When Ted Turner bought Hanna-Barbera

[TMC]

https://www.metv.com/stories/when-te...-hanna-barbera

Here's why the cartoon studio was such a hot commodity.
July 6, 2023, 3:46PM By MeTV Staff



When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shuttered its in-house cartoon studio in 1957, animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera took a gamble and bet on themselves. Newly axed from their studio head positions, Hanna and Barbera risked it all by opening their own cartoon studio. Their joint venture, H-B Enterprises, was one of the greatest American animating houses in history, producing countless iconic cartoon characters over nearly eight decades. As H-B Enterprises grew to be Hanna-Barbera, the studio put out hit after hit, such as The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Yogi Bear Show, Top Cat, Johnny Quest, Wacky Races, Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, and Smurfs, to name a few.

However, by the 1980s, the animation landscape had changed in many ways that were unfavorable to Hanna-Barbera. Studios like Filmation, Sunbow Entertainment, Marvel Productions, Rankin/Bass, DIC, and Saban Entertainment were able to crank out competition quickly and cheaply. Saturday morning was no longer HB's uncontested kingdom. Now, there were plenty of suitors to the throne, and a lot of them licensed pre-existing properties. Cartoons shifted from focusing on stories to focusing on commercialization; shows like Transformers and G.I. Joe served as advertisements for toys as much as showcases for unique characters with compelling arcs. As the influence of their empire shrank, so did Hanna and Barbera's control over the business they founded. Financial trouble followed as Hanna-Barbera was continuously acquired and sold off by various larger enterprises.

In 1991, Turner Broadcasting System outbid MCA and Hallmark Cards, Inc. to purchase Hanna-Barbera Studios and its library of content. Turner acquired Hanna-Barbera in an effort to stack the cards for his new Cartoon Network, the first television channel to air cartoons 24/7. Hanna-Barbera's back catalog of over 3,500 cartoon shorts was to be the primary focus of their new lineup, while still focusing on producing new cartoons to air on the network.

"We're trying to bring the funny farm back to Hanna-Barbera," executive producer Buzz Potamkin told the Arizona Republic in 1991.

Turner's rapid expansion into children's programming saw them attempt to showcase the cartoons for a global audience. By the time of the acquisition, Cartoon Network was already available all across Europe and was on its way to Asia. Turner saw a path towards world domination, and knew the secret word was "Yabba-dabba-doo."

The lynchpin of the operation was Fred Seibert. Seibert's involvement was a coup for Turner; it was Fred Seibert who helped launch the incredibly successful "I want my MTV!" campaign before adding children's programming to his resume at Nickelodeon. Seibert, like Turner, knew that children's programming was the single fastest-growing sector in the entertainment market, and both moguls sought to capitalize.

"We want visually driven humor that's universally understood," said Seibert. "Is a joke funny in French? That's the rub."

Turner subverted expectations by keeping Hanna-Barbera's cartoon studio open, despite predictions that he'd gut the company to keep their library. Instead, the animation house was encouraged to seek new, innovative projects. The first of these, 2 Stupid Dogs and SWAT KATS, pre-empted a Hanna-Barbera feature-length live-action/cartoon movie starring Macaulay Culkin, titled The Pagemaster.

"We're not out to find the next Fred Flintstone," said Larry Huber, another executive producer, "but the next great animators."

[Charles Knox]

Was wondering when you was going to finally get around to posting this article.

[TMC]

Hi everyone! Well, I may not be the world's fastest editor, but I finally got Part 3 out. Welcome to the final part of my first studio retrospective where I'm taking a look at Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1980 through 1996! This video is a little bit of history, some anecdotes, a lot of cartoons, and whatever else I felt fit the topic, so I hope you enjoy!

[merlinjones]

Thank god Hallmark didn't get Hanna-Barbera after what they did to the Filmation library.

[TMC]

Why did Hanna-Barbera lose its popularity despite having iconic shows like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo?

Hanna-Barbera practically invented the Saturday morning cartoon. Yet by 1991, the studio was so obsolete it was bought solely to strip its 3,000-hour back catalog to launch Cartoon Network.

Their decline was rooted in the very strategy that initially made them successful: limited animation. When William Hanna and Joseph Barbera left MGM in 1957, they pioneered techniques to produce cartoons cheaply for television. They reused backgrounds, isolated movement to specific body parts (often just a character’s mouth or legs), and relied heavily on voice acting and sound effects rather than fluid motion. While this was a brilliant business move that allowed shows like The Flintstones and The Jetsons to exist, it eventually became a creative trap. By the 1970s and 1980s, the studio's cost-cutting had become extreme, resulting in stiff, repetitive visuals that audiences could easily recognize.

Compounding the cheap animation was a heavy reliance on formula. After Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! became a massive hit in 1969, Hanna-Barbera spent the next decade endlessly cloning it. They churned out shows like Jabberjaw (a shark), Speed Buggy (a car), Captain Caveman, and The Funky Phantom (a ghost)—all featuring a group of teenagers and a wacky mascot solving mysteries. This self-plagiarism diluted their brand and exhausted viewers with predictable, cookie-cutter storytelling.

The television landscape also shifted aggressively beneath them. In the 1980s, federal deregulation allowed for toy-driven syndicated action shows like He-Man, G.I. Joe, and Transformers. Hanna-Barbera attempted to adapt with action series of their own, but they often fell flat against competitors like Filmation and Sunbow.

The final blow came in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the television animation renaissance. Disney entered the TV market with high-budget, fluidly animated shows like DuckTales, while Warner Bros. launched dynamic, creator-driven hits like Tiny Toon Adventures and Batman: The Animated Series. At the same time, Nickelodeon championed creator-led, bizarre concepts like The Ren & Stimpy Show. Next to these innovative, visually rich programs, Hanna-Barbera’s rigid formulas and recycled walk cycles looked glaringly obsolete.

Following the 1991 buyout, the physical studio briefly experienced a late-stage revival producing early Cartoon Network hits like Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls. However, it was ultimately absorbed into Cartoon Network Studios, marking the end of Hanna-Barbera as an independent entity.