Hanna-Barbara

As a kid growing up, I've watched a lot of cartoons by Hanna-Barbara.
Most people love them & most people hate them.
Nowadays the episodes are forgettable, but it still brings back childhood memories.
There were even some feature-length movies of the cartoon series.
I especially loved 1990's "Jetsons: The Movie".
The production company has been shut down & is in a "name only".
I still watch reruns on the Boomerang network.
So what are your own thoughts on Hanna-Barbara cartoons?

I watched a lot of Scooby Doo. And I watched the show where scrappy doo also was part of the show. And maybe it is because my exposure to the franchise included scrappy doo that I do not hate him. Many people hate scrappy doo, but i like the character, even if it is the nostalgia who speaks for me.

I also watched Yogi's treasure hunt a lot.


I watched much cartoon network when I was a little older than that (10 - 14). Back in the 90s they had a lot of hanna barbara on it. Watched a lot of space ghost and many other adventure-ish kind of hanna barbara cartoons. Good times.

As a kid grewing up with German television I at least saw some Hanna-Barbera productions but surely missed most of them that have ever existed. So I never got familiar with Yogi or the Jetsons (or I just never watched them even if they were available).
The most popular series there was the Flintstones (we Germans were spared the laugh track which was quite good). It's okay but rather boring for me.
I also watched the "Smurfs" a lot, "Hong Kong Phooey", the 1980's "Lucky Luke" cartoon (very funny and a good example of a good cartoon version of a comic book series) and Captain Planet.
I also like the Hanna-Barbera productions that came after that like Dexter's Laboratory or Cow & Chicken.

And Scooby Doo? I don't know, I DID get to watch some episodes, even with the original audio. However, I always find it rather boring and repeating and it only god more annoying whenever Scrappy was included.

The best thing Hanna and Barbera have ever created (in my opinion) were the Tom & Jerry cartoons. No debate for me

Never cared much for Scooby-Doo but I did like Yogi Bear a lot. I probably watched the Xmas movies and HEY THERE IT'S YOGI BEAR a thousand times as a kid. I kind of liked Jabberjaw and Josie & the Pussycats too.
Where HB really took the cake though was all their zero-fucks-to-give superhero shows. Birdman, Space Ghost, The Herculoids, SuperFriends! Ridiculous plots, ridiculous voice acting, animation cells that would straight-up disappear. A more gifted writer than me has discussed some of those shows at length.

I love the original SCOOBY DOO cartoons, but don't care for the later stuff. The series went downhill with Scrappy-Doo and then some.

Watched some here and there...whatever was on on german tv at the time.
Looking at a list of their cartoons right now so I will share some of my thoughts on the ones I've seen:

Captain Caveman - Just saw one or two episodes of it...only remember the distinctive way he screamed his name.
Cow and Chicken - Liked it alot...was a little bit like Ren and Stimpy in my opinion. Never was into the main characters though. More a fan of the red guy and the I are Baboon/I am Weasel-combo.
Dexter's Lab - Great show...lot of fun.
Flintstones - Yeah...I watched it here and there, but let's be honest...it was boring as hell.
Hong Kong Phooey - While Dexter's Lab might be the best show they did, HKP is my favourite. Even now I remember the german theme song and I actually look forward to the planned movie.
Jetsons - Same as Flintstones
Johnny Bravo - Great...nothing more to say.
Power Puff Girls - Pretty good. Not my favourite, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Scooby Doo - Watched the classic ones alot as a kid. But everything afterwords was horrible in my opinion. And fuck Scrappy-Doo.
Smurfs - Again...watched it alot, but when they added the grandfather smurf and the two child smurfs it went downhill. I even had a favourite episode...the one where this one smurf wanted to go to space and they dressed up as aliens and faked the whole thing.
Tom and Jerry - Without a doubt the best thing HB created. Holds a special place in my heart because of the way they showed it on german TV (with the song "Vielen Dank für die Blumen" (Trans: Thank you for the flowers) by german singer Udo Jürgens).
Wacky Races - Just remember the bad guy and his dog.

Y'know, I hadn't been thinking of their 90s output. Johnny Bravo was indeed marvelous. I liked Dexter's Lab a lot too, but I guess I associate that more with Genndy Tartakosvky than HB (Genndy's done some great stuff, I love Samurai Jack and the Star Wars Clone Wars miniseries too) - my favorite thing about Dexter's Lab was that it begat the Justice Friends.

Here's a anti-drug PSA Hanna-Barbara made in the 70's.

ChaosTheory wrote:

Y'know, I hadn't been thinking of their 90s output. Johnny Bravo was indeed marvelous. I liked Dexter's Lab a lot too, but I guess I associate that more with Genndy Tartakosvky than HB (Genndy's done some great stuff, I love Samurai Jack and the Star Wars Clone Wars miniseries too) - my favorite thing about Dexter's Lab was that it begat the Justice Friends.

Truth be told, I never liked Genndy Tartakovsky. I thought Dexter's lab was alright, but I far more prefered Craig McCracken's stuff. I liked Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends way more than stuff like Samurai Jack. Which is to say, I didn't like Samurai Jack at all.

As far as animation goes Hanna Barbera is the reason we even have animated tv shows. If it weren't for their contributions to this format, we wouldn't have any of the tv cartoons we enjoy to this day. Breaking down those shows you can see that they are incredibly cheaply made. Scooby doo, Flintstones, Jetsons, etc, are all guilty of what's called "recycled animation". Watch an episode of scooby doo, take note of their run cycles. Watch another episode. Guarantee you that exact same run cycle is looped in it. The reason for this is that they could cut cost of animating an entirely new scene by recycling those animation frames with a different background board. So the shows were made cheap, but the characters, jokes and settings are what make people remember the shows to this day.

these guys did a lot of great shows, but also they did a lot of shitty ones as well.

I remember Hanna Barbara's SuperTed having the worst Finnish dub anywhere ever, period. Every single character was voiced by a one guy, and he wasn't very talented.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVnlW8s73IE&t=2m35s (Even if you don't understand the language, you can hear how hilariously fucking awful it is.)

Here's a surprising piece of trivia.
"KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park" was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions.

I've been watching "The Flintstones" on the Boomerang channel.
To be honest, it does have moments that still makes me laugh.
Truly a living fossil.