The Saga of the Short-Lived Hanna-Barbera Stores

 In the world of animation, Hanna-Barbera had a lot of rivals, but out of them all, none stood taller than the Walt Disney Company. As such, it's no surprise that the folks at HB tried their best to emulate Disney. Disney had Mickey Mouse as their mascot, and Hanna-Barbera had Fred Flintstone. Disney had Walt Disney World and Disney Land, while Hanna-Barbera had a presence at King's Dominion and later Universal Studios in Florida. And, when Disney began to open a chain of stores in 1987 to great success, Hanna-Barbera was quick to follow. However, their endeavor in retail was short-lived, to put it bluntly.

Wait, Hanna-Barbera had their own line of stores? Why yes, they did, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing these existed. Only two existed (both in California), and they were only operating between the years 1990 and 1992. Despite their short existence, I find these stores to be one of the more unique endeavors Hanna-Barbera took on, so I thought I'd shed light on this forgotten piece of their history by chronicling their entire history

The first of these two stores opened at the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles on August 1st, 1990, but the road to them becoming fully-realized locations began back in 1988. Hanna-Barbera's retail division went to work designing a flurry of products that would occupy the store. Then, in 1989, Space Design International, a store design firm, was contracted by the studio to begin designing the stores. The design team strived to make the stores look like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon come to life, and in my book, that was something they succeeded at. A lot of the design elements wouldn't look at all out of place in an episode of The Flintstones or The Jetsons, especially this futuristic control panel, seen in the third image below. I also recommend checking out this magazine scan, as it's where a lot of behind-the-scenes info about the stores comes from.

Regarding what items were sold at the store, it wasn't all that different from what you would find in a Disney store, just Hanna-Barbera themed. Shirts, plush dolls, sunglasses, videotapes, and even animation cels were offered at both locations. Here's an image of a Top Cat cutout surrounded by stuffed animals and Jetsons shirts. The second image features a better look at said shirt.

Now, I'll share with you this newspaper excerpt anticipating the arrival of both stores from The Reporter Times on July 27th, 1990. 

Stores featuring Flintstones, Jetsons to open soon

LOS ANGELES (UPI)—Fred Flintstone's creator, Hanna-Barbera Productions, has moved to take advantage of the success of rival Disney Stores with an announcement Thursday that it will open its own retail outlets.

    The animation company said that the first store, called the Hanna-Barbera store, will open Aug. 1 at the upscale Westside Pavillion in Los Angeles. The second store will open Sept. 1 at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, Calif.

    The stores will carry up to 50,000 pieces of merchandise from a newly created line of apparel, stuffed toys, games, jewelry, and collectibles. 

    Besides the Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera's characters include the Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, and Quick Draw McGraw.

As you may have noticed by now, I haven't really mentioned the Torrance location much in this piece, and that's because not a lot seems to exist about this store online. Most of the info I can find is in relation to the LA location, although funnily enough, I did learn that the Del Amo Fashion Center housed not just a Hanna-Barbera store, but a Disney one as well. This page in a 1991 HB newsletter also discusses both locations, including the fact that the studio actually earned the "Best New Store of the Year" award from Chain Store Age Magazine.

That's a pretty good start for this endeavor, and from what I've heard, things were only going to get better after that. In an HB-focused Facebook group I am a member of, Scott Awley, an artist for Hanna-Barbera at the time, mentioned that more stores were planned to open following these two. So what happened? The Turner acquisition of Hanna-Barbera is what happened. In October 1991, Turner announced plans to buy the animation studio for $320 million. Turner wasn't all that interested in handling a chain of retail stores, so in February of the following year, it was announced that both locations were to be closed, ending the stores before they even hit the two-year mark. Despite this, a Hanna-Barbera giftshop continued to operate in Universal Studios Orlando until 2002, and the studio itself was home to its very own employee store that opened sometime later.

And thus, we have come to the end of this short but nevertheless intriguing story in the long history of Hanna-Barbera. As exciting as the prospect of a Hanna-Barbera store was, it seemed like this was a classic case of the wrong idea coming about at the wrong time. Maybe if the stores opened a couple years earlier or later, they could have found more success, but alas, it was not meant to be. However, I don't want to end this recap on a downer note. To wrap this up, check out these two art pieces that were sent out as invitations for the grand opening of the stores!

I hope you all enjoyed this latest blog entry. One of the highlights of running a blog like this is getting to share and discuss the rare, obscure, and forgotten things in the world of Hanna-Barbera, and from what I've gathered online, it appears that things don't get much more obscure for HB than these stores!