Hanna-Barbera and Hallmark Ornaments: A Truncated History

 No Christmas tree is complete without a healthy dose of ornaments covering it, and when you think of ornaments, what is the first company that comes to mind? For many of us, we will no doubt be immediately thinking of Hallmark. Their products eat up most shelf space at retail for ornaments, and they've tackled nearly every single intellectual property imaginable, and that includes the works of Hanna-Barbera Productions. For almost every year since 1994, Hallmark has made characters like Scooby-Doo and Fred Flintstone major players in their line of keepsake ornaments. So, to celebrate Christmas day and the end of the year, I thought I'd go through and look at some of the more notable ones in this line. We start at the beginning, with a 1994 ornament featuring Fred and Barney in the Flintmobile. For the time, the likenesses are pretty on point, at least for Barney. Fred looks a little off, though.

In 1995, in celebration of The Flintstones' 35th anniversary, Hallmark released not one, not two, but three different keepsake ornaments based on the series' pivotal characters. Of the trio, I think the Wilma and Betty one is the nicest looking. 

1996 saw Hallmark finally branch out from The Flintstones, giving us ornaments based on both The Jetsons and Yogi Bear. The former shows the family of the future in their main mode of transportation, while the latter has Yogi and Boo Boo noticing what else, a picnic basket!

It wouldn't be until 1999 that Scooby-Doo would finally get represented in the Hallmark keepsake line. This first ornament was a lunchbox and thermos modeled after Scooby and the gang. The following year, Shaggy and Scooby would get their first ornaments in the collection, but far from the last. Unsurprisingly, Scooby makes up most of the entries in the Hanna-Barbera keepsake line, with a new edition of the cowardly canine coming out pretty much every year, so for the sake of brevity, I won't feature all of them here today. If I did, what would I share with you guys next Christmas?

In 2001, Hallmark made yet another lunchbox ornament, this time themed after The Jetsons. Unlike the Scooby one, however, this one actually takes inspiration from a Jetsons lunchbox released during the show's original run. Below is the Hallmark version, and under it is the original for reference. The characters are more on model in Hallmark's rendition than in the first, but the layout of the characters is essentially the same.

Following this one, Hallmark backed off of all non-Scooby HB characters until 2007, when they made a new Flintstones ornament after over a decade since the last set. Unfortunately, this is easily one of the more unremarkable ones we've gotten. It's just Fred with a generic rock pun. At least the Fred featured here looks alright.

As "meh" as that Flintstones ornament was, it seemed like it rekindled interest in the Hanna-Barbera characters for the folks at Hallmark because, in 2008, they made several new ornaments, all based on different properties. We got the Flintstone family taking a joyride, George and Astro on the treadmill in a scene taken out of the original Jetsons credits, and making his Hallmark debut, Jonny Quest facing off against danger. A pretty good lineup if you ask me!

2009 gave us yet another Flintstones keepsake ornament. This time, it's Pebbles who gets some time in the spotlight. She's been featured in a few of these ornaments, but this one was truly her time to shine.

I now share two that came out in 2010, and both are among my favorites. The first is another Yogi Bear ornament, the first to come out since 1996. It's a huge improvement on the original, to say the least. We also got the first-ever Hallmark ornament of the Jetsons' robot maid, Rosie. This is probably one of the best pieces of Rosie merch that I've seen. It certainly beats out Kurt Adler's efforts, that's for sure!

It's been some time, so here's another Scooby-Doo ornament. This one came out in 2012, and it's among my favorites from the Scooby line. Also note that this is one of several in the keepsake series to feature sound effects.

In 2016, after yet another lengthy hiatus, we got a brand new Flintstones ornament. As of now, it is also their most recent. This one depicts Fred hopping off his work dinosaur, a scene we all know from the show's second intro.

Though Hallmark has been making Hanna-Barbera ornaments since 1994, they still appear to be interested in trying new things. This is evident by the franchise they picked to do an ornament of in 2018. Rather than another Flintstones or Jetsons one, we got our first ornament for Wacky Races, showcasing Dastardly and Muttley in their Mean Bean Machine.

Since then, sadly, we've only gotten ornaments for Scooby and the other members of Mystery Incorporated, but that isn't to say there haven't been some gems in that collection. 2019 saw the release of a cute ornament celebrating the franchise's fiftieth anniversary, and just this year, we received a lovely ornament of Scooby and Shaggy doing what they do best: shaking and shivering!

That's a brief rundown of Hallmark's association with Hallmark so far, but I'm sure we will get many more in the future. Maybe we'll even see new characters in the line one day, like Space Ghost or Huckleberry Hound. Hey, it took them nearly twenty-five years to delve into Wacky Races, so anything is possible! I sincerely hope you've all enjoyed this post, and I wish you all a very happy holiday season. Come back here on the second of January for my next post and the first one of the new year. I'll be counting down my ten personal favorite Hanna-Barbera characters, and I look forward to sharing that one with you guys as well. Until then, take care!