slot on the following 1984-85 Saturday Morning season...
and Trollkins
Trollkins
Trollkins is a 1981 animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired for one season on CBS. The show was inspired from The Dukes of Hazard and the Troll Dolls, only in Trolltown....
, along with a string of 7 new specials (The Smurfs' Springtime Special, The Smurfs' Christmas Special, My Smurfy Valentine, Smurfily Ever After, The Smurfic Games, Tis the Season to be Smurfy) and a TV movie, Smurfquest. Some of their shows were produced at their Australian-based studio, a partnership with Australian media company Southern Star Entertainment, including Drak Pack
Drak Pack
Drak Pack was an animated television series. It aired in the United States on CBS Saturday Morning between September 6, 1980 and September 12, 1982. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera's Australian subsidiary, listed in the credits as "Hanna-Barbera Pty. Ltd"...
, The Berenstain Bears
The Berenstain Bears (1985 TV series)
The Berenstain Bears is an Australian-American co-produced animated television series based on Stan and Jan Berenstain's Berenstain Bears children's book series, produced by Hanna-Barbera and Southern Star Productions....
, Teen Wolf
Teen Wolf (cartoon)
Teen Wolf, known as The Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf in the United Kingdom, is an animated American television series broadcast from 1986 to 1987 that was produced by Southern Star Productions in association with Clubhouse Pictures...
and almost all of the CBS Storybreak
CBS Storybreak
CBS Storybreak is a Saturday morning anthology television series that originally aired on the CBS network during the 1985 season. Hosted by Captain Kangaroo's Bob Keeshan , the episodes are half-hour animated adaptations of some of the most beloved children's books published at the time of airing,...
specials. The studio also worked on other special cartoon projects with less fanfare during the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Rock Odyssey
Rock Odyssey
Rock Odyssey is an animated feature movie produced by Hanna-Barbera for a theatrical release in 1987.Directed by Robert Taylor , with storyboards by Pete Alvarado.-Plot:...
, The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible
The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible
The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible is a direct-to-video series produced by Hanna-Barbera that tells of three young adventurers—Derek, Margo, and 'their nomad friend' Moki—who travel back in time to watch biblical events take place first-hand.-Overview:Foreign exchange...
, The Little Troll Prince: A Christmas Parable, GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords
GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords
GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords is an animated movie based on the Gobots toy and TV franchise. This movie was produced by Hanna-Barbera and released to theaters in 1986 by Clubhouse Pictures...
and Star Fairies
Star Fairies
Star Fairies was a doll toy series of the 1980s made by the Tonka company. The dolls had different costumes and personalities. Star Fairies was adapted into a televised cartoon movie, made by Hanna-Barbera in 1985...
.
After the success of CBS's hit 1984 Saturday morning cartoon series Muppet Babies
Muppet Babies
Jim Henson's Muppet Babies is an American animated television series that aired from September 15, 1984 to November 2, 1991 on CBS. The show portrayed childhood versions of the Muppets living together in a large nursery in the care of a human woman called Nanny...
, which featured toddler versions of the popular Muppets characters, H-B began producing shows featuring "kid" versions of popular characters, based upon both their own properties (The Flintstone Kids
The Flintstone Kids
The Flintstone Kids is a 30-minute animated television series spin-off of The Flintstones which followed the adventures of Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty as children with their pet Dino.-Premise:...
, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is the eighth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. This spin-off of the original show was created by Tom Ruegger and premiered on September 10, 1988 and ran for three seasons on ABC as a half-hour program, until August 17, 1991...
) and properties from other companies (Pink Panther and Sons
Pink Panther and Sons
Pink Panther and Sons is an animated Pink Panther television series produced by Hanna-Barbera and MGM/UA Television. The series was originally broadcast on NBC from 1984 to 1985. The original Pink Panther cartoons were produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, is in the TV animation industry, but in...
, Popeye and Son
Popeye and Son
Popeye and Son is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Entertainment, and aired for one season and thirteen episodes on CBS. Maurice LaMarche supplied the voice of Popeye in this series, succeeding Jack Mercer in that role...
).
In 1985, Hanna-Barbera launched The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera was a syndicated block of animated television programming and new original shows produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions.-Format:...
, a weekend-only syndication package which introduced new versions of old favorites like Yogi Bear (Yogi's Treasure Hunt
Yogi's Treasure Hunt
Yogi's Treasure Hunt is a segment that kicked-off in 1985 as the first of the programming block, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. It also ran as a regular series in syndication from 1985 to 1988.-Plot:...
) and Jonny Quest (The New Adventures of Jonny Quest
The New Adventures of Jonny Quest
The New Adventures of Jonny Quest was a 1980s continuation of Hanna-Barbera's Jonny Quest animated television series from the 1960s. Debuting in 1986 as part of the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera syndication package, this new Jonny Quest series could be seen as the second season to a program...
) alongside reruns of Saturday morning shows and brand-new originals such as Galtar and the Golden Lance
Galtar and the Golden Lance
Galtar and the Golden Lance is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera.-Premise:The series is about the mythical adventures of three companions: Galtar, Princess Goleeta, and her younger mind controlling brother, Zorn...
, Young Robin Hood
Young Robin Hood
Young Robin Hood is an animated series produced by Cinar and Hanna-Barbera. The series takes place when Robin is a teenager, Richard the Lion Heart is on his "first crusade" and Robin Hood's father, the Earl of Huntington, joins him.-Synopsis:...
, Paw Paws
Paw Paws
Paw Paws, sometimes known as Paw Paw Bears, debuted as one of the original segments of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. A group of small bears that lived in a tribal society, the cubs spent every day defending themselves from their enemies, The Meanos, led by the evil sorcerer, Dark Paw...
, Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone
Midnight Patrol: Adventures In The Dream Zone
Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone / Potsworth and Company is an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera in conjunction with Sleepy Kids PLC and is known outside the USA as Potsworth & Co....
, Paddington Bear
Paddington Bear (1989 TV Series)
Paddington Bear was the second television adaptation of the children's animated series and made by North American cartoon company Hanna-Barbera. This series was traditional two-dimensional animation and featured veteran voice actor Charlie Adler as Paddington and Tim Curry as Mr...
, Fantastic Max
Fantastic Max
Fantastic Max is an animated cartoon series created by Kalisto Ltd. and Hanna-Barbera Productions and in association with S4C. It centres on a diaper-wearing toddler with a mohawk named Max , who has adventures in outer space with two of his toys: FX, a pull string alien doll from a planet called...
and Sky Commanders
Sky Commanders
Sky Commanders is an animated television series made by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It premiered in July 1987 as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and lasted for thirteen episodes...
along with the block's filler segment HBTV. Joseph Barbera, along with Los Angeles county supervisor Michael Antonovich
Michael D. Antonovich
Michael Dennis Antonovich is a politician and the most senior-serving member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors...
, did a special project starring Yogi Bear about earthquakes for Yogi Bear's Quakey Shakey Schoolhouse. Also in 1985, DC Comics named Hanna-Barbera as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great
Fifty Who Made DC Great
Fifty Who Made DC Great is a one shot published by DC Comics to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary in 1985. It was published in comic book format but contained text articles with photographs and background caricatures...
for its work on the Super Friends series.
H-B also made new shows featuring Scooby-Doo (The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo is the seventh incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, and the final first-run version of the original 1969-86 broadcast run of the series. It premiered on and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program. Thirteen episodes of the show...
) and Yogi Bear (The New Yogi Bear Show
The New Yogi Bear Show
The New Yogi Bear Show is a 30-minute weekday animated series which aired on syndication in 1988 and featured one of Hanna-Barbera's most well-known classic characters, Yogi Bear...
) along with The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, Wildfire and a revival of The Jetsons, with 51 new episodes featuring a new character named Orbitty. In 1987, Hanna-Barbera started Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10
Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10
Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 is an anthology series of ten animated films for television produced by Hanna-Barbera for syndication and ran from 1987 to 1988 featuring Hanna-Barbera's popular animated characters in feature-length adventures. Originally, the televised movies were distributed through...
, an anthology series of ten original televised movies based on their popular stable of classic characters (Yogi's Great Escape
Yogi's Great Escape
Yogi's Great Escape is a made for television film and the first produced as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series. It first aired in syndication November 19, 1987.-Plot:...
, The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones is an animated TV movie, featuring the first meeting between the characters from The Flintstones and The Jetsons...
, Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers is an animated television movie produced by Hanna-Barbera for the Superstars 10 series. It was aired in August 1987.-Plot:...
, Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose
Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose
Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose is a 1987 animated movie for television produced by Hanna-Barbera as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series.-Plot:...
, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats
Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats
Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats is a 1987 animated movie for television and it is part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series. The TV film's plot is essentially an extended remake of the original show's episode, "The Missing Heir".- Plot :...
, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School is a 1988 TV-movie produced for syndication by Hanna-Barbera as part of the Superstars 10 film package.-Plot:...
, Rockin' with Judy Jetson
Rockin' with Judy Jetson
Rockin' with Judy Jetson is a 1988 musical made-for-TV movie produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired in syndication as a part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series. It is based on the animated television series The Jetsons.-Plot:...
, Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears
Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears
Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears is an animated television movie that premiered in 1988 as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 film series. It was the last time Daws Butler voiced Yogi.-Plot:...
, The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound is a 1988 American animated television movie that stars Huckleberry Hound. It was a part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series of televised movies. This television feature is a parody of various western movies, the title is a take-off of The Good, the...
, Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is a 1988 animated movie for television produced by Hanna-Barbera. It was the last to air as part of the Superstars 10 series...
).
Throughout all of this, both Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears were subject to the financial troubles of parent company Taft Broadcasting, which had just been acquired by the American Financial Corporation in 1987 and had its name changed to Great American Broadcasting the following year. Many of the business deals were overseen by CEO of Taft Broadcasting, Charles Mechem. Along with much of the rest of the American animation industry, Hanna-Barbera had gradually begun to move away from producing everything in-house in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much of the Hanna-Barbera product was outsourced to studios in Australia and Asia, including Wang Film Productions
Wang Film Productions
Wang Film Productions is one of the oldest and most prolific Taiwanese animation studios...
, Cuckoo's Nest Studios, Fil-Cartoons, Mook Co., Ltd.
MOOK DLE
Mook DLE is an animation studio based in Japan and started in 1986. Mook Animation and Dream Link Entertainment have formed a business alliance and are now known as Mook DLE...
, and Toei Animation
Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...
.
In 1989, much of Hanna-Barbera's staff responded to a call from Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
to resurrect their animation department
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
. Producer Tom Ruegger
Tom Ruegger
Tom Ruegger is an American animation writer, producer, and director.-Career:In the 1980s Ruegger worked for Hanna-Barbera, writing and producing various animated series, most notably The Snorks, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.In 1989 he began...
and a number of his colleagues left the studio at this time, moving to Warners to develop hit cartoon programs such as Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures
Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures, usually referred to as Tiny Toon Adventures or simply Tiny Toons, is an American animated television series created by Tom Ruegger and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. It began production as a result of Warner Bros....
and Animaniacs
Animaniacs
Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, usually referred to as simply Animaniacs, is an American animated series, distributed by Warner Bros. Television and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven...
.
In the late-1980s and 1990s, the Hanna-Barbera characters were licensed to Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, who produced the live-action film adaptations (The Flintstones, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is a 2000 comedy film and prequel to 1994's The Flintstones based on the hit cartoon series of the same name, produced by Amblin Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera and distributed by Universal Studios...
) of The Flintstones, the pre-show and ride film for The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (ride)
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera was a simulator ride at Universal Studios Florida, and one of the park's original attractions. The story line was that Dick Dastardly and Muttley have kidnapped Elroy Jetson, Yogi Bear gives chase and the audience is in for the ride of their lives. Peter N...
attraction for Universal Studios Florida
Universal Studios Florida
Universal Studios Florida is an American theme park located in Orlando, Florida. Opened on June 7, 1990, the park's theme is the entertainment industry, in particular movies and television. Universal Studios Florida inspires its guests to "ride the movies," and it features numerous attractions and...
and a feature-length version of The Jetsons
Jetsons: The Movie
Jetsons: The Movie is a 1990 animated science fiction film produced by Hanna-Barbera and released on July 6, 1990, by Universal Pictures based on the hit cartoon series, The Jetsons . The movie features the final voice roles of George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc who both died during production of the film...
. Hanna-Barbera teamed with Hallmark Cards
Hallmark Cards
Hallmark Cards is a privately owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce C. Hall, Hallmark is the largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1985, the company was awarded the National Medal of Arts....
to launch Timeless Tales from Hallmark, a series of adaptations based on classic fairy tales (done in live-action/animation) hosted by Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...
.
The Turner rebound
David KirschnerDavid Kirschner
David Kirschner is an American film and television producer, particularly of animated features.After studying at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, David Kirschner once worked as an illustrator of Muppets and Sesame Street characters, and created the children's book...
was appointed as the head of the Hanna-Barbera studio in 1989, with Hanna and Barbera remaining as co-chairmen In 1990, burdened with debt, Great American put both Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears up for sale. In November 1991, the Hanna-Barbera studio and library, as well as much of the original Ruby-Spears library, were acquired by Turner Broadcasting (which, coincidentally, by that point had also bought the pre-May 1986 MGM library) for $320 million. Turner's president of entertainment Scott Sassa
Scott Sassa
Scott M. Sassa is currently president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication, the operating group responsible for Hearst’s interests in cable television networks, including ESPN, Lifetime, A&E and History; a joint venture with Mark Burnett Productions, and Manilla a start up that organizes people's...
hired Fred Seibert
Fred Seibert
Frederick "Fred" Seibert is a television and film producer and entertainment entrepreneur who owns Frederator Studios, and who has held leading positions with MTV Networks, Hanna-Barbera, and Next New Networks; he owns Frederator Studios...
, a former executive for MTV Networks
MTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...
, to head the Hanna-Barbera studio.
He immediately filled the gap left by the departure of most of their creative crew during the Great American years with a new crop of animators, writers, and producers, including Pat Ventura, Craig McCracken
Craig McCracken
Craig McCracken is an American animator and creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.-Biography:...
, Donovan Cook
Donovan Cook
Donovan R. Cook III is an American film director and animator, best known for creating, directing and producing the animated series 2 Stupid Dogs and directing the Disney animated features Return to Never Land and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers.Donovan Cook was born in Antioch,...
, Genndy Tartakovsky
Genndy Tartakovsky
Genndy Borisovich Tartakovsky is a Russian-American television animator, director and producer. His best-known creations are Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Sym-Bionic Titan...
, David Feiss
David Feiss
David Feiss is an American animator.Feiss was born in Sacramento, California. He joined Hanna-Barbera around 1978 while still a teenager....
, Seth MacFarlane
Seth MacFarlane
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters.A native of Kent,...
, Van Partible
Van Partible
Van Partible is an American animator of Filipino descent, writer, and producer best known for creating the animated television series Johnny Bravo.Partible currently resides in Salinas, California....
, Stewart St. John
Stewart St. John
Stewart St. John is an American filmmaker, writer, author, composer, director, producer of television, feature, online and mobile entertainment.-Television and film:...
, and Butch Hartman
Butch Hartman
Elmer Earl "Butch" Hartman IV is an American animator, executive producer, animation director, storyboard artist, voice actor, occasional singer, producer, and creator of the animated series The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom and T.U.F.F. Puppy.-Childhood:Hartman was born in Highland Park,...
and new production head Buzz Potamkin. In 1992, the studio was renamed H-B Productions Company, changing its name once again to Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. a year later.
In the early 1990s, the studio introduced new versions of classic properties such as Yo Yogi!
Yo Yogi!
Yo Yogi! is an animated series first aired on NBC on Saturday mornings during the 1991-92 season. It is, to date, the last television series to feature or star Yogi Bear. It is also the last Hanna-Barbera show to premiere on NBC to this date...
, Tom & Jerry Kids and its spin-off Droopy: Master Detective. It also assumed production of TBS's Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Captain Planet is the title character of the series. In the beginning of the series, Gaia assembles a modern-day team of "Planeteers" from several nations...
in 1993, renaming it The New Adventures of Captain Planet. Joseph Barbera served as creative consultant for the feature-length film Tom and Jerry: The Movie
Tom and Jerry: The Movie
Tom and Jerry: The Movie is a 1992 American animated musical film directed by Phil Roman, and produced by Film Roman and Turner Pictures. It is a film adaptation of the Tom and Jerry series of theatrical shorts....
, released to theaters in 1992. Hanna-Barbera made 13 episodes for the first season of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (1990 TV series)
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures is a 1990 spin-off animated television series following the misadventures of two time-travelling slackers as they travel into the distant past and future...
. The studio also introduced shows that were quite different from their trademark signature cartoons, including Wake, Rattle, and Roll
Wake, Rattle, and Roll
Wake, Rattle, and Roll is a live-action/animated television show produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Four Point Entertainment that premiered in the fall of 1990. The show's title was inspired by the song "Shake, Rattle and Roll"...
(a.k.a. Jump, Rattle and Roll), SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron is an animated series for television created by Christian and Yvon Tremblay and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Program Services. Every episode of the series was directed by Robert Alvarez. The bulk of the series was written by either Glenn Leopold or Lance Falk...
, Dumb and Dumber
Dumb and Dumber (TV series)
Dumb and Dumber is an Hanna-Barbera-produced animated series based on the hit 1994 comedy film of the same name. The animated series premiered in 1995 on the ABC television network, as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup. The cartoon revolves around the continued misadventures of Harry and...
, 2 Stupid Dogs
2 Stupid Dogs
2 Stupid Dogs was an American animated television series created by Donovan Cook and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Program Services that originally ran from September 5, 1993 to February 13, 1995 on TBS. The main segments of the show featured two dogs, "Big Dog" and "Little Dog". The Big Dog...
, Fish Police
Fish Police (1992 TV series)
Fish Police is an animated television series from Hanna-Barbera based on the comic book series that first aired on CBS in 1992, lasting only six episodes over one season. In February of that year, three episodes of the series aired, but the show was promptly axed after failing in the television...
, The Pirates of Dark Water
The Pirates of Dark Water
The Pirates of Dark Water is a fantasy animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1991.-Premise:The alien world of Mer is being devoured by an evil substance known as Dark Water. Only Ren, a young prince, can stop it by finding the lost Thirteen Treasures of Rule...
, Gravedale High
Gravedale High
Gravedale High is an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera for NBC Productions...
, Capitol Critters
Capitol Critters
Capitol Critters is an animated television series about the lives of mice, rats, and roaches who reside in the basement and walls of the White House in Washington, D.C...
and a new version of The Addams Family
The Addams Family (1992 animated series)
The Addams Family: The Animated Series is an American animated series based on the eponymous comic strip characters. It ran from September 12, 1992 to November 6, 1993 on ABC and was produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series' development began in the wake of the successful 1991 Addams Family feature...
.
From 1993 to 1995, Hanna-Barbera produced a slew of new specials and films for television such as I Yabba-Dabba Do!
I Yabba-Dabba Do!
I Yabba-Dabba Do! is a made-for-TV animated film based on the original series, The Flintstones and its spinoff, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show. It premiered on ABC on February 7, 1993. Many attribute this movie's inspiration to the success of the remake of Father of the Bride...
, Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby
Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby
Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby is an animated television movie based on the 1960s series classic, The Flintstones. It first aired on ABC on December 5, 1993. It is the sequel to I Yabba-Dabba Do! and is followed by A Flintstone Family Christmas, which aired less than two weeks later on the same channel...
, A Flintstone Family Christmas
A Flintstone Family Christmas
A Flintstone Family Christmas is a 30-minute Christmas special for television based on the hit 1960s series The Flintstones. It first aired on ABC on December 18, 1993...
, A Flintstones Christmas Carol
A Flintstones Christmas Carol
A Flintstones Christmas Carol is an animated made-for-TV movie based on the original 1960s series classic, The Flintstones and on the holiday novel of the same name by Charles Dickens. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, it premiered in syndication on November 21, 1994...
, Jonny's Golden Quest
Jonny's Golden Quest
Jonny's Golden Quest is a 1993 animated television movie produced by Hanna-Barbera and originally aired on the USA cable channel. It attempts to fill back-story holes that were left unexplored in the original Jonny Quest cartoon series. It was in particular a follow-up to The New Adventures of...
, Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects
Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects
Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects is an animated television film made by Hanna-Barbera. It premiered at 7:00pm on November 19, 1995 on TNT, and was the final iteration of classic Quest. The film was a follow-up to the series The New Adventures of Jonny Quest and the earlier TV-movie Jonny's...
, Yogi the Easter Bear
Yogi the Easter Bear
Yogi the Easter Bear is an animated TV special from Hanna-Barbera first aired on syndication on April 3, 1994 starring Yogi Bear. This was the last time Don Messick voiced both Boo Boo and Ranger Smith . Messick died in 1997.-Plot:Ranger Smith is nervous...
, Arabian Nights
Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights
Arabian Nights is a 1994 television special produced by Hanna-Barbera and premiered on syndication on September 3, 1994. It is animated with bright colors, stylized character designs and a flater style to the previous television movies, and musically scored by veteran animation composer Steven...
, Daisy-Head Mayzie, The Halloween Tree and The Town Santa Forgot
The Town Santa Forgot
The Town Santa Forgot is an animated television special produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1993, narrated by Dick Van Dyke and originally broadcast on NBC. It is an adaptation of the poem Jeremy Creek, written by Charmaine Severson. Since then, it was frequently shown in Christmas marathons on Cartoon...
. A new feature animation division led by David Kirschner produced Once Upon a Forest
Once Upon a Forest
Once Upon a Forest is an animated film produced by Hanna-Barbera in association with HTV Cymru/Wales, Ltd. and released on June 18, 1993 by 20th Century Fox....
, which underperformed at the box office when released by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
in 1993. The feature division was spun off into Turner Feature Animation, which produced the two films, The Pagemaster
The Pagemaster
The Pagemaster is a 1994 adventure fantasy film starring Macaulay Culkin, Christopher Lloyd, Patrick Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Frank Welker, and Leonard Nimoy...
and Cats Don't Dance
Cats Don't Dance
Cats Don't Dance is a 1997 animated musical comedy film, notable as the only fully animated feature produced by Turner Entertainment's feature animation unit . The film was distributed by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment...
. Near the end of production on Cats Don't Dance, the studio was folded into Warner Bros. Animation. Also in 1992, Turner launched Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (United States)
Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...
, to showcase its huge library of animated programs, of which Hanna-Barbera was the core contributor. As a result, many classic cartoons – especially those by H-B – were introduced to a new audience.
In 1994, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera finally ended, so that Turner could refocus the studio to produce new shows exclusively for the Turner-owned networks, especially Cartoon Network. In February 1995, Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network launched World Premiere Toons (a.k.a. What A Cartoon!), a format designed by Seibert. The weekly program featured 48 new creator-driven cartoon shorts developed by its in-house staff. Several original Cartoon Network series emerged from the project, giving the studio their first bona-fide mass appeal hits since The Smurfs. The first series based on a World Premiere Toons short was Genndy Tartakovsky
Genndy Tartakovsky
Genndy Borisovich Tartakovsky is a Russian-American television animator, director and producer. His best-known creations are Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Sym-Bionic Titan...
's Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
in 1996.
Others programs followed, including Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
, Cow and Chicken
Cow and Chicken
Cow and Chicken is an American animated series, created by David Feiss. The series shows the surreal adventures of a cow, named Cow, and her chicken brother, named Chicken. They are often antagonized by "The Red Guy", who poses as various characters to scam or hurt them...
, its spinoff I Am Weasel
I Am Weasel
I Am Weasel is an American animated television series produced by Cartoon Network Studios in co-production with Hanna-Barbera, created by David Feiss, and broadcast on Cartoon Network....
, The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series created by animator Craig McCracken and produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network...
, and Courage the Cowardly Dog
Courage the Cowardly Dog
Courage the Cowardly Dog is an American animated television series created by John R. Dilworth for Cartoon Network. Its central plot revolves around a somewhat anthropomorphic dog named Courage who lives with his owners, Muriel and Eustace Bagge, an elderly, married farming couple in the "Middle of...
(though Hanna-Barbera financed the short and was going to convert it into a full series, actual production occurred entirely at creator John R. Dilworth
John R. Dilworth
Jonathan Robert Dilworth is an American animator. He is best known as the producer, director, writer, and creator of the animated television series Courage the Cowardly Dog....
's studio, Stretch Films in New York City). H-B also co-produced several new direct-to-video movies featuring Scooby-Doo with Warner Bros. Animation, as well as other new projects for television such as, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest is an animated action-adventure television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and broadcast on Cartoon Network from August 26, 1996 to April 16, 1997. A revival of the 1960s Jonny Quest franchise, it features teenage adventurers Jonny Quest, Hadji Singh,...
, Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat and Cave Kids
Cave Kids
Cave Kids was a 30-minute short-lived animated series and spin-off of The Flintstones starring Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network in 1996. The series followed the adventures of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as pre-schoolers with Dino as their babysitter...
.
After the merger between Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner in 1996, the conglomerate had two separate animation studios in its possession. Though under a common ownership, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Animation operated separately until 1998. That year, the Hanna-Barbera lot was closed and studio operations were moved into the same office tower (adjacent to the Sherman Oaks Galleria
Sherman Oaks Galleria
Sherman Oaks Galleria is a shopping mall and business center located in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, at the corner of Ventura and Sepulveda Boulevards in the San Fernando Valley....
) as the Warner Bros. Television Animation
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
division in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California
Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California
Sherman Oaks is an affluent district in the San Fernando Valley area of the city of Los Angeles, California. In contrast to much of the Valley, the area is relatively urbanized, with commercial skyscrapers along Ventura Boulevard as well as scattered throughout...
.
The Cartoon Network Studios era
Around 1999, the Hanna-Barbera name began to disappear from newer shows from the studio in favor of the Cartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
label. This came in handy with shows that were produced outside H-B, but Cartoon Network had a hand in producing, such as A.k.a. Cartoon's Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Kino Films' Mike, Lu and Og, Curious Pictures
Curious Pictures
Curious Pictures is an American animation studio and multi-media company set in New York City and Santa Monica that creates and produces television programs, commercials, animation and videogames for audiences worldwide....
' Sheep in the Big City
Sheep in the Big City
Sheep in the Big City is an American animated television series which ran on Cartoon Network for two seasons, from November 4, 2000 to April 7, 2002....
and Codename: Kids Next Door
Codename: Kids Next Door
Codename: Kids Next Door, also known as Kids Next Door or by its acronym KND, is an American animated television series created by Tom Warburton and produced by Curious Pictures in Santa Monica, California.. The series debuted on Cartoon Network on December 6, 2002 and aired its final episode on...
, Renegade Animation
Renegade Animation
Renegade Animation is an animation studio, located in Glendale, California, which currently specializes in Macromedia Flash/Toon Boom animation. It was founded by former Disney and Warner Bros...
's Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
is an American-Japanese animated series from Cartoon Network, produced by Renegade Animation. The show was created by Sam Register, who also serves as the series' executive producer....
and Porchlight Entertainment
PorchLight Entertainment
PorchLight Entertainment, Inc. is an American production company founded in 1995 by Bruce D. Johnson and William T. Baumann. It dedicates in television production and animation...
's The Secret Saturdays
The Secret Saturdays
The Secret Saturdays is an American animated television series created by Canadian cartoonist Jay Stephens for Cartoon Network. It debuted on October 3, 2008, in the United States...
, as well as shows the studio continued to produce, like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Samurai Jack
Samurai Jack
Samurai Jack is an American animated television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky that aired on both Cartoon Network and Toonami from 2001 to 2004. It is noted for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as for its cinematic style and pacing...
, Camp Lazlo
Camp Lazlo
Camp Lazlo is an American animated television series created by Joe Murray, produced by Rough Draft Studios, Joe Murray Productions and Cartoon Network Studios. It aired on Cartoon Network...
, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated television series created and produced at Cartoon Network Studios by animator Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls. It first premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004, as a 90-minute television movie, which led to a series...
, Ben 10
Ben 10
The Omnitrix was originally created by a Galvan named Azmuth. The Omnitrix was intended to allow beings to experience life as other species in order to bring understanding and foster peace in the universe....
, Chowder
Chowder (TV series)
Chowder is an American animated television series which ran from November 2, 2007 to August 7, 2010 on Cartoon Network. The series was created by C. H...
, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is an American animated television series produced for Cartoon Network that premiered on June 5, 2008 and ended on August 31, 2010...
, Regular Show
Regular Show
Regular Show is an American animated television series created by J. G. Quintel...
and Adventure Time
Adventure Time
Adventure Time was a local children's television show on WTAE-TV 4 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1959 to 1975. It was hosted by the late Paul Shannon, with guitarist Joe Negri and puppeteer Jim Martin...
(co-produced with Frederator Studios
Frederator Studios
Frederator Studios is an independent American production company founded by Fred Seibert in 1997, with its first series launching in 1998. The studio focuses primarily on artists who write their own shorts, series, and movies...
).
When William Hanna died of throat cancer, on March 22, 2001, an era was over. Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase is the fourth of a series of direct-to-video animated films based on Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoons. It was released on October 9, 2001. It features the Mystery, Inc. gang, which includes Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Freddy, Daphne and Velma...
and The Flintstones: On the Rocks
The Flintstones: On the Rocks
The Flintstones: On the Rocks is a made for television animated movie based on the iconic animated classic, The Flintstones; it aired November 3, 2001 on Cartoon Network in the United States...
featured a dedication to Hanna, but the actual production of Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase was done by Warner Bros. Animation. After 2001, Hanna-Barbera's animation studio was completely folded into Warner Bros. Animation but remained in-name-only, and further Cartoon Network projects were handled by Cartoon Network Studios. Joseph Barbera continued to work for Warner Bros. Animation on projects relating to the Hanna-Barbera and Tom and Jerry properties until his death on December 18, 2006. The films Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!
Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!
Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! is the eleventh Scooby-Doo direct-to-video film series, produced by Warner Bros. Animation which began in late 2006. It was dedicated to Iwao Takamoto and Joseph Barbera, who both died during the making of the film...
and Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale
Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale
Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale is a 2007 holiday themed animated direct-to-video film starring Tom and Jerry produced by Warner Bros. Animation...
were dedicated to Barbera.
Although the Hanna-Barbera name remains on the copyright notices of new productions based on "classic" properties like the Flintstones, the Jetsons and others, the studio that produces these works is Warner Bros. Animation. Most Cartoon Network shows previously produced by Hanna-Barbera are copyrighted by the channel itself. Today, Hanna-Barbera is currently an in-name-only unit of Warner's animation division.
List of notable Hanna-Barbera productions
- For a complete list of Hanna-Barbera productions, see List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. For a list of Hanna-Barbera TV shows released in DVD season sets, see List of Hanna–Barbera TV shows on DVD.
1950s
- The Ruff & Reddy ShowThe Ruff & Reddy ShowThe Ruff & Reddy Show is a Hanna-Barbera animated series starring Ruff, a straight and smart cat voiced by Don Messick, and Reddy, a dumb and stupid dog voiced by Daws Butler...
(1957–1960, NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
) - The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958–1961, syndicationTelevision syndicationIn broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
) - The Quick Draw McGraw Show (1959–1961, syndication)
- Loopy De LoopLoopy De LoopLoopy De Loop was the only theatrical cartoon short series produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera after leaving MGM and opening their new Hanna-Barbera Studios...
(1959–1965, theatrical short subjects, distributed by Columbia PicturesColumbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
)
1960s
- The FlintstonesThe FlintstonesThe Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
(1960–1966, ABCAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
) - The Yogi Bear ShowThe Yogi Bear ShowThe Yogi Bear Show is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions about a fast-talking picnic basket stealing bear named Yogi. The show debuted in syndication on January 30 and ran for 33 episodes until December 30 in 1961 and included two segments, Snagglepuss and Yakky...
(1961–1962, syndication) - Top CatTop CatTop Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
(1961–1962, ABC) - The JetsonsThe JetsonsThe Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
(1962–1963 and 1985-1987, ABC and syndication) - Wally GatorWally GatorWally Gator is one of the segments from The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series. The other segments that compose this trilogy are Lippy the Lion & Hardy Har Har and Touché Turtle and Dum Dum. The segment consisted of 52 episodes over two seasons....
(1962–1963, ABC) - The Magilla Gorilla Show (1963–1966, syndication)
- Jonny QuestJonny Quest (TV series)Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
(1964–1965, ABC) - Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! is a 1964 American animated feature film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and released by Columbia Pictures. The film stars the voices of Daws Butler, Don Messick, Julie Bennett, and Mel Blanc...
(1964, theatrical feature film, distributed by Columbia Pictures) - The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel ShowThe Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel ShowThe Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show was an hour-long Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1965 to 1967 for NBC.-Production:...
(1965–1967, ABC) - Space GhostSpace Ghost (TV series)Space Ghost is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It first aired on CBS from September 10, 1966 to September 7, 1968. The series was composed of two unrelated segments, Space Ghost and Dino Boy in the Lost Valley...
(1966–1968, CBS) - The Man Called FlintstoneThe Man Called FlintstoneThe Man Called Flintstone is a 1966 American animated musical comedy film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and released by Columbia Pictures. It was the second Hanna-Barbera feature, after Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!...
(1966, theatrical feature film, distributed by Columbia Pictures) - Birdman and the Galaxy TrioBirdman and the Galaxy TrioBirdman and the Galaxy Trio is an animated science fiction TV series created by Alex Toth and produced by Hanna-Barbera. It debuted on NBC on September 9, 1967, and ran on Saturday mornings until September 6, 1969...
(1967–1969, NBC) - The HerculoidsThe HerculoidsThe Herculoids is a Saturday morning animated television series that was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show debuted on September 9, 1967 on CBS...
(1967–1969, CBS) - Fantastic FourFantastic Four (1967 TV series)Fantastic Four is an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and the first animated series based on Marvel's comic book series Fantastic Four. The program, featuring character designs by Alex Toth, aired on ABC from 1967 to 1970. It lasted for 20 episodes, with repeat episodes airing...
(1967–1970, ABC) - The Banana Splits Adventure HourBanana SplitsThe Banana Splits were four comedic animal characters who featured in a late 1960s children's variety show made for television. The costumed hosts of the show were Fleegle , Bingo , Drooper and Snork .The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was an hour-long, packaged television program that featured both...
(1968–1970, NBC) - Wacky RacesWacky RacesWacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
(1968–1970, co-produced with Heatter-Quigley ProductionsHeatter-Quigley ProductionsHeatter-Quigley Productions was an American television production company that was launched in 1960 by two former television writers, Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley....
, CBS) - Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!Scooby-Doo, Where are You!Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 13, 1969 at 10:30 a.m. EST and ran for two seasons on CBS as a half-hour long show. Twenty-five episodes were produced...
(1969–1972, CBS) - Cattanooga CatsCattanooga CatsCattanooga Cats is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC. It aired from September 6, 1969 until September 4, 1971.-Segments:...
(1969–1971, ABC)
1970s
- Josie and the PussycatsJosie and the Pussycats (TV series)Josie and the Pussycats is an American animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo....
(1970–1972, CBS) - Harlem GlobetrottersHarlem Globetrotters (TV series)Harlem Globetrotters was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera and CBS Productions, featuring animated versions of players from the basketball team, Harlem Globetrotters....
(1970–1972, co-produced byCBS ProductionsCBS Productions is the production arm of the CBS television network now a part of CBS Corporation, formed in 1952 to produce shows in-house, instead of relying solely on outside productions. Its first production was CBS Television Workshop, a drama anthology series...
and aired on CBS) - The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm ShowThe Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm ShowThe Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series spin-off of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, which ran for 16 half-hour episodes from September 11, 1971, to September 2, 1972, and four 8-minute episodes from September 9, 1972, to September 1,...
(1971–1972, CBS) - The New Scooby-Doo MoviesThe New Scooby-Doo MoviesThe New Scooby-Doo Movies is the second incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. It premiered on September 9, 1972 and ran for two seasons on CBS as the only hour-long Scooby-Doo series...
(1972–1974, CBS) - Wait till Your Father Gets HomeWait Till Your Father Gets HomeWait Till Your Father Gets Home was an animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974...
(1972–1974, syndication) - Super FriendsSuper FriendsSuper Friends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes, which ran from 1973 to 1986 on ABC as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup...
(1973–1986, ABC) - Charlotte's WebCharlotte's Web (1973 film)Charlotte's Web is a 1973 American animated musical film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions and based upon the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White...
(1973, theatrical feature film, distributed by Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
) - Speed BuggySpeed BuggySpeed Buggy is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast on CBS from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975.-Production:...
(1973–1975, ABC) - The Addams FamilyThe Addams Family (1973 animated series)The Addams Family is an animated adaptation of the Charles Addams cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1973.-Scooby-Doo appearance:...
(1973–1974, NBC) - Hong Kong PhooeyHong Kong PhooeyHong Kong Phooey is a 16-episode Hanna-Barbera animated series that first aired on ABC Saturday morning from to . The main character, Hong Kong Phooey, is a superhero who uses Chinese martial arts to fight crime. Hong Kong Phooey is the secret alter ego of Penrod "Penry" Pooch, a "mild-mannered"...
(1974–1975, ABC) - Wheelie and the Chopper BunchWheelie and the Chopper BunchWheelie and the Chopper Bunch is a 30-minute cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired for one season on NBC from September 7, 1974 to August 30, 1975...
(1974-1975, NBC) - The Tom and Jerry/Grape ApeThe Great Grape Ape ShowThe Great Grape Ape Show is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that was broadcast on ABC from 1975 to 1978.-Summary:...
/Mumbly Show (1975–1976, ABC) - The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt HourThe Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt HourThe Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour was a 60-minute package show produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1976 for ABC Saturday mornings. It marked the first new installments of the cowardly canine since 1973, and contained the following segments:...
(1976–1977, ABC) - JabberjawJabberjawJabberjaw is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired from September 11, 1976 to September 3, 1978 on ABC.-Premise:...
(1976–1977, ABC) - Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics/Scooby's All-StarsScooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics-DVD release:On January 19, 2010, Warner Home Video released Scooby's All-Star Laff-A Lympics - Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1. The single disc release features the first four episodes of the Laff-a-Lympics segment of the package. Target released an exclusive second volume with the next four episodes...
(1977–1979, ABC) - Captain Caveman and the Teen AngelsCaptain Caveman and the Teen AngelsCaptain Caveman and the Teen Angels is an animated series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977 to June 21, 1980 on ABC....
(1977–1980, ABC) - Yogi's Space RaceYogi's Space RaceYogi's Space Race was a 90-minute Saturday morning cartoon program block produced by Hanna-Barbera from September 9 to December 2, 1978 for NBC. The show also appeared on BBC in the United Kingdom...
(1978–1979, NBC) - The All-New Popeye HourThe All-New Popeye HourThe All-New Popeye Hour is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Syndicate. Starring the popular comic strip character Popeye, the series aired from 1978 to 1983 on CBS.-Production:...
(1978–1983, co-produced with King FeaturesKing Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
, CBS) - Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979–1980 ABC)
1980s
- The Flintstone Comedy ShowThe Flintstone Comedy Show (1980)The Flintstone Comedy Show was a 90-minute Saturday morning animated series revival of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired from November 22, 1980 to September 11, 1982 on NBC...
(1980–1982, NBC) - The SmurfsThe Smurfs (1981 TV series)The Smurfs is an American animated television series that aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to August 25, 1990...
(1981–1990, co-produced with SEPP International S.A. and later with Lafig S.A., NBC) - Shirt TalesShirt TalesShirt Tales are characters that were created in 1980 by greeting card designer Janet Elizabeth Manco and were featured on Hallmark Cards greeting cards...
(1982-1984, NBC) - Heidi's SongHeidi's SongHeidi's Song is a 1982 animated musical feature film produced by Hanna-Barbera. The film is based on the novel Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Among the voice cast of the film are Lorne Greene as Grandfather, Margery Gray as Heidi and Sammy Davis Jr...
(1982, theatrical feature film, distributed by Paramount Pictures) - Snorks (1984–1988, co-produced with SEPP International S.A., NBC)
- Challenge of the GoBotsChallenge of the GoBotsChallenge of the GoBots is an American animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera, based on the Gobots toy-line released from Tonka. Most of the toys were imported from the Japanese Machine Robo toy line. The show originally debuted in animated form as a five-part miniseries, which aired in...
(1984–1985, syndication) - The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-DooThe 13 Ghosts of Scooby-DooThe 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo is the seventh incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, and the final first-run version of the original 1969-86 broadcast run of the series. It premiered on and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program. Thirteen episodes of the show...
(1985, ABC) - The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the BibleThe Greatest Adventure: Stories from the BibleThe Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible is a direct-to-video series produced by Hanna-Barbera that tells of three young adventurers—Derek, Margo, and 'their nomad friend' Moki—who travel back in time to watch biblical events take place first-hand.-Overview:Foreign exchange...
(1985–1993, direct-to-video series) - Yogi's Treasure HuntYogi's Treasure HuntYogi's Treasure Hunt is a segment that kicked-off in 1985 as the first of the programming block, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. It also ran as a regular series in syndication from 1985 to 1988.-Plot:...
(1985–1988, syndication) - The Funtastic World of Hanna-BarberaThe Funtastic World of Hanna-BarberaThe Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera was a syndicated block of animated television programming and new original shows produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions.-Format:...
(1985–1994, syndication) - The Flintstone KidsThe Flintstone KidsThe Flintstone Kids is a 30-minute animated television series spin-off of The Flintstones which followed the adventures of Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty as children with their pet Dino.-Premise:...
(1986–1988, ABC) - Wildfire (1986, CBS)
- Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 is an anthology series of ten animated films for television produced by Hanna-Barbera for syndication and ran from 1987 to 1988 featuring Hanna-Barbera's popular animated characters in feature-length adventures. Originally, the televised movies were distributed through...
(1987–1988, televised film series, syndication) - The New Yogi Bear ShowThe New Yogi Bear ShowThe New Yogi Bear Show is a 30-minute weekday animated series which aired on syndication in 1988 and featured one of Hanna-Barbera's most well-known classic characters, Yogi Bear...
(1988, syndication) - A Pup Named Scooby-DooA Pup Named Scooby-DooA Pup Named Scooby-Doo is the eighth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. This spin-off of the original show was created by Tom Ruegger and premiered on September 10, 1988 and ran for three seasons on ABC as a half-hour program, until August 17, 1991...
(1988–1991, ABC)
1990s
- Jetsons: The MovieJetsons: The MovieJetsons: The Movie is a 1990 animated science fiction film produced by Hanna-Barbera and released on July 6, 1990, by Universal Pictures based on the hit cartoon series, The Jetsons . The movie features the final voice roles of George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc who both died during production of the film...
(1990, theatrical feature film, distributed by Universal PicturesUniversal Pictures-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
) - Tom & Jerry Kids (1990–1993, co-produced with Turner EntertainmentTurner EntertainmentTurner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. (commonly known as Turner Entertainment Co.) is an American...
, FOXFox Broadcasting CompanyFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
) - The Pirates of Dark WaterThe Pirates of Dark WaterThe Pirates of Dark Water is a fantasy animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1991.-Premise:The alien world of Mer is being devoured by an evil substance known as Dark Water. Only Ren, a young prince, can stop it by finding the lost Thirteen Treasures of Rule...
(1991–1993, ABC/syndication) - Yo Yogi!Yo Yogi!Yo Yogi! is an animated series first aired on NBC on Saturday mornings during the 1991-92 season. It is, to date, the last television series to feature or star Yogi Bear. It is also the last Hanna-Barbera show to premiere on NBC to this date...
(1991-1992, NBC) - Fish Police (1992, CBS)
- The Addams FamilyThe Addams Family (1992 animated series)The Addams Family: The Animated Series is an American animated series based on the eponymous comic strip characters. It ran from September 12, 1992 to November 6, 1993 on ABC and was produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series' development began in the wake of the successful 1991 Addams Family feature...
(second version, 1992–1994, ABC) - Once Upon a ForestOnce Upon a ForestOnce Upon a Forest is an animated film produced by Hanna-Barbera in association with HTV Cymru/Wales, Ltd. and released on June 18, 1993 by 20th Century Fox....
(1993, theatrical feature film, co-produced with HTV Cymru/Wales, distributed by 20th Century Fox20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
) - 2 Stupid Dogs2 Stupid Dogs2 Stupid Dogs was an American animated television series created by Donovan Cook and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Program Services that originally ran from September 5, 1993 to February 13, 1995 on TBS. The main segments of the show featured two dogs, "Big Dog" and "Little Dog". The Big Dog...
(1993–1995, TBSTBS (TV channel)TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
/Cartoon NetworkCartoon Network (United States)Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...
) - SWAT Kats: The Radical SquadronSWAT Kats: The Radical SquadronSWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron is an animated series for television created by Christian and Yvon Tremblay and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Program Services. Every episode of the series was directed by Robert Alvarez. The bulk of the series was written by either Glenn Leopold or Lance Falk...
(1993–1995, TBS) - What a Cartoon! Show (1995–1997, Cartoon Network)
- Dumb and DumberDumb and Dumber (TV series)Dumb and Dumber is an Hanna-Barbera-produced animated series based on the hit 1994 comedy film of the same name. The animated series premiered in 1995 on the ABC television network, as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup. The cartoon revolves around the continued misadventures of Harry and...
(1995-1996 co-production with New Line TelevisionNew Line TelevisionNew Line Television was the television arm of the company of the same name, in turn a subsidiary of Time Warner.The company was founded in 1988 in order to produce Freddy's Nightmares, a television series based on the studio's popular Nightmare on Elm Street film series...
, ABC) - The Real Adventures of Jonny QuestThe Real Adventures of Jonny QuestThe Real Adventures of Jonny Quest is an animated action-adventure television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and broadcast on Cartoon Network from August 26, 1996 to April 16, 1997. A revival of the 1960s Jonny Quest franchise, it features teenage adventurers Jonny Quest, Hadji Singh,...
(1996–1997, Cartoon Network/TBS/TNT) - Dexter's LaboratoryDexter's LaboratoryDexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
(1996–1998, Cartoon Network) * - Cave KidsCave KidsCave Kids was a 30-minute short-lived animated series and spin-off of The Flintstones starring Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network in 1996. The series followed the adventures of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as pre-schoolers with Dino as their babysitter...
(1996, Cartoon Network) - Johnny BravoJohnny BravoJohnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
(1997–2001, Cartoon Network) * - Cow and ChickenCow and ChickenCow and Chicken is an American animated series, created by David Feiss. The series shows the surreal adventures of a cow, named Cow, and her chicken brother, named Chicken. They are often antagonized by "The Red Guy", who poses as various characters to scam or hurt them...
(1997–1999, Cartoon Network) - I Am WeaselI Am WeaselI Am Weasel is an American animated television series produced by Cartoon Network Studios in co-production with Hanna-Barbera, created by David Feiss, and broadcast on Cartoon Network....
(1997–2000, Cartoon Network) - The Powerpuff GirlsThe Powerpuff GirlsThe Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series created by animator Craig McCracken and produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network...
(1998–2001, Cartoon Network) *
Programs marked with an asteriskAsteriskAn asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star...
(*) continued production under Cartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
following the absorption of Hanna-Barbera into Warner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
.
The Hanna-Barbera incidental soundtracks
The HB Productions had different segments and times for incidental tracks production. Between 1957 and 1960, the incidental track was basically by symphonic arrangements, being Ruff and Reddys series had its own symphonic themes. These themes used in the 1958 and 1959 to 1960's seasons to the first HB shorts with Yogi BearYogi BearYogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...
, Huckleberry HoundHuckleberry HoundThe Huckleberry Hound Show is a 1958 syndicated animated series and the second from Hanna-Barbera following The Ruff & Reddy Show, sponsored by Kellogg's. Three segments were included in the program: one featuring Huckleberry Hound; another starring Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo Boo; and a third...
, Quick Draw McGrawQuick Draw McGrawThe Quick Draw McGraw Show is the third cartoon television production created by Hanna-Barbera starring an anthropomorphic cartoon horse named Quick Draw McGraw following their success with The Ruff & Reddy Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show. The show debuted in syndication in the fall of 1959,...
, Pixie and Dixie and Mr. JinksPixie and Dixie and Mr. JinksPixie & Dixie and Mr. Jinks is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that featured as a regular segment of the television series The Huckleberry Hound Show from 1958 to 1962.-History:...
, Snooper and BlabberSnooper and BlabberSnooper and Blabber is one of the sequences from The Quick Draw McGraw Show . Snooper and Blabber form a pair of cat and mouse detectives. Daws Butler voiced both characters although some of the earliest episodes feature Jerry Hausner as Blabber. Michael Maltese crafted the stories...
and Augie Doggie.
From 1959-60 series Loopy De LoopLoopy De LoopLoopy De Loop was the only theatrical cartoon short series produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera after leaving MGM and opening their new Hanna-Barbera Studios...
and The FlintstonesThe FlintstonesThe Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
, softly orchestrated themes, some of them almost sounding concrete music and some played only by accordion, were used in other HB cartons between 1961 and 1963 - like Top CatTop CatTop Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
, SnagglepussSnagglepussSnagglepuss is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character created in 1959, a pink anthropomorphic mountain lion voiced by Daws Butler. He is best known for his famous catchphrase, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!", along with phrases such as "Exit, stage left!" Snagglepuss was originally known as "Snaggletooth"...
, Touché Turtle, Wally GatorWally GatorWally Gator is one of the segments from The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series. The other segments that compose this trilogy are Lippy the Lion & Hardy Har Har and Touché Turtle and Dum Dum. The segment consisted of 52 episodes over two seasons....
and the Yogi BearYogi BearYogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...
s and Huckleberry HoundHuckleberry HoundThe Huckleberry Hound Show is a 1958 syndicated animated series and the second from Hanna-Barbera following The Ruff & Reddy Show, sponsored by Kellogg's. Three segments were included in the program: one featuring Huckleberry Hound; another starring Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo Boo; and a third...
s 1961's seasons and all of its segments - and eventually between 1964 and 1967, and rarely then until the eighties. Other incidental tracks, organ music played as The JetsonsThe JetsonsThe Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
score themes and arrangements mostly based on polka music, were used between 1962 and 1967, in cartoons like The Magilla Gorilla Show and its segments.
Due to HB action-adventure series as Johnny Quest, Space GhostSpace GhostSpace Ghost is a fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera Productions and designed by Alex Toth for CBS in the 1960s. In his original incarnation, he was a superhero who, with his sidekick teen helpers Jan, Jace, and Blip the monkey, fought supervillains in outer space...
and Herculoids, the action style incidental tracks were created and adopted between 1964 and 1968, also eventually used in cartoons like The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel ShowThe Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel ShowThe Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show was an hour-long Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1965 to 1967 for NBC.-Production:...
and Space Kidettes or also some Peter PotamusPeter PotamusPeter Potamus is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast on September 16, 1964. -Premise:Peter Potamus was a syndicated series divided into three segments; one of Peter Potamus and So-So, one of...
episodes. In 1967, another incidental tracks, between new polka arrangements and some rock/soul influences, were adopted in several cartoons as Wacky RacesWacky RacesWacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
, Cattanooga CatsCattanooga CatsCattanooga Cats is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC. It aired from September 6, 1969 until September 4, 1971.-Segments:...
and Josie and The PussycatsJosie and the PussycatsJosie and the Pussycats are a fictional rock band created by Dan DeCarlo.They have been featured in a number of different media since the 1960s:...
. With these themes, other orchestral themes were created for Scooby Doos incidental tracks. These themes were largely used until 1973.
In the seventies, other orchestral themes, with less creative arrangements in relation to the other described above, were used in 1973 to the eighties, including 1973's Tom and JerryTom and JerryTom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
seasons, new series as Hong Kong PhooeyHong Kong PhooeyHong Kong Phooey is a 16-episode Hanna-Barbera animated series that first aired on ABC Saturday morning from to . The main character, Hong Kong Phooey, is a superhero who uses Chinese martial arts to fight crime. Hong Kong Phooey is the secret alter ego of Penrod "Penry" Pooch, a "mild-mannered"...
, JabberjawJabberjawJabberjaw is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired from September 11, 1976 to September 3, 1978 on ABC.-Premise:...
, Scooby Doo and Flintstones ~~ 70's and 80's production. In the eighties, the incidental tracks in HB cartoons were made by keyboard arrangements, and it's used until the end of the production company.
The Hanna-Barbera sound effects
Besides their cartoons and characters, Hanna-Barbera was also noted for their large library of sound effects. Besides cartoon-style sound effects (such as ricochets, slide whistles and more), they also had familiar sounds used for transportation, household items, the elements, and more. When Hanna and Barbera started their own cartoon studio in 1957, they created a handful of sound effects, and had limited choices. They also took some sounds from the then-defunct MGM animation studios. By 1958, they began to expand and began adding more sound effects to their library.
Besides creating a lot of their own effects, they also collected sound effects from other movie and cartoon studios, such as Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Animation, and even Walt Disney Productions. Some of their famous sound effects included a rapid bongo drum take used for when a character's feet were scrambling before taking off, a "KaBONG" sound produced on a guitar for when Quick Draw McGrawQuick Draw McGrawThe Quick Draw McGraw Show is the third cartoon television production created by Hanna-Barbera starring an anthropomorphic cartoon horse named Quick Draw McGraw following their success with The Ruff & Reddy Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show. The show debuted in syndication in the fall of 1959,...
, in his Zorro-style "El Kabong" crime fighting guise, would smash a guitar over a villain's head, the sound of a car's brake drum combined with a bulb horn for when Fred FlintstoneFred FlintstoneFrederick Joseph “Fred” Flintstone, also known as Fred W. Flintstone or Frederick J. Flintstone, is the protagonist of the animated sitcom The Flintstones, which aired during prime-time on ABC during the original series' run from 1960-66. He is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles...
would drop his bowling ball onto his foot, an automobile's tires squealing with a "skipping" effect added for when someone would slide to a sudden stop, a bass-drum-and-cymbal combination called the "Boom Crash" for when someone would fall down or smack into an object, a xylophone being struck rapidly on the same note for a tip-toeing effect, and a violin being plucked with the tuning pegs being raised to simulate something like pulling out a cat's whisker.
The cartoons also used Castle ThunderCastle thunder (sound effect)Castle thunder is a sound effect that consists of the sound of a loud thunderclap during a rainstorm. It was originally recorded for the 1931 film Frankenstein, and has since been used in dozens of movies, Disney and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and TV series, and television commercials...
, a thunderclap sound effect that was commonly used in movies and TV shows from the 1940s to the 1970s. Other common sounds such as Peeong (a frying pan hitting sound with a doppler effect) and Bilp were used regularly in all of its cartoons. Starting in the 1960s, other cartoon studios began using the sound effects, including Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Universal Animation StudiosUniversal Animation StudiosUniversal Animation Studios , is an American animation studio which is a division of Universal Studios....
, Disney Television Animation, Film RomanFilm RomanFilm Roman is an animation studio founded by Phil Roman, best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons, King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated TV specials....
, MGM Animation, Cartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
, Felix the Cat Productions, Hasbro StudiosHasbro StudiosHasbro Studios is an American "virtual" television production company located in Los Angeles, California. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hasbro...
, Warner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
and many others. By the 21st century, almost every animation studio was using the sound effects. Today, like Hanna-Barbera, they are used sparingly, while some cartoons and non-animated series like Warner Bros. Animation's Krypto the SuperdogKrypto the SuperdogKrypto the Superdog is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the DC Comics character Krypto. The show premiered on Cartoon Network on March 25, 2005 and aired on Kids' WB! in September 2006...
, A&E's Parking Wars, Disney's BonkersBonkers (TV series)Bonkers is an animated American television series that aired from September 4, 1993 to February 23, 1994 in first-run syndication . The syndicated run was available both separately, and as part of The Disney Afternoon...
and Spümcø's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" make heavy use of the classic sound effects, mostly for a retro feel.
Some Hanna-Barbera sounds show up in various sound libraries such as Valentino and Audio Network. Hanna-Barbera Records (the studio's short-lived record division) released a set of LP records in the late 1960s entitled Hanna-Barbera's Drop-Ins, which contained quite a few of the classic sound effects. This LP set was only available for radio and TV stations and other production studios. In 1973, and again in 1986, H-B released a second sound effect record set; a seven-LP set entitled The Hanna-Barbera Library of Sounds, which, like the previous set, contained most of the classic sound effects. Like the previous set, this was only available to production companies and radio/TV stations.
In 1993, the last president of the studio, Fred SeibertFred SeibertFrederick "Fred" Seibert is a television and film producer and entertainment entrepreneur who owns Frederator Studios, and who has held leading positions with MTV Networks, Hanna-Barbera, and Next New Networks; he owns Frederator Studios...
recalled his early production experiences with early LP releases of the studio's effects, and commissioned Sound IdeasSound IdeasSound Ideas is the repository of one of the largest commercially available sound effects libraries in the world. It has accumulated the sound effects, which it releases in collections on CD and hard drive, through acquisition, exclusive arrangement with movie studios, and in-house...
to release a four-CD set entitled The Hanna-Barbera Sound FX Library, featuring nearly all of the original H-B sound effects used from 1957 to 1990 (including the sounds H-B had borrowed from other studios). The sound effects were digitally remastered, so they would fit easily on new digital soundtracks. A fifth CD was added in 1996, entitled Hanna-Barbera Lost Treasures, and featured more sound effects, including sounds from Space Ghost and The Impossibles.
Also in 1994, Rhino Records released a CD containing some of Hanna-Barbera's famous sound effects, titled simply as Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Sound FX, and also included some answering-machine messages and birthday greetings and short stories starring classic Hanna-Barbera characters, and was hosted by Fred Flintstone. In 1996, it was reissued with the Hanna-Barbera's Pic-A-Nic Basket of Cartoon Classics CD set, which also contained three other CDs of H-B TV theme songs and background music and songs from The Flintstones. Here, the CD was relabeled as The Greatest Cartoon Sound Effects Ever. In the 1980s, Hanna-Barbera slowly began to cease using their trademark sound effects.
This was especially true with the action cartoons of the time such as Sky CommandersSky CommandersSky Commanders is an animated television series made by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It premiered in July 1987 as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and lasted for thirteen episodes...
. By the 1990s, with cartoons shows such as Fish PoliceFish Police (1992 TV series)Fish Police is an animated television series from Hanna-Barbera based on the comic book series that first aired on CBS in 1992, lasting only six episodes over one season. In February of that year, three episodes of the series aired, but the show was promptly axed after failing in the television...
, SWAT KatsSWAT Kats: The Radical SquadronSWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron is an animated series for television created by Christian and Yvon Tremblay and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Program Services. Every episode of the series was directed by Robert Alvarez. The bulk of the series was written by either Glenn Leopold or Lance Falk...
and the animated specials The Halloween Tree and Arabian NightsScooby-Doo in Arabian NightsArabian Nights is a 1994 television special produced by Hanna-Barbera and premiered on syndication on September 3, 1994. It is animated with bright colors, stylized character designs and a flater style to the previous television movies, and musically scored by veteran animation composer Steven...
, the sound effects were virtually nonexistent, being replaced with newer, digitally-recorded sounds, as well as other cartoon sound effects such as the Looney Tunes sound library. A few early 1990s cartoons continued to use the sound effects, such as Tom & Jerry Kids and Gravedale HighGravedale HighGravedale High is an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera for NBC Productions...
.
By 1996, each cartoon from the company had its own set of sound effects, including some selected from the classic Hanna-Barbera sound library, as well as some new ones and various sounds from Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons. Several of the classic H-B sound effects still pop up from time to time in Cartoon Network Studios' productions. However, on the recent Warner-produced Scooby-Doo shows (What's New, Scooby-Doo?What's New, Scooby-Doo?What's New, Scooby-Doo? is the ninth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, and a revival of the original show Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. It was the first time the franchise was revived in over a decade. The animated series was developed and produced by Warner Bros....
, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! is the tenth incarnation of Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo series of Friday night cartoons. It debuted on September 23, 2006, and ran on Kids WB on Saturday mornings. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, this was the last cartoon series produced by co-creator, Joseph...
, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated) and direct-to-video movies, the Hanna-Barbera sound effects are very rarely used.
See also
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studioThe Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio was the in-house division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture studio in Hollywood, California during the Golden Age of American animation, responsible for producing animated short subjects to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters...
- Tom and JerryTom and JerryTom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
- Tom and Jerry
- List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera
- List of Hanna-Barbera characters
- Theatrically released films based on Hanna-Barbera cartoons
- Cartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
- Animation in the United States in the television eraAnimation in the United States in the television eraTelevision animation developed from the success of animated movies in the first half of the 20th century. The state of animation changed dramatically in the four decades starting with the post-World War II proliferation of television...
- Hanna-Barbera theme parksHanna-Barbera theme parksThrough its history, Hanna-Barbera was also operates theme park attractions, mostly as a section in Kings Island , Carowinds, Great America, Kings Dominion, Canada's Wonderland, and recently, Six Flags Great America.Outside the North America, the theme parks was also available in several countries,...
- List of Hanna-Barbera-based video games
- Warner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
- Cartoon NetworkCartoon NetworkCartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
- Boomerang (TV channel)Boomerang (TV channel)Boomerang is a 24-hour American cable television channel owned by Turner Broadcasting System, a division of Time Warner. Boomerang specializes in reruns of animated programming from Time Warner's extensive archives, including pre-1986 MGM, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...
- The Ruff & Reddy Show