What Could Have Been: Hanna-Barbera Under Cartoon Network Studios

 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!

Video of the Week: An Interview With William Hanna

 Friday has arrived once again, and with it comes a new video for the week! Today, I've decided to showcase a 1979 television interview with one of the founders of Hanna-Barbera, William Hanna! Here, he is interviewed by Jim Longworth, and discusses with him his long career in animation. Check it out right on below!

Strolling Through the Homes of Cartoon Network Classics

 I've always loved finding old and rare Cartoon Network bumpers from over the years, and recently, I came across probably one of the more obscure sets they did. Airing in 2003, these bumpers take viewers through the households of some of their most famous characters during the dead of night. While the focus of these is on Cartoon Networks original programming, there are ones included in this video for The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Seeing as 2003 was the last year both of these shows aired on the network before playing exclusively on Boomerang, these may also be the last CN bumpers created for both series. Give the set a watch below!

Remembering John Stephenson

 It was 100 years ago today in the town of Kenosha, Wisconsin that voice actor John Stephenson was born. That name might not ring a bell for the average person, but for Hanna-Barbera fans, Stephenson was one of their most prolific and recurring voice actors. He's best remembered for portraying Mr. Slate, Fred Flintstone's boisterous boss on The Flintstones, but he voiced a whole host of other characters for the company. In celebration of his career and the occasion, I thought it was only appropriate to share a post highlighting the life of one of Hanna-Barbera's longest-lived voice actors.

A native of Wisconsin, not much is known about Stephenson's early life, or even his later years. From what I've heard, he liked to keep a low profile, and seldom made public appearances. One thing we do know about him before his entertainment career, however, is that he served in World War II as both a gunner and radio operator, not unlike fellow HB voice actors Daws Butler and Don Messick. He also attended Northwestern University in Illinois and left with a theater degree. After that, Stephenson's next trip was to Hollywood.

Like a lot of the other voice actors Hanna-Barbera employed, John Stephenson made several onscreen appearances in various TV shows of the 1950s and 60s, including The Lone Ranger, Bonanza, and Dragnet, just to name a few. Stephenson even made a feature film appearance, albeit uncredited, in 1960's Spartacus. But it was his working relationship with Hanna-Barbera that truly sealed Stephenson's place in entertainment history. The first show he worked on was, of course, The Flintstones. Most know him for voicing Mr. Slate, but he also portrayed many incidental characters over the show's six-season run. After that, Stephenson began to appear in more and more Hanna-Barbera productions. He voiced Fancy Fancy on Top Cat, Blubber Bear on Wacky Races, and several villains in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! As the 70s began, John also took over the role of Doggie Daddy, who had been previously voiced by Doug Young. Stephenson would continue to voice the character all the way through to Yo Yogi! in 1991.

John Stephenson continued to do voicework for HB throughout the 1970s (even getting the chance to voice Tom and Jerry in their 1975 outing), but it was the 1980s that saw him branch out and begin to provide voices for other animation production companies. He worked with Marvel Productions on shows like The Transformers, DIC Entertainment for Inspector Gadget, and even had a few gigs at Disney on TaleSpin and Darkwing Duck. As we reached the 90s, he also lent his voice to a few Nickelodeon productions, like Rugrats and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters.

Despite all of these other voices he was doing throughout this time, Stephenson never let go of the chance to voice his most famous character, Mr. Slate. In every Flintstones production of the era, he was always there to give Fred a hard time. Even by the time the 2000s hit, Stephenson continued to voice the character, making him the last major cast member of the show to still be voicing their character. In 2004, he voiced Slate in a crossover episode of Johnny Bravo (Above is a photo of him with the show's crew). It was the last time he voiced him, ending an astounding 46-year run as the character. This also made him the only actor to play opposite three different incarnations of Fred Flintstone: Alan Reed, Henry Corden, and Jeff Bergman.  In 2010, Stephenson provided his final role, a sheriff for the direct-to-DVD movie Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo. On May 23rd, 2015, John Stephenson passed away following complications from Alzheimer's. He was 91 years old. At the time of his passing, he was survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, and a granddaughter.

As I mentioned at the start of this piece, Stephenson liked to keep his life private, so interviews and even photos of him can be hard to come across. That isn't to say they are nonexistent, however. Above is a photo of Stephenson at Joe Barbera's 94th birthday celebration in 2005, alongside Gary Owens and Janet Waldo. Also below is a video of one of Stephenson's rare public appearances at the Transformers convention Botcon 2001, alongside voice actors Gregg Berger and Michael Bell. While the focus is obviously on The Transformers, Stephenson does discuss his work at Hanna-Barbera, so I highly recommend checking this one out. I also recommend reading this post on Yowp's blog, featuring one of the few interviews Stephenson ever gave in his life (it's also the source of the first image in this post!).

And with that, our look back on the career of John Stephenson comes to an end. My heart goes out to Stephenson and his entire family on this occasion, who I hope are all doing well wherever they may be!

The Toons Go On Strike

 

If you are at all interested in the modern entertainment industry, then you're probably well aware of both the writer and actor strikes being the current talk of Hollywood. Of course, these aren't the first-ever strikes to happen in Hollywood, but this does mark the first time both of these unions have gone on strike since the 1960s. All this talk of strikes in Hollywood made me interested in some of these previous ones, but one that particularly fascinates me is one that seems to have been forgotten to time. That, my friends, was the animation voice actor strike of 1987.

Starting on June 15th of that year and ending on July 24th, the strike affected the five biggest animation houses at that time: Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Marvel, Filmation, and DIC. But what was the cause of this particular strike? It wasn't related to fears of AI or a lack of residuals, but instead a desire to receive more payment for doing more than one character's voice, and an interest in seeing the standard workday shortened from eight hours to four. Below is an article from The Odessa American that covered the strike just two days after it began. Included in it are a few comments by Don Messick, who helps illuminate why the voice actors of SAG have these requests.

Cartoon voice characters go on strike, Actors want four-hour days

By Richard De Atley

Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES - The major animation studios have been struck by about 200 actors who create the voices for such Saturday morning cartoon characters as The Smurfs, Fred Flintstone, Scooby Doo, and Boo Boo Bear.

    The actors, represented by the Screen Actors Guild, say they want more money for doing more than one principal character's voice for a cartoon show. They also want the standard work day cut from eight hours to four.

    Affected by the strike are the top animation houses: Disney Studios, Filmation, DIC, Hanna-Barbera and Marvel.

    The guild has been bargaining separately for cartoon voice characters since 1967. The current contract actually was to have expired June 30, but was extended while there was hope for a settlement.

    The guild's national executive committee voted unanimously Saturday to call the strike, which officially began at 12:01 a.m. PDT Monday.

    Under the current contract, voice character actors receive a base fee of $361 a day for doing the voices of up to three characters on a show. The guild wants to change that to one main voice and two incidentals for one day's pay, and an additional day's pay for each additional main character's voice.

    Producers offered a 5 percent increase over the current $361 rate.

    Ed Prelock, chief negotiator for the five animation houses, said the guild actually seeks better conditions for the voice-actors than it has for members covered by its television contract.

    "It's unfortunate," said Prelock, "that a small group of SAG members feel they should be treated in a more favorable way than the general membership."

    Don Messick, the voice of Papa Smurf, Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo, Boo-Boo Bear and Jellystone's Ranger Smith, said a four-hour workday is needed because of the vocal strain of "doing the crazy, squeeky things we do."

    Among the shows affected by the strike are "The Smurfs," "Cabbage Patch Kids," "The Jetsons," "The Flintstones," "Gummibears," "Teddy Ruxpin," "Ghostbusters," "Huckleberry Hound," "Yogi Bear's Treasure Hunt," "Scooby Doo," "Top Cat," "The GoBots," "Rambo," "Lazer Tag Academy," "Popeye," "Masters of the Universe," "Heathcliff," "Punky Brewster" and "The Wuzzles."

All in all, the strike lasted only about five weeks, ending on July 24th when SAG and the animation production houses came to an agreement. This agreement featured the actors earning a pay raise of 10%, sessions shorted to four hours, and an additional 10% bonus for sessions where an actor has to do three characters. It's also worth noting that this deal affected all of the animation studios sans Hanna-Barbera, who came to a nearly identical agreement earlier in July. The voice actors who went on strike, now around 300, had succeeded in their efforts, and went back to work the following Monday. 

One other interesting tidbit I found while researching this story was this old news excerpt on ITN that covered the strike. It's only a small part of what I imagine was a more extensive story, but in this clip, we see Henry Corden, the second voice for Fred Flintstone, on the picket line! Give it a watch below, and if you by any chance have seen other news footage on this subject, I'd love to hear about it! I'd also like to credit UPI Archive and The Los Angeles Times, both of whom were great resources in putting this together. That's all for today, and remember: support unions!

Jon Snow finds out that The Flintstones were going on strike in ITN's News at One in 1987 pic.twitter.com/CLBlVphlpC

— UKPRES (@UKPRES1) July 17, 2023

Video of the Week: The Oddest Commercial Featuring a Classic Toon Actor?

 For this week's featured video, I'm going to share with you all a video I originally planned on including in my last "Classic Cartoons in Advertising" article. However, there's a lot more to this video than meets the eye, so I've now decided to give it its own post. Believe me when I say it earns that. Out of the many advertisements featuring the actors who voiced the most classic of cartoon characters, this may very well be one of the strangest I've seen yet.

Ever heard of the video game Taz-Mania? Probably not, but it's the focus of the commercial we'll be looking at today. Based on the early 90's animated series of the same name, Taz-Mania was a Sega Genesis game released in 1992. Take a look at the commercial below, and see if you recognize anyone familiar (be warned: the audio on this video is a tad on the loud side).

Does the man who appears around five seconds into the ad look familiar by any chance? He certainly did to me when I watched this in a collection of old gaming advertisements. I thought he looked a lot like George O'Hanlon, who, among many other things, was the original voice of George Jetson. After doing some research, I came to the conclusion that my eyes were most definitely not deceiving me. This is George O'Hanlon as he appeared in a PSA entitled "Mr. Ed: Wilbur Gets The Message...About Payroll Savings!" Here is the PSA in its entirety, but if you want to see the exact clip used in commercial, jump to about 12 minutes and 30 seconds into the video.

Like I said, this has easily got to be one of the strangest examples of a cartoon voice actor appearing in a commercial, and it more than warranted an article all to its own. It's also a bit odd that the clip as it appears in the advertisement features another actor dubbed over O'Hanlon's original dialogue, even though the original version would have fit just fine. But you want to know what's even odder than that? The fact that George Jetson and Taz nowadays share a voice actor: Jeff Bergman! He succeeded O'Hanlon as Mr. Jetson, and he's voiced Taz in several projects since the 90's began. Maybe this commercial was foreshadowing?

A Look Inside the Hanna-Barbera Studio

 Despite operating for four decades, it's not easy to find videos of the Hanna-Barbera Studios building in Los Angeles, California. Apart from the occasional news report that featured a behind-the-scenes look at the studio, videos that take you inside the building during its many years are next to impossible to come across. Even videos showcasing the building as it exists today can be hard to find! However, they aren't nonexistent. If you want proof, look no further than this video that tours the studio during the production of SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. The description for this video says it was from either 1994 or 1995. I would imagine it was the former, as SWAT Kats finished its run at the beginning of '95. Regardless, the tour provides a nice look at the goings on at the studio during that time. Check it out below, and be transported back to 3400 Cahuenga Boulevard, thirty years in the past!

I hope you all enjoyed this video. As a quick disclaimer, I'm starting a new job within the week, so posts on this blog may slow down for a time. That being said, I've got lots of cool stuff planned for this blog in August, so please be patient, and stay tuned for more exciting articles on the funtastic world of Hanna-Barbera!