Hanna-Barbera Characters on Italian TV Program "Carosello"

 As we all know, the Hanna-Barbera characters, not unlike those of Disney or Warner Bros., have managed to achieve fame all over the world. Whether it's Top Cat getting his own feature film series in Mexico or Johnny Bravo's enduring popularity in India, people across the globe can't get enough of their creations. This is arguably most evident in advertising. Just like in the states, the Hanna-Barbera characters have been used to sell products of all kinds in dozens of territories.

One of the more intriguing instances of their characters being used to sell items outside of the U.S. came about in the 1960s, when several of their properties were featured in the Italian TV series known as Carosello. Italian for 'Carousel', the show existed for the sole purpose of advertising products to viewers. Each airing was made up of several sketches, with each advertising a different product. As the show continued, the sketches became more unique; some were hand-drawn, some were done using stop-motion animation, and others remained in live-action. But the most interesting element of the show was that in its second year, it began using beloved animated characters to help promote its products. This included faces like Sylvester and Tweety of the Looney Tunes, Popeye, and a couple of Hanna-Barbera characters for added measure.

Four Hanna-Barbera series in total were featured on Carosello: The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, and Huckleberry Hound. Each series advertised a different product. I'll start by looking at The Flintstones first, which promoted Neocid, a pest control spray. Below is one segment from the show featuring the characters. These aired on the show from 1965 to 1971 (that's at least what the Italian version of Wikipedia says). Several others can be found online, but I cannot say how many were actually made, nor how many have been archived. Studio Pagot handled the animation on these and most others, but occasionally had help from other studios. I've seen some sources online suggest Hanna-Barbera themselves were involved in animating these, but I don't know if there is any truth to that. 

While The Flintstones worried about flies and other insects, The Jetsons instead advertised various appliances. These segments were animated by the folks at Gamma Film and Studio Pagot. Here's one segment featuring the futuristic family, which apparently aired on Carosello in 1968.

Yogi Bear is featured in the segment below from 1974. He helped advertise a line of snacks from the San Carlo company. By this point, you can see that Carosello was kind of all over the place when it came to what they promoted. It didn't matter if it was food or pesticide, so long as it was something they could advertise to you! Unlike the others, however, I couldn't find other Yogi Bear Carosello segments. I'm sure they're out there, but this was the only one I could uncover.

I've got one last video to share, and this time around it's of Huckleberry Hound. He advertised a cream cheese snack known as "Formaggino Mio," as seen in this segment from 1969, which was animated by Studio Pagot. You might be surprised to see Huckleberry Hound here with a wife and child, but there's a reason for that. Apparently, Huckleberry Hound was outrageously popular over in Italy at the time, which led to him getting merchandise like books and comics that depicted him as more of a family man. 

That's everything for today, but I'm not done covering Carosello just yet. Later this month, I'll share some print ads done alongside the Flintstones sketches, as well as a newspaper piece from the 1970s discussing the show. If you found this as interesting as I did, I recommend you check out this site dedicated to the series. It's something akin to an encyclopedia on the show, and it proved invaluable in researching this article. If you want to see more of these segments or just want to know more about Carosello, there's nowhere better to do so than here!