You know know, I really wish people started seeing Hanna-Barbera as "the studio that saved the goddamn American animation industry from collapse and revolutized a new animation industry". But most will just see them as "the studio that made cheap cartoons". - ThreadSky

bickpixx.bsky.social • 61 days ago

You know know, I really wish people started seeing Hanna-Barbera as "the studio that saved the goddamn American animation industry from collapse and revolutized a new animation industry". But most will just see them as "the studio that made cheap cartoons".

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jongraywb.bsky.social•61 days ago

To be fair… I think it’s entirely fair to see them as both. They saved the animation industry but also by the 70s they almost killed it because they were the only dog and pony show in town and only began to budge when they got actual competition

galileo908.bsky.social•61 days ago

Compared to the rest of the dreck that passed for 60s Saturday morning animation, Hanna-Barbera was the gold standard.

jongraywb.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yup. They thought they couldn’t be outdone and got cocky more or less

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

To give them credit for the 70s, they pioneered the "edgy adult animation" format that made The Simpsons and Family Guy possible decades later.

jongraywb.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yeah. Wait Till Your Father Gets Home comes to mind as one of the few 70s thing from them that was passable (imho) even if it’s tame by todays standards

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

It's still funny that they had to hire a Playboy cartoonist to help design the characters. Since they didn't want the show to have that "family friendly H-B" look.

galileo908.bsky.social•61 days ago

He also did the designs for Hong Kong Phooey.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

It's the sole reason Rosemary got that pinup girl body.

nemalki.bsky.social•61 days ago

I've said it once, and I'll say it again.

Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home is basically what Family Guy would have been if it was written by King of the Hill writers. A bit bawdy yet oddly conservative, definitely adult yet still cartoony at times.

tooternfliggen.bsky.social•60 days ago

Ralph Bakshi had a helping hand in pioneering that format too! Even if you’re talking about edgy adult tv animation and if Bakshi was moreso a adult film animation man.

jimbevan85.bsky.social•61 days ago

They were pioneers, but they got hampered by what hurt so many animation studios - moral guardians and tightening budgets.

nemalki.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yep.

Wanna know who was one of those individuals who played the dual role of moral guardian and a tightener of network budgets?

ABC's former vice president of children's programming in the early 1970s (reads notes) Chuck Jones, who was hired by (reads notes) ABC head Michael Eisner.

jimbevan85.bsky.social•61 days ago

... well I wasn't expecting that twist.

wb8979.bsky.social•61 days ago

I've been watching the very first Superfriends episodes from '73 on MeTV Toons lately, some of which had the animation work outsourced to Australia. The animation in those is so stiff that they almost look like Filmation cartoons from the same era! Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C. is a good example.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

Their shows were animated in both the US and Australia during the 70s and 80s. The Funky Phantom was their first show to be animated in Australia.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

I will say that the Super Friends animation quality did improve a lot in the later seasons.

tcshappyplace.bsky.social•60 days ago

I grew up on WB and HB cartoons. They were my lifeline.
Sid and Marty Krofft took care of the live-action side.

jasonthecartoonfan.bsky.social•61 days ago

“If it wasn’t for [Hanna-Barbera’s] limited animation, we wouldn’t have any TV animation at all.”

-Fred Seibert, the final president of Hanna-Barbera

terrehaute.bsky.social•59 days ago

Something of grave importance is that "cheap cartoons" is a relative term. Jack Kirby made better money at Hanna-Barbera than he ever made in comics. They were still expensive, just not massive fuck-off Disney expensive

tooternfliggen.bsky.social•60 days ago

I get you. And in a way, they did help. They hired animators from a lot of studios that were laying off staff/in the process of shutting down (MGM, WB, UPA, Disney and their theatrical shorts division, Terrytoons, Paramount Cartoon Studios, etc) and they did bring a lot of work to the industry

tooternfliggen.bsky.social•60 days ago

and to their credit, their earlier work (the better written ones) are gold! Though, they hit a huge slump during the mid 60’s and never really recovered that much ‘til the H-B fanboys like Tartakovsky, Rudish, Cook, Feiss, Atoms, & McCracken came along. However, that being said….

tooternfliggen.bsky.social•60 days ago

They were the first ones to utilize outsourcing on a massive scale after only studios like Rankin/Bass & Total Television were doing it (I heard that HB had plans to outsource as early as 1959 and around the mid 60’s but didn’t due to money reasons) which also created a lot of jobs overseas

tooternfliggen.bsky.social•60 days ago

and we wouldn’t have gotten the renaissance age tv animation revolution if certain artists n animators didn’t work for Hanna-Barbera. Hanna-Barbera did make limited TV animation popular in a way. Even if studios like Producers Associates of Television, Sam Singer, and Soundac beat them to it.

tooternfliggen.bsky.social•60 days ago

And speaking of east coast studios like Paramount & Terry, Hanna-Barbera had an east coast division for a year during the mid 70’s that kept a couple of NYC artists/animators still active during the industry.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had taken a HUGE gamble and risked their careers when they founded their studio in 1957. They didn't know it at the time, but they had SAVED a lot of people's livelihoods in the field.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

Disney laid off animators after Sleeping Beauty bombed at the box office. Those animators went to Hanna-Barbera, as the studio was actively hiring animators at the time. Their livelihoods were saved by them.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

I'm fully aware and had seen the duds Hanna-Barbera made in their later years, but you can't deny that they saved the American animation industry from total collapse.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

If it weren't for Hanna-Barbera, shows like SpongeBob would NEVER exist at all. I mean that literally, SpongeBob wouldn't be made if Hanna-Barbera never pioneered television animation production.

ataru320.bsky.social•60 days ago

It was a collab effort. HB with other early TV makers like Jay Ward (Crusader Rabbit, Rocky and Bullwinkle) and even UPA (somewhat) made the transition all the easier. HB stands out, though, for having the prestige of two award-winning directors behind it.

djwalker2k.bsky.social•60 days ago

Nor would any of Cartoon Network's "Cartoon Cartoons" for that matter.

sanji.gay•61 days ago

For as cheap as their cartoons were as well, they played to their strengths by having a emphasis on vocals and character designs.

foxx278.bsky.social•61 days ago

Up until they cheapened out, I’ll defend their earlier stuff. They did lose their way around the 70s and never recovered, but a lot of their IPs are still relevant to this day, even if WB is doing such a poor job with the handling of them.

thecwazycrowla.bsky.social•61 days ago

I guess the latter viewpoint stems from how, in addition to their low budgets, some people argue that they kinda created the whole "animation is for children" mindset thanks to how, unlike the older theatrical cartoon shorts, their early TV work was aired in a daytime slot and therefore aimed

thecwazycrowla.bsky.social•61 days ago

primarily at young children. Even The Flintstones, which was originally a primetime cartoon aimed at older audiences, got gradually toned down over its run thanks to its growing popularity and marketability with children, not helped by the birth of Pebbles

thedrewster02.bsky.social•60 days ago

Also the Baby Boomer generation was the largest demographic group of people at that time and were of much younger age to begin an impression on them.

hbgrifkuba.bsky.social•60 days ago

The real problem with HB wasn't the limited animation, but the fact that they were essentially a make work program for aging animators from the golden age.

hbgrifkuba.bsky.social•60 days ago

On one hand, these people were able to find employment that they wouldn't have found elsewhere. On the other hand, this led to a lot of complacency and stagnation, especially as increased tv regulation made it harder to tell the stories they wanted to

jmtv.bsky.social•60 days ago

Exactly. I feel like people took Hanna Barbara for granted for too long.

Not to say that they are perfect, but at least they saved the American animation industry and give the creators the creative freedom instead of following the balance sheet.

reggiejworkshop.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yeah, say what you will about Hanna-Barbara, while they definitely fell hard into the quantity over quality mindset early on when it came to their cartoons, they did provide a starting point for many cartoonists and animators that spearheaded the animation renaissance.

rhapsodna.bsky.social•61 days ago

It really did save the industry

rubri180.bsky.social•60 days ago

I didn't realize they were mutually exclusive thoughts in people's head, didn't they do it to save the industry basically? Or like try to widen it? I don't remember much but it being a lash out against more profitable shows.

navondo.bsky.social•61 days ago

IIRC, when they were producing The Huckleberry Hound Show, they were only given about 1/100 of the budget MGM gave them for the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Because they couldn’t rely on visuals as much, they had to rely on strong writing and voice acting to carry their cartoons.

bickpixx.bsky.social•61 days ago

Daws Butler and Don Messick were the GOATs.

lordpyromon.bsky.social•61 days ago

Sadly they kinda only have themselves to blame for that.

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•60 days ago

They had to contend with the same issue Don Bluth had to contend with:

Stay true to what made you great (HB created animation that could leverage *adult* & *sitcom* humour! Bluth showed the world longform animation could be innovative, emotionally poignant AND popular!)… OR…

1/2

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•60 days ago

… continue to pay the bills (& make money!) by focusibg on what brings in the easiest audiences (HB’s tired low budget mass production in kids’ cartoons, and Bluth’s milking his most successful franchise, The Land Before Time, and its younger audience)

2/2

mercurywoodrose.bsky.social•61 days ago

I have spent my entire adult life hating on Hannah Barbera. This thread has enlightened me about them. Thank you. I will definitely be taking a more nuanced
approach to them. And I should say that I’ve been watching motion picture and television animation since 1963.

hazbindemon.bsky.social•61 days ago

Hell yeah

bentleybro5.bsky.social•60 days ago

Hanna-Barbera may have made a lot of cheap cartoons, but they're also the studio behind a lot of ones we've all got a lot of good nostalgia for too. I'm surprised people just forget that

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