Cartoon Network Studios
Hanna-Barbera Productions was a cartoon animation studio founded by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera that produced televison cartoons for over fifty years.
Founding
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.
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.
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, 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 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 majority 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).
Quality controversy
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 it being one of the first studios to do animated cartoons for television and having to deal with constrained budgets. The perception of cartoons as a "kids medium" did not make them a budget priority for television executives. A fifteen minute theatrical animation short movie might have five times the budget of a full half-hour episode of a television cartoon, and so television required a change in production values. Hanna-Barbera first practiced the technique of limited animation on the television serial "The Ruff & Reddy Show" as a way of reducing costs. Unfortunately, this led to a reduction in animation quality.
The field of animation reached its low point in the mid-1970s, even as the audience for Saturday morning cartoons was at its peak. By this time, 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. Various animation short-cuts became unfortunate Hanna-Barbera trademarks, like plots being advanced by cartoon characters seen only as "talking heads," and crashes and disasters happening somewhere just off the frame, not seen but only heard as sound effects.
Decline
The state of the field of animation changed during the 1980s and 1990s, and Hanna-Barbera fell behind as a new wave of animators and production studios introduced variety into the market for TV cartoons. In 1991, Hanna-Barbera was acquired by Turner Broadcasting, which in turn was acquired by Time Warner in 1996. By then, several of Hanna-Barbera's animators and writers had left the company to help resurrect Warner Brothers Animation, working on projects like Tiny Toon Adventures.
The Time Warner era
Time Warner eventually combined Hanna-Barbera with the Warner Brothers Animation facilities (though they operated as separate units, and continue to do so), and turned H-B's focus toward the Cartoon Network cable channel. A newer, fresher batch of cartoons were produced starting in 1995, leaving the old days of Yogi Bear behind (though older Hanna-Barbera cartoons are still rerun regularly in many markets and on Cartoon Network).
After Bill Hanna's death in 2001, it was decided to retire the Hanna-Barbera name, and the company now operates under the Cartoon Network Studios banner, althogh organizationally, the two companies are siblings, Cartoon Network Studios as a unit of Turner Broadcasting and Hanna-Barbara as a unit of Warner Bros. The Hanna-Barbera name is still used for legal formalities such as copyright notices.
Notable Hanna-Barbera productions
- The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957)
- Huckleberry Hound (1958)
- Quick Draw McGraw (1959)
- 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)
- Birdman and the Galaxy Trio (1967)
- The Herculoids (1967)
- The Fantastic Four (1967)
- Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor (1967)
- 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)
- Harlem Globetrotters (1970)
- Josie and the Pussycats (1970)
- The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (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)
- The New Fred and Barney Show (1976)
- Scooby's All Star Laff A Lympics (1977)
- Captain Caveman and The Teen Angels (1977)
- Scooby and Scrappy-Doo (1979)
- 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)
- The Flintstone Kids (1986)
- A Pup Named Scooby Doo (1988)
- Popeye and Son (1987)
- Don Coyote and Sancho Panda (1990)
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990)
- Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures (1990)
- Tom and Jerry Kids (1990)
- The Pirates of Dark Water (1991)
- Yo, Yogi! (1991)
- Capitol Critters (1992)
- Fish Police (1992)
- Two Stupid Dogs (1993)
- Dexter's Laboratory (1997)
- Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (1996)
- Johnny Bravo (1997)
- Cow and Chicken (1997)
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998)
Theatrical cartoons
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 its movie adaptation of the book, Charlotte's Web (1973).