Cartoon Network Studios

The animation studio Cartoon Network Studios is a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System and the former Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. (1957-2001). It produces cartoons for television , particularly for the Cartoon Network .

Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera first worked together at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation Studios in 1939. Their first joint directorial work was an animated film entitled Puss Gets the Boot (1940), which is considered to be the birth of the popular cartoon series Tom and Jerry . Hanna, Barbera, and MGM director George Sidney founded Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1944 while working in the studio, and used the company to handle additional projects such as early television commercials and the first original opening title of I Love Lucy .

MGM closed their animation studios in 1957. Hanna and Barbera took over most of the employees in their Hanna-Barbera productions. It became a full production company in 1957 and a decision was made to specialize in television cartoons. Her first studio series was The Ruff & Reddy Show , which premiered in December 1957 on NBC . In order to get enough capital to produce her cartoons, Hanna-Barbera made a deal with Screen Gems Television, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures , in which the new animation studio got its working capital and Screen Gems got the distribution rights. The company didn't have a building of its own until 1963 when Hanna Barbera Studios at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. opened their doors in West Hollywood . The partnership between Columbia and Hanna-Barbera ended in 1967 when Hanna and Barbera sold the studio to Taft Broadcasting , but kept their positions.

Hanna-Barbera was the first animation studio to successfully produce cartoons for television; Before that, the cartoons on television were mostly a rerun of the cinema cartoons. On the other hand, Hanna-Barbera also worked on theatrical production series: Loopy De Loop , for Columbia Pictures from 1959 to 1965; and the opening credits for the ABC / Screen Gems television series Bewitched (Eng. In love with a witch). Hanna-Barbera later used the Bewitched characters as guest stars with the Feuersteins .

Many of Hanna-Barbera's television series were produced and broadcast for prime time. This lasted until the early 1970s. Many series like Hucky and his friends / original title: The Huckleberry Hound Show (and its spin-off , Yogi Bear ), Quick and his friends ( The Quickdraw Mc Graw Show ), Top Cat , Jonny Quest , The Jetsons and especially the Flintstones ( The Flintstones ) were originally broadcast in prime time, where they had to hold their own against comedies, quiz shows, and television movies.

The Feuerstein family in particular had a high audience rating. The episode "The Blessed Event," first broadcast in the US on February 22, 1963, which dealt with the birth of Pebbles Feuerstein , had the highest rate in series history.

But Hanna-Barbera conquered the market for cartoon television series, which were sold to several stations, as well as for the Saturday morning series (a form of broadcast in the US in the 1960s, see Saturday morning cartoon ). They owned the majority of television productions, and they held that majority for over thirty years. During the 1970s, most American television cartoons were produced by Hanna-Barbera.

The main competition was from Filmation , DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and some prime-time films from Rankin-Bass , Chuck Jones and Bill Meléndezes Peanuts .