Other Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera was an American animated cartoon production company that produced animated television programming and motion pictures for forty-five years between 1957 and 2001. more...

Home
Action Figures
Animation Art, Characters
Animation Art
Animation Characters
Betty Boop
Bags, Cases
Boxes
Figures
Jewelry, Watches
Other
Pins
Signs
Casper The Ghost
Curious George
Dr. Seuss
Felix the Cat
Garfield
Ghostbusters
Hanna-Barbera
Other Hanna-Barbera
Scooby-Doo
The Flintstones
Hello Kitty
King Features
Muppets
Other Animation Characters
Peanuts
Cups, Mugs
Figurines
Other
Pins
Plush Items
Pink Panther
Popeye
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Sesame Street
Shrek
Smurfs
South Park
SpongeBob SquarePants
The Simpsons
Tom & Jerry
Walter Lantz/Woody...
Warner Bros.
Bugs Bunny
Daffy Duck
Marvin the Martian
Other Warner Bros. Items
Pepe Le Pew
Porky Pig
Powerpuff Girls
Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote
Sylvester
Tasmanian Devil
Tweety
Ziggy
Japanese, Anime
Apparel & Accessories
Bronze Age (1970-79)
Collections
Comics
Figurines
Full Runs
Golden Age (1938-55)
Graphic Novels, TPBs
International
Magazines
Modern Age (1980-Now)
Newspaper Comics
Original Comic Art
Other Comics
Platinum Age (1897-1937)
Posters
Silver Age (1956-69)
Supplies

Hanna-Barbera was founded in 1944 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera as H-B Enterprises, through which the pair used to do freelance television commercial production. After MGM shut down its animation studio in 1957, H-B Enterprises became Hanna and Barbera's full-time job. For three decades, Hanna-Barbera produced many successful cartoon series, including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Yogi Bear Show, Jonny Quest, Wacky Races, Scooby-Doo, and Smurfs, all of which would go on to become icons of American pop culture.

In 1991, the company was purchased by Turner Broadcasting, primarily so that Turner could use its 300-plus cartoon series library as the basis of the programming for its new Cartoon Network cable television channel. Re-christened H-B Production Company in 1992, and Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1993, the studio continued without active regular input from William Hanna or Joseph Barbera, who both went into semi-retirement yet continued to serve as figureheads for the studio.

During the late-1990s, Turner turned Hanna-Barbera towards primarily producing new material for the Cartoon Network. In 1996, Turner was bought out by Time Warner. With William Hanna's death in 2001, Hanna-Barbera was absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation, and Cartoon Network Studios assumed production of Cartoon Network output. The Hanna-Barbera name is today only used to market properties associated with Hanna-Barbera's "classic" works such as The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, or in future reincarnations of these, or other shows.

History

The beginnings of Hanna-Barbera

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera first teamed together while working at the dog museum animation studio in 1939. Their first directorial project was a cartoon entitled Puss Gets the Boot (1940), which served as the genesis of the popular Tom and Jerry cartoon series.

Hanna, Barbera, and MGM live-action director George Sidney formed H-B Enterprises in 1944 while continuing working for the studio, and used the side company to work on ancillary projects, including early television commercials and the original opening titles to I Love Lucy.

After an award-winning stint in which Hanna and Barbera won eight Oscars, MGM closed their animation studio in 1957, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release. Hanna and Barbera hired most of their MGM unit to work for H-B Enterprises, which became a full-fledged production company starting in 1957. The decision was made to specialize in television animation, and the studio's first series was The Ruff & Reddy Show, which premiered on NBC in December 1957. In order to obtain working capital to produce their cartoons, Hanna-Barbera made a deal with the Screen Gems television division of Columbia Pictures in which the new animation studio received working capital in exchange for distribution rights.

Read more at Wikipedia.org