What RUINED Hanna-Barbera?

[Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Music] [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music]

Channel: Saberspark

Views: 2,464,877

Rating: 4.8633618 out of 5

Keywords: saber, saberspark, hanna-barbera, hanna barbera, hanna-barbera studio, what ruined hanna barbera, what ruind hanna-barbera, ruined, ruining, what's ruining, flintstones, jetsons, scooby doo, shaggy, animation, analysis, video essay, review, sony, illumination

Id: CWgcizAgxOs

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/HongKongDollars]

Good video. That narrator's voice is pretty annoying though.