Hanna-Barbera
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Hanna-Barbera's famous "swirling star" studio logo from 1979. |
Hanna-Barbera was an
American animated cartoon production company that produced animated television programming and motion pictures for forty-five years between
1957 and
2001. Hanna-Barbera was founded in 1944 by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation directors
William Hanna and
Joseph Barbera as
H-B Enterprises, through which the pair used to do freelance
television commercial production. After MGM shut down its animation studio in 1957, H-B Enterprises became Hanna and Barbera's full-time job. Hanna and Barbera immediately began producing television cartoons such as
The Ruff & Reddy Show and
The Huckleberry Hound Show, making their company one of the first dedicated to producing cartoons for television. By 1960, re-incorporated as
Hanna-Barbera Productions, the company had become a leader in television animation production.
While regularly criticized for its use of
limited animation techniques, Hanna-Barbera Productions produced successful
prime-time, weekday afternoon, and
Saturday morning cartoons for all three major networks, and for
syndication as well, along with a sporadic amount of
feature film projects. Over a two-decade span of success, Hanna-Barbera introduced many successful cartoon series, including
The Flintstones,
The Jetsons,
The Huckleberry Hound Show,
The Yogi Bear Show,
Jonny Quest, and
Scooby-Doo, all of which would go on to become icons of American
pop culture.
From approximately 1970 to 1983, Hanna-Barbera Productions was the most successful television animation studio in the world, almost exclusively dedicated to producing Saturday morning cartoons. The company's fortunes declined some after weekday afternoon syndication became the most successful venue for television animation. In 1991, the company was purchased by
Turner Broadcasting, primarily so that Turner could use its 300-plus cartoon series library as the basis of the programming for its new
Cartoon Network cable television channel. Re-christened
H-B Production Company in 1992, and
Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1993, the studio continued without active regular input from William Hanna or Joseph Barbera, who both went into semi-retirement yet continued to serve as figureheads for the studio.
During the late-1990s, Turner turned Hanna-Barbera towards primarily producing new material for the Cartoon Network. In 1997,
Time Warner, the current owners of the Hanna-Barbera empire, closed down the H-B studio on Cahuenga Boulevard in
Hollywood and had the Hanna-Barbera staff move to the main
Warner Bros. lot in
Burbank. With Hanna's death in 2001, Hanna-Barbera was absorbed into
Warner Bros. Animation, and
Cartoon Network Studios assumed production of Cartoon Network output. Cartoon Network Studios continues to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Time Warner, producing material for broadcast on the Cartoon Network and
Kids WB. The Hanna-Barbera name is only used to market properties associated with Hanna-Barbera's "classic" works such as
The Flintstones and
Scooby-Doo.
The beginnings of Hanna-Barbera
William Hanna and
Joseph Barbera first teamed together while working at the
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation 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 cartoon series.
Hanna, Barbera, and MGM live-action director
George Sidney formed H-B Enterprises in 1944 while continuing working for the studio, and used the side company to work on ancillary projects, including early
television commercials and the original opening titles to
I Love Lucy.
After an award-winning stint in which Hanna and Barbera won eight
Oscars, MGM closed their animation studio in 1957, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release. Hanna and Barbera hired most of their MGM unit to work for H-B Enterprises, which became a full-fledged production company starting in 1957. The decision was made to specialize in television animation, and the studio's first series was
The Ruff & Reddy Show, which premiered on
NBC in December 1957. In order to obtain working capital to produce their cartoons, Hanna-Barbera made a deal with the
Screen Gems television division of
Columbia Pictures in which the new animation studio received working capital in exchange for distribution rights.
By 1959, H-B Enterprises was reincorporated as
Hanna-Barbera Productions, and had become a leader in television animation production. While regularly criticized for its use of
limited animation techniques, Hanna-Barbera Productions produced
prime-time, weekday afternoon, and
Saturday morning cartoons for all three major networks in the United States, and for
syndication. The studio also produced a few theatrical projects for Columbia Pictures, including
Loopy De Loop, a theatrical shorts series and
feature film projects based on their television properties.
The company never had a building of its own until 1963, when the Hanna-Barbera Studio, located at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. in
West Hollywood, California, was opened. The Columbia/Hanna-Barbera partnership lasted until 1967, when Hanna and Barbera sold the studio to
Taft Broadcasting while retaining their positions at the studio.
Starting in
1965, Hanna-Barbera tried its hand at being a record label for a short time. HBR Records was distributed by
Columbia/CBS Records, with artists such as
Louis Prima,
The Five Americans,
Scatman Crothers, and The
13th Floor Elevators.
From 1969 to about 1983, Hanna-Barbera Productions was the premiere television animation studio in the world, almost exclusively dedicated to producing Saturday morning cartoons. The company's fortunes declined some after weekday afternoon syndication became the most successful venue for television animation.
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Hanna and Barbera pose amongside their characters circa 1984. |
Television cartoons
Hanna-Barbera was the first animation studio to successfully produce animated cartoons especially for
television; until then, cartoons on television consisted primarily of rebroadcasts of theatrical cartoons. Other Hanna-Barbera works included a theatrical cartoon series,
Loopy De Loop, for
Columbia Pictures from 1959 to 1965; and the opening credits to the
ABC/Screen Gems television show
Bewitched. Later, H-B would use the
Bewitched characters as guest stars on
The Flintstones.
Many of Hanna-Barbera's original TV series were produced for prime-time broadcast, and they continued to produce prime-time TV cartoons up until the early 1970s. Such shows as
The Huckleberry Hound Show (and its
spin-off,
The Yogi Bear Show),
Quick Draw McGraw,
Top Cat,
Jonny Quest,
The Jetsons, and especially
The Flintstones were originally broadcast during prime-time hours, competing with live-action comedies, dramas, and quiz shows.
The Flintstones in particular became a top-rated show. "The Blessed Event", the
February 22,
1963 episode which depicted the birth of
Pebbles Flintstone, was the highest-rated episode in the show's history, mirroring the
I Love Lucy birth episode.
But the Hanna-Barbera studio especially captured the market for animated TV shows produced for syndication and
Saturday mornings, grabbing the majority of TV cartoon production and holding it for over thirty years.
Over a two-decade span of success, Hanna-Barbera introduced many successful cartoon series, including
The Flintstones,
The Jetsons,
The Huckleberry Hound Show,
The Yogi Bear Show,
Jonny Quest, and
Scooby-Doo, all of which would go on to become icons of American
pop culture.
During the 1970s in particular, most American TV cartoons were produced by Hanna-Barbera, with the only competition coming from
Filmation and
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, plus occasional prime-time animated "specials" from
Rankin-Bass,
Chuck Jones, and
Bill Melendez's Peanuts.
Quality controversy
The Hanna-Barbera studio has been accused of contributing to the decrease in quality of animation and TV cartoons from the 1960s through the 1980s. Some people believed that their cartoons had "watered down humor". One reason is that people believed that the cartoons ruined their humor before it came into play. This relates to their being one of the first studios to do animated cartoons for television and dealing with constrained budgets. The perception of cartoons as a "kid's medium" made them a low priority for television executives. For example, one 22-minute (30 minutes with commercials) episode of
Josie and the Pussycats in 1970 had the same budgetas one 8-minute
Tom and Jerry short from the late-1940s. Such budgetary constraints demanded a change in production values.
Hanna-Barbera introduced
limited animation, popularized in theatrical animation by
UPA, on the television series
The Ruff & Reddy Show as a way of reducing costs. This led to a reduction in animation quality. The studio's solution to the resulting criticism was to go into features, producing both higher-quality versions of their TV cartoons (
Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! in 1964,
The Man Called Flintstone in 1966, and
Jetsons: The Movie in 1990) and adaptations of other material (
Charlotte's Web in 1973 and
Heidi's Song in 1982).
The field of animation reached its low point in the mid-1970s, even as the audience for Saturday morning cartoons was at its peak. The strong focus on scripting and dialogue that had carried the earlier cartoons was more or less gone by 1973, as the studio's output had increased to the point that story quality had to take a backseat to production output. By this time, most Hanna-Barbera shows had degenerated into variations on but a few themes, with each successful formula (
The Flintstones,
Scooby-Doo,
SuperFriends) milked dry through repetition. Various animation short-cuts became unfortunate Hanna-Barbera trademarks, such as plots being advanced by characters seen only as "talking heads," and crashes and disasters happening just off the frame, heard but not seen. The soundtracks rather than the visuals carried the majority of the plot and humor of the cartoons. This era of H-B animation is frequently skewered by
Adult Swim (most notably
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law) and in many of
Robert Smigel's
"TV Funhouse" segments on
Saturday Night Live.
The slow rise and fall
The state of the field of animation changed during the 1980s, thanks to competitors' syndicated cartoon series based upon popular
toys and
action figures, including Filmation's
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Rankin-Bass'
Thundercats. The Hanna-Barbera studio fell behind, as a new wave of animators and production studios introduced variety into the market for TV cartoons in the 1980s and 1990s.
Throughout the '80s, Hanna-Barbera churned out shows based on familiar licensed properties like
The Smurfs,
The Snorks,
Pac-Man,
The Dukes of Hazzard,
Shirt Tales,
Happy Days,
Laverne and Shirley,
Mork and Mindy, and
Challenge of the GoBots, and also produced several
ABC Weekend Specials. Some of their shows were produced at their Australian-based studio (a partnership with Australian media company Southern Star Entertainment), including
Drak Pack,
Wildfire (animated series),
The Berenstain Bears,
Teen Wolf, and
CBS Storybreak. Starting in the 80's and continuing until shortly after they were taken over by Turner Broadcasting, they also worked on several lesser-known shorts, such as the direct-to-video series
The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible.
H-B also aligned themselves with
Ruby-Spears Productions, which was founded in 1977 by former H-B employees
Joe Ruby and
Ken Spears. H-B's then-parent Taft Broadcasting purchased Ruby-Spears from
Filmways in 1981, and Ruby-Spears often paired their productions with Hanna-Barbera shows.
H-B also had a habit of making "kid" versions of popular characters in the 1980s, including
The Pink Panther and Sons,
The Flintstone Kids,
Popeye and Son, and
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. In 1985, Hanna-Barbera launched
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, a weekend-only program that introduced new versions of old favorites like
Yogi Bear,
Jonny Quest,
The Snorks, and
Richie Rich alongside brand new shows like
Galtar and the Golden Lance,
Paw Paws,
Fantastic Max, and
Midnight Patrol. The following year, H-B produced
Yogi's Great Escape, the first entry in its
Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10, a series of 10 original
telefilms based on their popular stable of characters, including the popular crossover
The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones.
Throughout all of this, both Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears were subject to the financial troubles of parent company Taft Broadcasting, and had gradually moved away from producing everything in-house, deciding instead to outsource some of the production to studios in
Taiwan, the
Philippines, and
Japan. Hanna-Barbera in particular was also held down by the demands of TV networks, mainly ABC, who insisted on rehashing
Scooby-Doo many times over; this stifled creativity, leading many of the better writers and creative people to leave in 1989. They responded to a call from
Warner Bros. to resurrect their animation department, ultimately developing
Tiny Toon Adventures and
Animaniacs.
The Turner rebound
In 1990, the bottom fell out: Taft Broadcasting (which had since changed its name to
Great American Broadcasting in 1988) went bankrupt, and both Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears were put up for sale. In 1990, Hanna-Barbera and much of the original Ruby-Spears library were acquired by
Turner Broadcasting.
Turner President of Entertainment Scott Sassa turned to an unusual choice to lead the failing studio.
Fred Seibert was a cable television branding guru who had created the
MTV and
Nickelodeon branding and marketing, and had invented Nick-at-Nite, but he had never worked in cartoon production. He immediately filled the gap left by the departure of most of their creative crew during the Great American years was a new crop of animators, writers, and producers, including Pat Ventura, Donovan Cook,
Craig McCracken,
Genndy Tartakovsky,
Seth MacFarlane, David Feiss, Van Partible, 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, Hanna-Barbera created cartoon series like
Tom and Jerry Kids Show (and its spin-off,
Droopy: Master Detective) and
The New Adventures of Captain Planet (a sequel to the original
DiC/
TBS Productions series
Captain Planet and the Planeteers), and the ill-fated
Yo Yogi!. They also introduced shows that were quite different from their previous releases, including
Wake, Rattle, and Roll,
2 Stupid Dogs, Fondly remembered
Swat Kats, and
The Pirates of Dark Water. In the mid-'90s, Hanna-Barbera and
Cartoon Network (which introduced many Hanna-Barbera shows to a new audience) launched Seibert's innovation, the back-to-the-future concept of cartoon shorts
World Premiere Toons (a.k.a.
What A Cartoon), which introduced a brand new stable of characters and, in a way, changed Hanna-Barbera forever.
The first original Cartoon Network series to emerge from the
World Premiere Toons project was
Genndy Tartakovsky's
Dexter's Laboratory. Others programs followed, including
Johnny Bravo,
Cow and Chicken, and
The Powerpuff Girls, the last series to use H-B's famous swirling star logo (first used in 1979). H-B also produced several new direct-to-video movies featuring Scooby-Doo (released by
Warner Bros.) as well as a new Jonny Quest series,
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest.
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. In 1998, the Hanna-Barbera building was closed and the studio was moved to the Warner Bros. Animation lot at
Sherman Oaks, California.
The Cartoon Network Studios era
Around 1998, the Hanna-Barbera name began to disappear from the newer shows from the studio in favor of the Cartoon Network Studios name. This came in handy with shows that were produced outside of Hanna-Barbera, but that Cartoon Network had a hand in producing, like aka Cartoons'
Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Kino Film's
Mike, Lu and Og, and Curious Pictures'
Sheep in the Big City, as well as the shows the studio continued to produce, like
The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and
Samurai Jack.
When
William Hanna died in 2001, an era was over. The last official Hanna-Barbera production was
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, which was co-produced with Warner Bros. Television Animation. After 2001, Hanna-Barbera was completely absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation and further Cartoon Network projects were handled by Cartoon Network Studios.
Though the Hanna-Barbera name remains on the copyright notices of productions based on "classic" properties like the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, and others, the studio that does the work is either Warner Bros. Animation or Cartoon Network Studios. In 2002, a brand new Scooby-Doo series
What's New, Scooby-Doo? was released. Despite being produced by Warner Bros. Animation, which animated the four previous direct-to-video Scooby-Doo movies, the
copyright end board of each episode states the author as "Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Inc." This is the only recent series in which Hanna-Barbera's name is mentioned as the author (as Cartoon Network's series are copyrighted by the channel itself).
For a complete list of Hanna-Barbera productions, see List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera.Besides their cartoons and characters, Hanna-Barbera was also famous for their vast 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 particually 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,
Termite Terrace, and even
Walt Disney Productions.
Some of their famous sound effects included a rapid
bongo drum take used for when a character's feet was scrambling before taking off, a "KaBONG" sound produced on a guitar for when
Quick Draw McGraw 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 Flintstone 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 for when someone would fall down or smack into an object, a
xylophone being striked 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.
In the
1980s, Hanna-Barbera began to slowly cease using their trademark sound effects. By the
1990s and cartoons such as
Swat Kats and
Arabian Nights, the sound effects were virtually nonexistant, being replaced with newer, digitally-recorded sounds, as well as other cartoon sound effects such as the
Looney Tunes sound library. By 1996, each cartoon from the company had its own set of sound effects, including some selected from the classic H-B 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
What's New, Scooby-Doo? and many of the direct-to-video
Scooby-Doo animated movies, the Hanna-Barbera sound effects are very rarely used. Exceptions were two direct-to-video movies from
2002-
2003,
Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire and
Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico, which extensively uses the H-B sound effects, along with remixes of the original 1969
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You background music and the original voice cast (sans the departed
Don Messick). This was soon quickly dropped.
However, since the
1960s, several other cartoon studios have used the sound effects, including, but not limited to,
Filmation,
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises,
DiC Entertainment,
Film Roman,
Spumco,
Nickelodeon Animation Studios and many others. By the 21st century, almost every animation studio was using the sound effects. Nowadays, like Hanna-Barbera, they are used sparingly, while some cartoons like Warner Bros. Animation's
Krypto the Superdog and Spumco's
Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon make heavy use of the classic sound effects, mostly for a "retro" feel.
The Hanna-Barbera Sound Effects were not originally available to the public or other sound editors, although some Hanna-Barbera sounds show up in various sound libraries such as Valentino and Audio Network. H-B released a seven-LP record set in
1986 entitled
The Hanna-Barbera Library of Sounds, which contained many of the classic effects. However, in 1993, the last President of the studio,
Fred Seibert recalled his early production experiences with early LP releases of the studio's effects and commissioned
Sound Ideas released a four-CD set entitled
The Hanna-Barbera Sound FX Library, featuring almost all of the original H-B sound effects used from 1957 to 1992 (including the sounds H-B had borrowed from other studios). The sound effects were digitally remastered, making them suitable 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.
*
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My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century. Atlanta: Turner Publishing. 157-036042-1
*Burke, Timothy and Burke, Kevin (1998).
Saturday Morning Fever : Growing up with Cartoon Culture. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 031-216996-5
*Hanna, William (1999).
A Cast of Friends. New York: Da Capo Press. 0306-80917-6
*Lawrence, Guy (2006).
Yogi Bear's Nuggets: A Hanna-Barbera 45 Guide.
Spectropop.com* http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/hannabarbera/index.jsp - Warner Bros' Hanna-Barbera site
*
Hanna-Barbera according to Wingnut*
Big Cartoon DataBase: Hanna-Barbera Studios*
Hanna-Barbera studio tour*
The Hanna-Barbera Essays*
The Hanna-Barbera And Friends WebSite - Toon Orbit*
What A Cartoon! The 90s Resurrection
