Hanna-Barbera

Tom and Jerry and birth of a company (1938–1957)

William Denby "Bill" Hanna and Joseph Roland "Joe" Barbera met at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio in 1938, while working at its animation unit. Having worked at other studios since the early 1930s, they solidified a six-decade working partnership. Tom and Jerry came about, following the release of their very first collaborative success in 1940, centering on the madcap comical adventures of a cat and a mouse.

Hanna supervised the animation, while Barbera did the stories and pre-production for all 114 cartoons. Seven of the films won seven Oscars for "Best Short Subject (Cartoons)" between 1943 and 1953, and five additional shorts were nominated for twelve awards during this period. However, they were awarded to producer Fred Quimby, who was not involved in the development of the shorts.

Sequences for Anchors Aweigh, Dangerous When Wet and Invitation to the Dance and shorts Swing Social, Gallopin' Gals, The Goose Goes South, Officer Pooch, War Dogs and Good Will to Men were also made. With Quimby's retirement in May 1955, Hanna and Barbera became the producers in charge of the MGM animation studio's output.

In addition to continuing to write and direct new Tom & Jerry shorts, now in CinemaScope, Hanna and Barbera supervised the last seven shorts of Tex Avery's Droopy series and produced and directed the short-lived Spike and Tyke, which ran for two entries. In addition to their work on the cartoons, the two men moonlighted on outside projects, including title sequences and commercials for I Love Lucy.[10]

MGM decided in mid-1957 to close its cartoon studio, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release. While contemplating their future, Hanna and Barbera began producing additional animated television commercials. During their last year at MGM, they had developed a concept for a new animated television program about a cat and a dog.

After failing to convince the studio to back their venture, George Sidney offered to serve as their business partner and convinced Screen Gems to make a deal with the producers. Sidney, a veteran live-action producer-director, had worked with Hanna and Barbera on animated elements for several of his movies for MGM, Anchors Aweigh in particular. A coin toss gave Hanna precedence in naming the new studio. Harry Cohn, president and head of Columbia Pictures, took an 18% ownership in H-B Enterprises, and provided working capital.

Screen Gems became the new distributor and its licensing agent, handling merchandizing of the characters from the animated programs as the cartoon firm officially opened for business in rented offices on the lot of Kling Studios (formerly Charlie Chaplin Studios)[10] on July 7, 1957, one year after the MGM animation studio closed.

Sidney and several Screen Gems alumni became members of the studio's 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—became the new production staff while Hoyt Curtin was in charge of providing the music.

Success with animated series (1957–1969)

The Ruff and Reddy Show,[11] the studio's first animated television series, premiered on NBC on December 14, 1957, then The Huckleberry Hound Show (feat. Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, Yogi Bear and Hokey Wolf) debuted one year later, in 1958, airing in most markets, and was also the first cartoon to win an Emmy. Several animation alumni joined – in particular former Warner Bros. Cartoons storymen Michael Maltese and Warren Foster as head writers, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears as film editors and Iwao Takamoto as character designer.

After reincorporating as Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., The Quick Draw McGraw Show (feat. Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and Snooper and Blabber) and the theatrical cartoon short series Loopy De Loop followed in 1959. Walt Disney Productions laid off several of its animators after Sleeping Beauty (1959) bombed on the box-office during its initial theatrical run, with many of them moving to Hanna-Barbera shortly afterwards.[12] In August 1960, it moved into a window-less, cinder block building at 3501 Cahuenga Boulevard West.[13] Though too small to house the staff, some of its employees worked at home.

The Flintstones premiered on ABC on September 30, 1960, becoming the first animated series airing in prime time. It is loosely based on The Honeymooners and is set in a fictionalized Stone Age of cavemen and dinosaurs. Jackie Gleason considered suing Hanna-Barbera for copyright infringement, but decided not to because he did not want to be known as "the man who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air".[14] For six seasons, it became the longest-running animated show in American prime time at the time (until The Simpsons beat it in 1997), a ratings and merchandising success and the top-ranking animated program in syndication history, all while dawning a media franchise with several spinoffs, movies and specials. It initially received mixed reviews from critics, but its reputation eventually improved and it is now considered a classic.

The Yogi Bear Show (feat. Snagglepuss and Yakky Doodle), Top Cat, The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series (feat. Wally Gator, Touché Turtle and Dum Dum and Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har) and The Jetsons soon followed in 1961 and 1962. Several animated television commercials were produced as well, often starring their own characters (including the Pebbles cereal commercials for Post) and the opening credits for Bewitched, in which animated caricatures of Samantha and Darrin appeared. These characterizations were reused in The Flintstones' sixth-season episode "Samantha".

In 1963, Hanna-Barbera's operations moved to 3400 Cahuenga Boulevard West in Hollywood Hills/Studio City. This contemporary office building was designed by architect Arthur Froehlich. Its ultra-modern design included a sculpted latticework exterior, moat, fountains, and a Jetsons-like tower. The Magilla Gorilla Show (feat. Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-Long and Punkin' Puss & Mushmouse), Jonny Quest, The Peter Potamus Show (feat. Breezly and Sneezly and Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey), Atom Ant (feat. The Hillbilly Bears and Precious Pupp) and Secret Squirrel (feat. Squiddly Diddly and Winsome Witch) followed in 1964 and 1965.

The partnership with Screen Gems would last until 1965 when Hanna and Barbera announced the sale of their studio to Taft Broadcasting.[15][16] Taft's acquisition of Hanna-Barbera was delayed for a year by a lawsuit from Cohn's family, wife Joan Perry and sons John and Harrison Cohn, who felt the studio undervalued the Cohns' 18% share in when it was sold a few years previously.[17]

In 1966, Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles and Space Ghost debuted, and by December of that year the litigation had been settled, Taft finally acquired Hanna-Barbera for $12 million and folded the studio into its corporate structure in 1967 and 1968,[15] becoming its distributor. Hanna and Barbera stayed on while Screen Gems retained licensing and distribution rights to their previous produced cartoons[15] and trademarks to the characters into the 1970s and 1980s.[15][18]

Shazzan, The Banana Splits, Wacky Races, and its spin-offs (Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop) and Cattanooga Cats followed from 1967 to 1969. The studio's record and music label, Hanna-Barbera Records,[19] was headed by Danny Hutton and distributed by Columbia. Children's records featuring its characters were released by Colpix. Hanna-Barbera teamed up with the National Catholic Office for Radio and Television to produce 26 half-hour animated films in 1970, which never materialized.[20]

Mysteries, spin-offs, and more (1969–1979)

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! debuted on CBS on September 13, 1969; it is a mystery-based program which blended comedy, action, and elements from I Love a Mystery and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.[21][22] For two seasons, it centered on four teenagers and a dog solving supernatural mysteries, and became one of Hanna-Barbera's most successful creations, spawning several new spin-offs, such as The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo and many others, which were regularly in production at Hanna-Barbera into the 1990s.[23]

Referred to as "The General Motors of animation", Hanna-Barbera produced nearly two-thirds of all Saturday-morning cartoons in a single year. Josie and the Pussycats, The Funky Phantom, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Speed Buggy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Inch High, Private Eye, Clue Club, Jabberjaw, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels and The New Shmoo built upon the mystery-solving template set by Scooby-Doo, with further shows built around teenagers solving mysteries with a comic relief pet of some sort.

Starting in 1971, many new spin-offs, such as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, featuring Fred and Barney's now teenaged children along with The Flintstone Comedy Hour, The Tom and Jerry Show, The New Fred and Barney Show and "all-star" shows Yogi's Gang, Laff-A-Lympics, Yogi's Space Race and Galaxy Goof-Ups came to the airwaves.

Hanna-Barbera teamed up with Avco Broadcasting Corporation in 1971, a company that was once a rival to its owner Taft at that time, who maintains rivalry in the Columbus and Cincinnati markets, to produce two holiday specials for the syndicated market by way of its syndicated division.[24] In 1972, H-B opened an animation studio in Australia, with the Hamlyn Group acquiring a 50% stake in 1974.

Hamlyn was acquired by James Hardie Industries. Hanna-Barbera Australia bought itself out from Hardie and Taft in 1988, changing its name to Southern Star Group, since becoming Endemol Shine Australia, a division of Banijay Entertainment. Super Friends, an action-adventure show adapted from DC Comics' Justice League of America and the first of many iterations of the Super Friends series, premiered on ABC on September 8, 1973. It returned to production in 1976, remaining on ABC through 1985 with The All-New Super Friends Hour, Challenge of the Superfriends and The World's Greatest Super Friends.

While Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch!, Sealab 2020, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home and Hong Kong Phooey aired, Charlotte's Web, an adaptation of the novel of the same name, was released on March 1, 1973, by Paramount Pictures, to moderate critical and commercial success, and was the first of only four Hanna-Barbera films not to be based upon one of their famous television cartoons (the other three being C.H.O.M.P.S., Heidi's Song and Once Upon a Forest).

With the majority of American television animation during the second half of the 20th century made by Hanna-Barbera and more cartoons like CB Bears, Buford and the Galloping Ghost, The All New Popeye Hour, Godzilla and Casper and the Angels, major competition was coming from Filmation and DePatie–Freleng. Then-ABC president Fred Silverman gave its Saturday-morning time to them after dropping Filmation for its failure of Uncle Croc's Block.

New live-action material was produced, as well as new live-action/animated combos since the mid-1960s. In 1975, former MGM executive Herbert F. Solow joined the company to start a live-action unit, Hanna-Barbera Television, to produce prime time programming,[25] which later spun off and became Solow Production Company in 1976.[26][27]

Along with the animation industry in the U.S., it moved away from producing in-house in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While The Great Grape Ape Show and The Mumbly Cartoon Show aired, Ruby and Spears worked with Hanna-Barbera in 1976 and 1977 as ABC network executives to create and develop new cartoons before leaving in 1977 to start their company, Ruby-Spears Enterprises, with Filmways as its parent division.[22] In 1979, Taft bought Worldvision Enterprises, which became Hanna-Barbera's new distributor.

Control decrease and The Smurfs dominance (1980–1991)

Super Friends, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Richie Rich, The Flintstone Comedy Show, Space Stars, The Kwicky Koala Show (feat. The Bungle Bros., Crazy Claws and Dirty Dawg), Trollkins and Laverne and Shirley in the Army debuted in 1980 and 1981, while Taft purchased Ruby-Spears from Filmways (which was eventually absorbed into Orion Pictures the following year), making it a sister company to Hanna-Barbera and as a result, several early-1980s series were shared between both companies.[28]

While Filmation, Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions, Rankin/Bass, DIC and other Hollywood animation studios introduced successful animated series syndicated, including some based on licensed properties, Hanna-Barbera fell behind, as it no longer dominated the TV animation market as it did years earlier and lost control over children's programming, going down from 80% to 20%.

The Smurfs, adapted from the Belgian comic by Peyo and centering on a group of tiny blue creatures led by Papa Smurf, debuted on NBC on September 12, 1981, and ran for nine seasons until December 2, 1989, becoming so the longest-running Saturday-morning cartoon series in broadcast history, a significant ratings success, the top-rated program in eight years and the highest for an NBC show since 1970.[29] The Gary Coleman Show, Shirt Tales, Pac-Man, The Little Rascals, The Dukes, Monchhichis and The Biskitts followed in 1982 and 1983.

Following a 1982 strike,[30] new cartoons were outsourced to Cuckoo's Nest Studios, Mr. Big Cartoons, Toei Animation and Fil-Cartoons in Australia and Asia, which provided production services from 1982 to the end of H-B's existence. Challenge of the GoBots, Pink Panther and Sons, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, Snorks, The New Scooby & Scrappy-Doo Show, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, Yogi's Treasure Hunt, Galtar and the Golden Lance, Paw Paws, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians and The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo debuted in 1984 and 1985.

While new revivals of The Jetsons, Jonny Quest and Yogi Bear were commissioned for broadcast, Pound Puppies, The Flintstone Kids, Foofur, Wildfire, Sky Commanders and Popeye and Son arrived in 1986 and 1987. After its financial troubles affected Hanna-Barbera, the American Financial Corporation acquired Taft in 1987 and renamed it Great American Broadcasting.[31] A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, Fantastic Max, The Further Adventures of SuperTed and Paddington Bear followed in 1988 and 1989.

Hanna-Barbera Poland, a Polish branch of the company, opened up and dealt with the promotion and distribution of the studio's animated content and is most well known for releasing VHS tapes with Polish music distributor P.P. Polskie Nagrania, which mostly consisted of numbered compilation releases of Hanna-Barbera shows on one tape. This would last until 1993, when the company separated and reincorporated itself as Curtis Art Productions.

Great American sold Worldvision to Aaron Spelling Productions, while Hanna-Barbera and its library remained with them. Hanna-Barbera split off from Worldvision Home Video in early 1989 to start out its own home video division, Hanna-Barbera Home Video.[32] In January 1989, while working on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Tom Ruegger got a call from Warner Bros. to resurrect its animation department.[33]

Ruegger, along with several of his colleagues, left Hanna-Barbera at that time to develop Tiny Toon Adventures at Warner Bros.[33] David Kirschner, known for An American Tail and Child's Play, was later appointed as the studio's new CEO.[34] Later that year, the company had a licensing agreement with MicroIllusions, a video game publisher, to produce video games based on its properties, namely Jonny Quest and others.[35]

In 1990, while Kirschner and the company formed Bedrock Productions[36] and Great American putting Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears up for sale, Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone, Rick Moranis in Gravedale High, Tom & Jerry Kids, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda and Wake, Rattle, and Roll debuted that year. The Pirates of Dark Water, Yo Yogi! and Young Robin Hood would follow in 1991.

Acquisition by Turner Broadcasting System and absorption into Warner Bros. Animation (1991–2001)

Turner Broadcasting System outbid MCA (then-parent company of Universal Pictures), Hallmark Cards and other major companies in acquiring Hanna-Barbera while also purchasing Ruby-Spears as well. The two companies were acquired in a 50-50 joint venture between Turner Broadcasting System and Apollo Investment Fund for $320 million.[37][38] Turner purchased these assets to launch a then-new all-animation network aimed at children and younger audiences.

Scott Sassa hired Fred Seibert to head Hanna-Barbera, who filled the gap left by Great American's crew with new animators, directors, producers and writers, including Craig McCracken, Donovan Cook, Genndy Tartakovsky, David Feiss, Seth MacFarlane, Van Partible and Butch Hartman.[39] After being newly named as H-B Production Co., Capitol Critters and Fish Police followed in 1992. Cartoon Network launched on October 1 of that year, and became the first 24-hour all-animation channel to air its library of cartoon classics, of which Hanna-Barbera was the core contributor.[8]

In 1993, the company again renamed itself to Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. (though the Hanna-Barbera Productions name was still used in regards to the pre-1992 properties) and, while Turner acquired its remaining interests from Apollo Investment Fund for $255 million,[40] 2 Stupid Dogs, Droopy, Master Detective, The New Adventures of Captain Planet and SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron debuted that year. Turner refocused the studio to produce new shows exclusively for its networks.

In 1995, Dumb and Dumber debuted, while Seibert launched What a Cartoon! for Cartoon Network. In 1996, Dexter's Laboratory, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and Cave Kids debuted,[41] while Turner merged with Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery). While Johnny Bravo and Cow and Chicken aired, the Hanna-Barbera studio faced demolition after many of its staff vacated the facilities in 1997, despite the efforts of preserving it.

In 1998, following The Powerpuff Girls, Hanna-Barbera moved from Cahuenga Blvd. to Sherman Oaks Galleria in Sherman Oaks, California, where Warner Bros. Animation was located. I Am Weasel would be its final show in 1999. After the company's absorption into Warner Bros. Animation,[42][43] Hanna died of throat cancer on March 22, 2001, at the age of 90 years old.

Post-closure and Barbera's final years (2001–2006)

While Cartoon Network Studios took over production of programming,[44] the Los Angeles City Council approved a plan to preserve the Cahuenga Blvd. headquarters in May 2004, while allowing retail and residential development on the site.[45]

Barbera died of natural causes on December 18, 2006, at the age of 95.[43] Warner Bros. Animation continues to produce new productions based on Hanna-Barbera properties since then.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] Cartoon Network Studios Europe was renamed Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe paying tribute to the studio in April 2021.[55] Warner Bros. Animation re-acquired Cartoon Network Studios from The Cartoon Network, Inc. in 2022.[56][57]

Production process changes

The small budgets that television animation producers had to work within prevented Hanna-Barbera from working with the full theatrical-quality animation that Hanna and Barbera had been known for at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While the budget for MGM's seven-minute Tom and Jerry shorts was about $35,000, the Hanna-Barbera studios were required to produce five-minute Ruff and Reddy episodes for no more than $3,000 apiece.[58] To keep within these tighter budgets, Hanna-Barbera furthered the concept of limited animation (also called "planned animation")[59] 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) were animated. The rest of the figure remained on a held animation cel. This allowed a typical seven-minute short to be done with only nearly 2,000 drawings instead of the usual 14,000.[60] Dialogue, music, and sound effects were emphasized over action, leading Chuck Jones—a contemporary who worked for Warner Bros. Cartoons and whose short The Dover Boys practically invented many of the concepts in limited animation—to disparagingly refer to the limited television cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera and others as "illustrated radio".[61]

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".[62] Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman argues that Hanna-Barbera attempted to maximize their bottom line by recycling story formulas and characterization instead of introducing new ones. Once a formula for an original series was deemed successful, the studio reused it in subsequent series. Besides copying their own works, Hanna-Barbera drew inspiration from the works of other people and studios.

Lehman considers that the studio served as the main example of how animation studios that focused on TV animation differed from those that focused on theatrical animation. Theatrical animation studios tried to maintain full and fluid animation and consequently struggled with the rising expenses associated with producing it. Limited animation as practiced by Hanna-Barbera kept production costs at a minimum. The cost in quality of using this technique was that Hanna-Barbera's characters only moved when necessary.

Its solution to the criticism over its quality was to go into films. It produced six theatrical feature films, among them are higher-quality versions of its television cartoons and adaptations of other material. It was also one of the first animation studios to have their work produced overseas. One of these companies was a subsidiary began by Hanna-Barbera in November 1987 called Fil-Cartoons in the Philippines,[63][64] with Jerry Smith as a consultant for the subsidiary.[65] Wang Film Productions got its start as an overseas facility for the studio in 1978.[66]

Digital innovation

Hanna-Barbera was among the first animation studios to incorporate digital tools into their pipeline. As early as the 1970s, they experimented with using Scanimate, a video synthesizer, to create an early form of digital cutout style. A clip of artists using the machine to manipulate scanned images of Scooby-Doo characters, scaling and warping the artwork to simulate animation, is available at the Internet Archive.[67]

Likewise, Hanna-Barbera was perhaps the first proponent of digital ink and paint, a process wherein animators' drawings were scanned into computers and colored using software. Led by Marc Levoy, Hanna-Barbera began developing a computerized digital ink and paint system in 1979 to help bypass much of the time-consuming labor of painting and photographing cels.[68] The process was implemented on a third of Hanna-Barbera's animated programs, televised feature films and specials from 1982 through 1996.[68][69]

Sound effects

Hanna-Barbera was known for its large library of sound effects that modern audiences are now used to, which have been featured in exhibitions at the Norman Rockwell Museum.[70]