Hanna-Barbera Productions

Hanna-Barbera Productions is a cartoon animation studio, started by Bill Hanna[?] and Joe Barbera[?] that was later subsumed within Warner Brothers.

Hanna and Barbera had created the Tom and Jerry cartoon series for MGM in 1940, and they formed Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1944 while working for the studio. After an award-winning stint in which they won eight Oscars, Hanna and Barbera left MGM when the studio closed its animation studio in 1955. They were the first animation studio to successfully produce animated cartoons especially for television; until then, cartoons on television consisted primarily of broadcasts of previously produced theatrical cartoons.

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 Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat, Yogi Bear, Johnny 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 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 after-school and Saturday mornings, grabbing the lion's share of TV cartoon production and holding it for over thirty years. During the 1970s in particular, the majority of 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 (Charlie Brown).

The Hanna-Barbera studio has been accused of contributing to the general decrease in quality of animation and TV cartoons during the 1960s through the 1980s. This probably has more to do with them being one of the first studios to do animated cartoons for television and having to deal with constrained budgets. They first practiced the technique of limited animation on the television serial "The Ruff & Reddy Show" as a way of reducing costs. A fifteen minute animation short for the beginning of a movie might have five times the budget of a single half-hour episode of a television cartoon, so a change was required. Unfortunately, quality suffered and the perception of cartoons as a "kids medium" didn't make it a priority for a big budget by television executives. The field of animation reached its low point in the mid-1970s, even as the audience for Saturday morning cartoons was at its peak. Most Hanna-Barbera shows had degenerated into endless variations of the same theme, and each successful formula (The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Super Friends[?]) was milked dry through repetition.

The state of the field of animation changed during the 1980s and 1990s, and for a while Hanna-Barbera fell behind as a new wave of animators and production studios introduced variety into the market for TV cartoons. Hanna-Barbera was acquired by Turner Productions[?], which in turn was acquired by Time Warner. Time Warner merged Hanna-Barbera with its Warner Brothers animation facilities. Although initially the H-B name was kept as part of the merged facility's name, it was eventually discarded in favour of Warner Brothers Animation. Hanna-Barbera's facilities were turned towards the Cartoon Network cable channel, and a newer, fresher batch of cartoons were produced, leaving the old days of Yogi Bear behind (though older Hanna-Barbera cartoons are still rerun regularly in many markets and on Cartoon Network).

Hanna-Barbera's productions include:

1950s

• The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957)
• Huckleberry Hound (1958)
• Quick Draw McGraw (1959)

1960s

• Yogi Bear (1960)
• The Flintstones (1960)
• Snagglepuss (1960)
• Top Cat (1961)
• Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har (1962)
• Touche Turtle (1962)
• Wally Gator (1962)
• The Jetsons (1962)
• Magilla Gorilla (1963)
• Jonny Quest[?] (1964)
• Atom Ant[?] (1965)
• Precious Pupp (1965)
• Space Ghost[?] (1966)
• The Herculoids[?] (1967)
• The Fantastic Four (1967)
• The Banana Splits[?] (1968)
• Danger Island (1968)
• Adventures Of Gulliver (1968)
• The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1968)
• Wacky Races (1968)
• The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop (1969)
• Scooby Doo, Where Are You (1969)

1970s

• Harlem Globetrotters (1970)
• Josie and the Pussycats (1970)
• Pebbles and Bamm Bamm (1971)
• Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch (1971)
• Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972)
• New Scooby Doo Movies (1973)
• Superfriends (1973)
• Hong Kong Phooey[?] (1974)
• Devlin (1974)
• The Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974)
• Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch (1974)
• The Great Grape Ape (1975)
• Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, Dog Wonder (1976)
• Scooby's All Star Laff A Lympics (1977)
• Captain Caveman and The Teen Angels (1977)
• Scooby and Scrappy-Doo (1979)

1980s

• Thundarr the Barbarian (1980)
• Richie Rich[?] (1980)
• Space Stars (1981)
• Teen Force (1981)
• Kwicky Koala (1981)
• Smurfs (1981)
• The Little Rascals[?] (1982)
• Pac-Man (1982)
• Shirt Tales (1982)
• Monchichis (1983)
• Snorks[?] (1984)
• Pink Panther & Sons (1984)
• Challenge of the GoBots (1984)
• Super Powers Team: Galatic Guardians (1985)
• Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo (1986)
• Pound Puppies (1986)
• Flintstone Kids (1986)
• A Pup Named Scooby Doo (1988)
• Popeye and Son (1987)

1990s

• Captain Planet[?] (1990)
• Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures (1990)
• Tom and Jerry Kids (1990)
• The Pirates of Dark Water (1990)
• Yo, Yogi! (1991)
• Capitol Critters (1992)
• Fish Police (1992)
• Two Stupid Dogs (1993)
• Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (1995)
• Space Ghost Coast to Coast[?] (1997)
• Johnny Bravo[?] (1997)
• Cow and Chicken (1997)
• Dexter's Laboratory (1997)
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998)

Hanna-Barbera produced a number of animated feature films for theatrical release, including Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1964), The Man Called Flintstone (1966), and Jetsons: The Movie (1990). Critics consider the best of the Hanna-Barbera feature films to be their movie adaptation of the book Charlotte's Web[?] (1973).

See also:

• Tom and Jerry

External links:

• http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/doc/hbtour/