In the years following the merger between Time Warner and Turner, Hanna-Barbera slowly but surely became a thing of the past. By the time the 2000s rolled around, the HB library had fallen into the hands of Warner Brothers, while the creative teams behind their Cartoon Network original series transferred to the newly formed Cartoon Network Studios. But what if I told you things could've gone differently? For a time, there were talks of having the HB library fall under Cartoon Network, rather than WB.
In the above video uploaded by Youtube user 47CartoonGuy, he discusses this possible scenario, complete with a few comments from Brian A. Miller, who was a longtime producer at the CN studio. Of course, this whole idea is rather moot at this point, as Cartoon Network Studios has also fallen under the WB Animation umbrella (thank you once again, corporate mergers). Still, it's an interesting bit of trivia I had never heard of until this video, and I thought you would all feel the same. I also highly recommend checking out the rest of this user's videos. He has an extensive retrospective on Hanna-Barbera productions, and I am always willing to shout out anyone else online who's keeping the HB flame alive!
I actually preferred the Cartoon Network in the early years (pre-original content) when it was nothing but classic cartoons. They all seemed to retain their individual personalities: now let's watch Warner Bros. cartoons, now MGM cartoons, now Popeye (since Paramount disposed of its cartoon library to different TV distributors, "Popeye" meant you'd get nothing but Popeye cartoons), now Hanna-Barbera, etc. Then, when CN started producing its own content, they shunted off the older cartoons to Boomerang. Still not too bad. But then Ted Turner sold out to Warner Bros., which ended up owning the whole magilla (as in Gorilla). Warner also ended up owning the MGM film library, and next year MGM itself--once considered the top studio--will celebrate its centennial as a possession of Amazon.
ReplyDeleteWalt Disney had the best idea.In the 1950s, when other studios were selling out their content, he was diversifying: TV, live action films, theme parks. In the 1970s, when Hanna-Barbera owned Saturday morning, they tried to go that route, but were disadvantaged by their reputation as shlock producers as the quality of their product plummeted. By the time Cartoon Network came along, H-B was on its last legs anyway.