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hanna barbera one of the most

influential studios in the world of

animation they were the first to truly

focus their cartoons for television and

left all of the competition in the dust

there was even a time during the 1970s

where they controlled almost 80% of

children's programming and two-thirds of

the Saturday morning block hanna-barbera

is also responsible for providing some

of the most iconic cartoon characters of

all time Scooby Doo Yogi Bear The

Flintstones The Jetsons

The Smurfs and the list goes on and on

there was no doubt that they were the

undisputed kings of televised animation

but for some reason it all came

crumbling down they went from being the

largest player in the game to being just

another subsidiary it was a fall from

grace of epic proportions and it leaves

us asking one question how how did this

Titan of the industry fail when it

commanded almost 80 percent of it and

what exactly brought them to their knees

well there's a lot more to it than you

think

so let's find out what ruined

hanna-barbera

our story begins back in the 1930s it

was an age of theatrical shorts and was

well before the creation of the

television if you wanted to see cartoons

you had to go to the movie theaters

there he would see Mickey Mouse Betty

Boop Popeye the Looney Tunes and many

other characters this was an excellent

place for the growth of future talent

and that included william hanna AKA bill

and joseph barbera aka Joe they both met

while working together at the animation

division of MGM studio in 1939 they

worked together on a short that was

called puss gets the boot look familiar

this short would serve as the future

basis for Tom and Jerry two of the most

iconic cartoon characters of all time is

a fun fact the sound effect for Tom's

yell was actually recorded by Bill Hanna

bill and Joe would go on to produce Tom

and Jerry shorts for over 20 years and

were even nominated for twelve Oscars of

which they won seven but Tom and Jerry

was just the beginning for these two as

they would grow more industrious and

pursue other goals in 1955 bill and Joe

became the head producers of MGM

animation though this would only be for

a little while in 1957 MGM closed down

their animation studio believing that

they had enough backlog content for the

foreseeable future

fortunately for William and Joe they

were able to land on their feet and were

given an offer by film director George

Sidney he said he would be their

business partner and convinced Screen

Gems the television production

subsidiary of Columbia Pictures to make

them a deal because of this they were

able to create HB enterprises and it

would become the first major animation

studio to provide cartoons for

television the first show to come from

HB enterprises was the rough and Teddy

Show in December of 1957 it aired on NBC

and was semi successful but the

following show would blow it out of the

water

the Huckleberry Hound show him out in

1958 and was the first big hit for Bill

and Joe it premiered in syndication and

air to right before primetime in most

markets it also introduced Yogi Bear who

went on to get his own cartoon in 1961

also huckleberry was the first show to

ever win an Emmy for Outstanding Kids

program Joe and Bill had finally found

their momentum and they ran with it

Oh shocked Bo in 1959 they decided to

change the name of their company to

hanna-barbera productions and the year

after that

one of the most iconic families and

animation history arrived and they went

by the name of the Flintstones this was

the first animated show to gain a

primetime slot it was also the first

animated sitcom so it's no surprise that

it took inspiration from the

honeymooners as a matter of fact Jack

Gleeson almost sued hanna-barbera but

decided against it he said that he

didn't want to be known as quote the guy

who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air

the fun stones would hold the title of

longest-running animated primetime show

for over 35 years

but that was eventually surpassed by The

Simpsons in 1996 considering that they

were the first ones to do it

and held it for so long that's still a

respectable record

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there were quite a few shows at

hanna-barbera launched during the 1960's

Jonny Quest The Jetsons Yogi Bear and

Top Cat to name a few hanna-barbera was

cranking out cartoons left and right so

many cartoons but there was one show

that came out during this decade that

would become their golden ticket in 1969

there was scooby-doo where are you

and it was a massive hit for

hanna-barbera this show will go on to

redefine their content as it discovered

a formula for creating cartoons all you

would need are a bunch of teens a wacky

sidekick and some kind of crazy

adventure and hanna-barbera

went nuts making clones of scooby-doo

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the 1970s would prove to be an amazing

decade for hanna-barbera

they controlled over 80 percents of

children's programming and two-thirds of

the cartoons that would air on Saturday

mornings no other studios could ever

come close to their levels of success

and for good reason to a big part of

hanna-barbera success was how they

streamline the production of their

cartoons it's no secret that high

quality animation is very expensive and

also very time-consuming how could one

possibly provide an animated content for

something as demanding as television

that's a big reason why Disney backed

out of televised animation when it was

first launched they saw it as way too

demanding both in production and cost

but for hanna-barbera they were able to

come up with a solution one that would

give them a huge advantage and it's

called limited animation it's cheap it's

fast and it can be reused over and over

and over

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that's called a repeat pan first

implemented by william hanna and joseph

barbera

in 1947 to streamline production thought

this was a method to cut back on cost in

a big way whether it's reusing same

backgrounds cutting down on in-between

frames or reusing the same frames funny

enough this used to be a stylistic

choice before became a method for

cutting down on cost UPA was initially

known for it but hanna-barbera used it

to save lots of money and it was one of

the main reasons why they were able to

dominate the industry Chuck Jones one of

the legendary animators of old was not

too fond of it and called hanna-barbera

Illustrated radio they were also

nicknamed the General Motors

animation due to their assembly line

style of making cartoons we then move

into layout now layout is where we take

these drawings sketch him up larger so

that the artist can work on them and

begin to move the characters around like

I already said hanna-barbera was

dominating the 1970s and very few

Studios could compete with him on

television Filmation was one of their

few competitors but it flopped with its

show uncle crocks blog after that ABC

severed ties with Filmation and began

commissioning its entire Saturday

morning to hanna-barbera now

hanna-barbera focused mainly on

television but they did work on the

occasional theatrical film in 1973

Charlotte's Web came out and it had

mixed reviews some people loved it other

people hated it and that also included

the original author of the story

EB white he said quote we have never

ceased to regret that our version of

Charlotte's Web never got made the

hanna-barbera version has never pleased

either of us a travesty regardless of

the ups and downs hanna-barbera remained

the king of the televised animation

industry their methods had put them on

top and they were able to hold that

position for decades but change was on

the horizon

television was about to go through

another transformation and hanna-barbera

would soon face a new type of

competition the 1980s would be a

turbulent time for hanna-barbera up to

this point they were essentially

unchallenged and very few could hope to

stand up to them and those that did were

not very successful but a new era of

cartoons were on the way

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welcome to the world of animated license

properties GI Joe My Little Pony

Transformers he-man Thundercats TMNT and

the list goes on this was a game changer

for televised animation what better way

to sell toys to children then putting

advertisements directly in cartoons yeah

this was ethically questionable but it

also proved to be very profitable GI Joe

air defense GI Joe checkpoint Cobra

bunker and Joe and Dreadnoks figures

each sold separately from control along

with this change came another that would

alter the landscape of animated

television forever and that was the

airing of cartoons outside of Saturday

morning up to this point if you wanted

to watch cartoons you had to make time

in your schedule there was a rise of

syndicated cartoons and more channels

were airing them on weekdays and not

just on Saturday morning there were now

more time slots to fill and TV networks

went to studios such as deke Marvel and

son BAU after many many years

hanna-barbera had finally met their

match

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no hanna-barbera wasn't completely

defeated during this era they still had

a few tricks up their sleeve and one of

them came in the form of tiny blue

people it was a hidden village where

tiny creatures live they call themselves

Smurfs hey you were good The Smurfs came

out in 1981 and was a big hit for

hanna-barbera it ran for nine seasons

and was the longest-running Saturday

morning show in history with a whopping

256 episodes

outside of the Smurfs Anna Barbera

produced other shows to try and stay

relevant but none of them could really

stack up against this new wave of

animated licensed properties their

control over the market was slipping as

it dropped from 80% to 20%

did you have a tough day dear the end of

the 1980s and the early 90s remained

tough for the company there was also

this bizarre wave of cartoons that were

younger versions of classic characters

such as the Flintstone kids Tom and

Jerry kids Popeye and son and a pup

named scooby-doo man to be fair this one

was actually good but it still wasn't

enough to bring hanna-barbera

back from the edge there was also

pirates of Dark Water which was really

cool but also there was Yoyogi which was

really bad the 1990s proved to be an

interesting time for hanna-barbera the

company went through some pretty big

changes and was acquired by Turner

Broadcasting and the Apollo investment

fund for three hundred and twenty

million dollars for those who don't know

Ted Turner was on a quest around this

time to acquire a majority of cartoons

for his new television channel one that

would air animated shows 24 hours a day

seven days a week and it went by the

name of Cartoon Network Cartoon Network

was launched in October of 1992 and had

a massive backlog of hanna-barbera shows

it was a new era for the company as they

were now airing their old content on

cable in 1993 Ted Turner bought the

remaining hanna-barbera properties from

Apollo investment and was now the sole

owner of the company in all of its

cartoons this was a step in the right

direction for hanna-barbera they needed

to shake things up and along with his

change came new leadership Fred Seibert

former executive for MTV was hired as

the new president for hanna-barbera and

he had some big plans in store first off

they needed a hire new artist a good

chunk of the old animators had left

hanna-barbera so there was now a gap to

fill but this was an opportunity

to bring in some fresh talent to hire

people who had ideas to shake up the

scene some really big names got their

start at hanna-barbera around this time

Craig McCracken genndy tartakovsky Seth

MacFarlane Butch Hartman and many others

I was actually able to reach out to Fred

with some questions and he was kind

enough to answer I asked him what his

plans were for hanna-barbera when he

first was put in charge he said that he

wanted to return back to cartoons that

the studio had strained to far away over

the years from making funny cartoons and

instead focused too much on animated

sitcoms so it was his goal to get

hanna-barbera back to their roots and

that's exactly what he did this new wave

of talent was hungry to make it good

cartoons

to shake up the formula with ideas that

were outside of the box plus all of

these shows had a brand new home on

Cartoon Network and they were very

popular there was Dexter's Lab in 1995

Johnny Bravo

I am weasel and count chicken in 1997

and then there was Powerpuff Girls in

1998

the majority of them performed extremely

well and were the crown jewels of

Cartoon Network they were even given a

special name cartoon cartoons

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Ted Turner pushed hanna-barbera to

produce content exclusively for Cartoon

Network such as SWAT cats and 2 stupid

dogs by proxy this meant the end of

airing on broadcast television funny

enough the last cartoon from

hanna-barbera

to air on broadcast network was the dumb

and dumber show cuz that was a thing but

now we approach the end of our story

hanna-barbera might have been able to

find a home on Cartoon Network and find

success with their new programming but

it ultimately wouldn't be enough in 1998

hanna-barbera was absorbed into Warner

Brothers animation and was relocated to

their studio in Sherman Oaks California

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because of this change hanna-barbera had

to relinquish all of the shows it was

producing over to Cartoon Network

Studios after decades of massive success

hanna-barbera had finally run out of

steam and was a shadow of their former

self hanna-barbera is a studio unlike

any other theirs saw an opportunity with

televised animation and they were able

to rule that market with an iron fist

they created iconic cartoon characters

that are known throughout the world and

set many records along the way

but despite their best efforts to change

with the times

it ultimately was not enough from

animated license properties to the rise

of weekday syndicated cartoons the

landscape of television changed rapidly

during the 80s and 90s and loosen the

grip that hanna-barbera had on animated

television yes it was able to find a

home on Cartoon Network and was able to

pump out a handful of incredible shows

during that time but it was too little

too late Warner Brothers was their final

destination and that is where they

remain to this day to their credit

Warner still produces content that

focuses on the old hanna-barbera

properties there's the occasional reboot

with scooby-doo and Tom and Jerry but

they never last for too long there's

also this bizarre trend of combining

hanna-barbera characters alongside WWE

wrestlers

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now there's the rumor of a hanna-barbera

Cinematic Universe and the works over at

Warner but this remains to be seen

I'm not sure how well that would be

received but it's supposed to happen by

2020 with a new scooby-doo film but for

william hanna and joseph barbera they

both kept working for their studio all

the way up to their deaths

bill hanna died of throat cancer in 2001

and Joe Barbera died a few years later

in 2006 the last thing he worked on was

a Tom and Jerry short called the karate

guard in 2005 even though their content

was low-budget and low quality one

cannot deny the impact hanna-barbera has

left on the animation industry their

cartoons and characters are loved by

millions across the globe and are still

praised to this very day they inspired

artists to pursue their own ideas and

even hired some of them to work at their

studio and some of those people have

gone on to create great things and

continue to inspire future generations

hanna-barbera was truly the father of

televised animation and even though they

are essentially gone we owe them our

gratitude for paving the way for

animation history

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