Online Encyclopedia
Categories: Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network Studios cartoons and characters | Time Warner subsidiaries | Defunct companies | Animation studios | Movie studios
Cartoon Network Studios
Contents |
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. They started their own independent company Hanna-Barbera in 1957. The first cartoon they made is called "Ruff and Ruddy"
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 ten 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.
The Slow Rise and Fall and The Turner Rebound
But they didn't give in without a fight.
Throughout the 80s, Hanna-Barbera churned out shows based on familiar properties like the Smurfs, Pac-Man, the Dukes of Hazzard, Shirt Tales, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Go-Bots, and others as well as created several productions both in the US like Foofur, The Snorks, The Trollkins, various ABC Weekend Specials, and others, and various shows their Australian-based studio, Southern Star, which animated shows like Drak Pack, Wildfire, The Bernstain Bears, Teen Wolf, and CBS Storybreak as well as aligned themselves with Ruby-Spears, a sibling studio that often paired their productions with Hanna-Barbera shows. They also had a habit of making "kid" versions of popular characters in the eighties starting with 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, and introduced brand new shows like Galtar and the Golden Lance, Paw Paws, Fantastic Max, Midnight Patrol, and countless others. Years later, Hanna-Barbera began making a series of original movies based on their popular stable of characters, including the popular crossover, The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones.
In 1991, Hanna-Barbera and much of the original Ruby-Spears library were acquired by Turner Broadcasting. While some of the artists and writers left the company to help resurrect Warner Brothers Animation, working on projects like Tiny Toon Adventures, a new crop of animators, writers, and producers led by the likes of Pat Ventura, David Kirschner, Donovan Cook, Craig McCracken, Genndy Tartakovsky, Seth MacFarlane, and Butch Hartman, a new era began at the revitalized studio.
Aside from properties based on existing Turner productions like Tom and Jerry Kids, Droopy Master Detective and The New Adventures of Captain Planet (a sequel to the original DiC/TBS Productions series Captain Planet and the Planeteers), Hanna-Barbera churned out shows like Wake, Rattle, and Roll, 2 Stupid Dogs, Swat Kats, The Pirates of Dark Water, a new cycle of Yogi Bear shorts, and the ill-fated Yo Yogi. In the mid-90s, Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network (which introduced many Hanna-Barbera shows to a new audience) launched the "What A Cartoon" project, which introduced a brand new stable of characters and, in a way, changed Hanna-Barbera forever.
The Cartoon Network Studios Era
After the merger between Turner Entertainment and Time Warner Entertainment in 1995, the conglomerate had two separate animation studios in its possesion. Though corporately they were combined, Hanna-Barbera Animation and Warner Brothers Animation operated separately, a practice which they continue to do to this day. While WB Animation focused their programming on the-then new network, The WB, Hanna-Barbera began to solely focus on Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network became the exclusive home of all new Hanna-Barbera productions. One of the first original series to air on Cartoon Network was Genndy Tartakovsky's Dexter's Laboratory, one of the first spinoffs from the What A Cartoon/World Premiere Toons project. Others followed like Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and The Powerpuff Girls, the last Hanna-Barbera series to use the swirling star logo of Hanna-Barbera. Hanna-Barbera also produced several new direct-to-video movies featuring Scooby-Doo as well as creating a new version of Jonny Quest, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest.
Around 1998, the Hanna-Barbera name began to disappear from the newer shows from the studio, in favor of the Cartoon Network Studios name, which came in handy with shows that were produced outside of Hanna-Barbera, but Cartoon Network had a hand in producing, like aka Cartoons' Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Kino Film's Mike, Lu, and Ogg, Curious Pictures' Sheep In the Big City and Codename: Kids Next Door, and Noodlesoup/Astrobase Go's Venture Brothers, as well as the shows the studio continues to produce, like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Evil Con Carne, Samurai Jack, Megas XLR, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Hi Hi Puffy.
When William Hanna died in 2001, an era was over. Though the Hanna-Barbera name remains for "classic" productions based on properties like The Flintsones, Scooby-Doo (What's New Scooby-Doo? marks the latest series the franchise had made since premiering in 1969 and continuing with new Saturday morning shows throughout the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s), and others, the studio bearing its name is now Cartoon Network Studios, which continues the traditions made from its founding fathers and creating new paths of their own.
Hanna-Barbera productions
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)
- Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles (1966)
- Space Ghost (1966)
- Birdman and the Galaxy Trio (1967)
- The Herculoids (1967)
- The Fantastic Four (1967)
- Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor (1967)
- (Young) Samson and Goliath (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)
1970s
- Harlem Globetrotters (1970)
- Josie and the Pussycats (1970)
- The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971)
- Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch (1971)
- Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (1972)
- Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972)
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids (1973)
- The New Scooby Doo Movies (1972)
- Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space (1972)
- Speed Buggy (1973)
- Superfriends (1973)
- Goober and the Ghost Chasers (1973)
- Hong Kong Phooey (1974)
- Devlin (1974)
- Partridge Family 2200 A.D. (1974)
- The Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974)
- Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch (1974)
- The Great Grape Ape (1975)
- The Scooby Doo Show (1976)
- Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, Dog Wonder (1976)
- Clue Club (1976)
- Jabberjaw (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)
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)
- (1985)
- Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo (1986)
- Pound Puppies (1986)
- The Flintstone Kids (1986)
- A Pup Named Scooby Doo (1988)
- Popeye and Son (1987)
1990s
- Don Coyote and Sancho Panda (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)
- The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1994)
- The What-A-Cartoon! Show (1995)
- Dexter's Laboratory (1996)
- Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (1996)
- Johnny Bravo (1997)
- Cow and Chicken (1997)
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998)
- I Am Weasel (1999)
2000s
- What's New Scooby-Doo? (2002)
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).
Cartoon Network Studios productions
2000s
- Grim and Evil (2001)
- Samurai Jack (2001)
- Time Squad (2001)
- The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (2003)
- Evil con Carne (2003)
See also
External links
- Big Cartoon DataBase: Hanna-Barbera Studios
- Big Cartoon DataBase: Cartoon Network Studios
- Hanna-Barbera studio tour
Categories: Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network Studios cartoons and characters | Time Warner subsidiaries | Defunct companies | Animation studios | Movie studios