Hanna Barbara Cartoons. DIE DIE DIE!

As it stands...
Any Hanna Barbara Characters >>>>> Mickey Mouse >> Donald Duck >> Daffy Duck (in current moronic asshole mode) >> Goofy >> Most Warner Brothers Characters >> Tom and Jerry >> Droopy* >> Yosemite Sam

* Note = No-one seems to remember Droopy! or the bulldog with irish accent or southern wolf who tormented Droopy. This is a crime against humanity.

That's because he didn't have one -- he went around in nothing but a hat and bowtie, the perv.

HOLY SHIT

FONZIE NOOOOOOOOOO

http://www.lessheart.blogger.com.br/barbapapa.gif

Love,

Enough reason to detroy Hanna Barbara.

...look around and examine a colon...
Sorry. Not allowed. Haven't gotten my doctorate in proctology yet.

...that has never fully digested the wonder that was Jinx the Cat on "Pixie and Dixie."
Pixie and Dixie? This doesn't ring any bells.

His dialogue was so surreal, so burned-out-hipster (sounds like Eugene Levy's character in A Mighty Wind, really), and so purely malevolent that he belongs in anyone's all-time top three.
I'll take your word for it.

You're basically just hating the lack of bling in H-B, and that ain't cool...
I wasn't bothered by the 'low production value' or the stiff animation (though these seem to irritate everyone else) I'm mostly aggravated by

• lame characters.
  
• Bad, unfunny dialogue.
  
• Pacing like the Bataan Death March.
  
• Awful, counter-intuitive, annoying sound effects.
  
• Rotten movie tie-ins.
  

...they were gallant indie fuXXors...
No. Hanna-Barbara:Gallant-Indie-Fuxxors :: Knack-Cover-Band:'77-Punk.

...and they had Top Cat...
Okay, Score one for the defense. I'll admit that Top Cat was much better than the abysmal average. I think it has alot to do with me not knowing what 50s/60s TV show they were ripping off for character concepts. (Anyone have any ideas?)

...and they had the Laff-a-Lympics...
and score one for the prosecution...

...with Paul Lynde...
two for the prosection...

...Grape to the motherfuckin' Ape...
three for the prosecution...

...and I can't believe I'm even discussing this with you.
Because this issue is more important than the hole in the ozone layer!
(Though it might be an indirect cause of the hole in the ozone layer...)

http://www.tvtome.com/images/shows/21/0/72-6590-sm.jpg -vs- http://members.aol.com/Polecattt/ss8.jpg
UA -vs- HB

"I shoulda been a banker" -vs- "I dunno, Secret"

Comparing the pacing in H-B cartoons to Disney or Warner Brothers cartoons is silly; the latter are shorts, aired without commercial breaks, and the H-B cartoons tend to the 15 minute or 30 minute slots, made for TV.

I'm assuming Custos is young enough to have gotten the Hanna-Barbera stuff "all in a lump," so to speak, because I'm not sure what to make of this otherwise:

If they can't make an interesting knock-off of a hamfist like Rodney Dangerfield...what made them think they could successfully clone the subtleties of Jackie Gleason or Art Carney in their prime?

Did I miss a cartoon based on a really young Rodney Dangerfield, or are you actually asking why a 1960s hit wasn't informed by a 1990s failure?

(Custos seems to be asking why George Lucas thought a trilogy about Anakin's kids would be good when Annie was so annoying in The Phantom Menace.)

And there was a bitchy woman named Lotta Litter who liked to litter - a lot.

It amazes me a little to find out, via Google, that Gilligan's Planet was Filmation, not Hanna Barbera. It kinda seems up the latter's alley.

Jabberjaw = Rodney Dangerfield derives

(via connecting DePatie-Freleng element of Mr. Jaws)

from

Anteater = Jackie Mason ?!?

(I dunno, the chronology could be off ...)

"It takes 1000 ants to make an ant sandwich. I can't even catch one."

What you need is one of these

There was a massive dip in HB quality when Barbera Barbera took over the running of the company, exemplified by Scrappy Doo. But the funny shorts of the late sixties have really high quality scripts (Touche Turtle). The Scooby/Yogi team ups like Laffalympics were really ideas pitched to the networks to keep the slots when even cheaper Filmation, Spears and Japanimation was encroaching on their territory. Again the innovators Hanna-Barbera were too expensive, but they did have a large store of loved characters to fall back on.

Interestingly from a child psychology point of view the repetitive visuals and plotting of much Hanna-Barbera (esp Scooby Doo) is stated to be the secret of its success. The Laurel and Hardy cartoon sucked ass though.

"Top Cat! Incredible Top Cat all the Way"
< /stupidity>

Which they should.

I had a bizarre dream involving Yosemite Sam (Warner Brothers, right?) the other night. I've never had a dream involving a Hanna Barbara character.

No-one seems to remember Droopy!
I remember that fuckin' dog. There were only a handful of classic droopy moments.

http://www.pazsaz.com/pic/squiddly.gif

And there's one major reason that I can't call Daffy Duck an asshole:

C'mon. It's like calling Wiley E an asshole. You just can't do it.

My husband once swore that I made up Pixie and Dixie. It was them who starred with the cat that went "I hate those meeces to pieces" wasn't it?

Hanna Barbara's good shit mang.

Re: Hong Kong Phooey.
This, Top Cat and the few Tom and Jerry's they did are the only things that even attempt to justify HB's existence.

turn up my collar and mix with dark

But really. All the '60s-'70s crap was just crap. Consider the facts:

1. Nothing funny ever happened
2. Stupid fake laugh track every time nothing funny happened
3. Even the drawings looked bored
4. They all did that stupid hooked hand thing, as if to say, 'this is what differentiates our cartoons from all the others! Look, we're all hooking our hands!! See??'

Pants.

I think I know what is meant by "hooked hand": where the characters would walk/run/stand around, arms by their side, hands in not-quite fist/simian-like curled fingers. Just an alternative to drawing hands that weren't rubbishly flat or in a fist.

*Possibly no one except me was convinced (from birth, apparently) of the utter necessity of joining an Amazon tribe and besting the barbarian hordes in battle in order to defend our mystical, matriarchal way of life. Cf. Wonderwoman.

i'm watching some horrid wanly surreal 'reboot' of quickdraw mcgraw on boomerang. die hanna barbara. now i'm watching dink the little dinosaur like daaam. there's a crocodile chilling with them and he's like a little perky ratlike creature next to them. would you look at that. and the dinos look like a cross between barney and an actual infant which is beyond creepy. frank oz is basically doing yoda so, classic.

i think the jetsons is one of the few hb cartoons that used the flat, limited parameters of design to its advantage. i watched the 'samba ramba' episode a few hours ago and every single shot was silly and yet pretty well fleshed out. it has a sense of place rare to hb, that's for sure. (odd saying that considering you hardly ever see the ground). the tension with the boss and somewhat needy wife and the fact that george is kind of a pussy sometimes(as opposed to fred flinstone, who's a borderline rogue who just happens to get frustrated alot) lends richness to it, and George O'Hanlon kills it.

the whole cast does really.

now catanooga cats good lord. they sing a song called 'johnny johnny johnny'. really really good am pop. there's one of those sheep/dog/wolf capers (this is kind of like a psychedelic cartoon variety show) and paul lynde is the wolf! (things heard at the...). now there's a boring one (sound off) with a chimp riding shotgun in a old timey limousine. still boring.

Did someone get Boomerang?

Hanna Barbera cartoons always seemed mildly engaging, but never, ever did they seem amazing. The dialogue was flat. The situations were certainly 'cartoony', but not in the hyper-imaginative way that a cartoon can be at its best.

I'd generally sum up the Hanna Barbera 'product' as workmanlike, modestly entertaining and just a bare cut above mediocrity. No reason to hate it. Not much reason to love it.

top cat was freq amazing.

The monkey to the moon one!

Ape / Ant

then you see he actually wrote Anthropod.

Cmon!

maybe you should get together an affinity group and plan some direct action, custos!

-- s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, March 7, 2004 1:17 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

So the moral is: HB cartoons, variable quality.

What HB cartoon was it where every episode there would be a bit where the cast would go to a disco and THE SAME BIT OF FOOTAGE OF EVERYONE DANCING FOR 3 MINUTES would be played each time in a blatant bit of padding? Some Yogi Bear in space nonsense, I think.

Cattanooga Cats!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehZ8n98SZlY

awesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShsYzv-FHRk&NR=1

THE SAME BIT OF FOOTAGE OF EVERYONE DANCING FOR 3 MINUTES

The Kids from Fu Manchu (or something like that, can't find it anywhere...)

Just looking at the wiki for HB, blimey they did millions!

Including BANANA SPLITS

and WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME!

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home - was that one of HB's? A Simpsons for a gentler age, as demonstrated by the vocal presence of Tom Bosley despite his character looking like my local greengrocer.

(also, a pedant writes: it's Hanna Barbera)

The one I remember was the one where the son attempts to go to Canada to avoid the draft, then his conscience gets the better of him and he returns home. and goes. And finds that the army has their full quota of people so he's not needed.

http://img.search.com/e/e0/300px-Dastardly_muttley_cast.jpg

Muttley = GENIUS
Klunk = GENIUS

I think Neil Young was excellent as the voice of Zilly.

Wacky Races - one of only two programmes I know whose theme tune has no tune (the other one is the Abbott and Costello cartoons but I don't think that was HB).

Wow. Paul Winchell: The voice of Dick Dastardly AND Tigger....

some additional info.

Zilly later did a fairly good job as manager of Scotland, using his real name of Craig Brown

xpost the tune was obliterated by the voice over (chained to the post by Dick Dastardly, etc..)

No, I've got it on the Tunes From The Toons CD and below the commentary there is no discernible top line of melody. But then you could say the same about "Sultans Of Swing" by Dire Straits.

That's why Geir refuses to watch it then

Arkansas Chug-a-Bug possible reference to amelodic Hip Hops music.

hmm, proto rap then, definitely.

^Agreed.
First of all Dexter's Lab is highly iconic (in my house) so I don't see your point second; you're wrong. Hanna Barbara is good stuff, not always and I'm one of those that hated Top Cat but otherwise, pretty classic.
http://www.johnrozum.com/images/batfink.jpg <<--Who came up with this slice of genius?

So the moral is: HB cartoons television, variable quality.

-- Mark G

That's not Hanna Barbera (xp)

The Flintstones
The Yogi Bear Show
The Jetsons
Jonny Quest
Scooby-Doo
Super-Friends

^^ six of the best cartoons ever

OK, let's try and remember the worst of them..

"Grape Ape" - An ape that used to go round saying "Grape Ape" all the time. Apart from when he had had some grapes, at which point he'd get super strength.

To what end, I can't remember.

Never seen that or The Jetsons, Jonny Quest or Super-Friends

We never got the Jetsons or Jonny/Johnny Quest in the UK.

There were an abnormal number of second string HB productions as well; Touche Turtle, Wally Gator, Magilla Gorilla, Pixie & Dixie and other stalwarts of the Glen Michael Cavalcade and Ali Bongo's Cartoon Carnival circuit.

We got the Jetsons occasionally. Touche Turtle was crap, Pixie and Dixie was seminal for those of us who hate meeces to pieces, never saw Magilla Gorilla.

We did so get the Jetsons!

It was only made for a very short time and stopped because it hadn't 'hit'.

(xpost)

jetsons is A+

so how about filmation and ruby-spears?

I vaguely remember 'SuperFriends'

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/Super_Friends.jpg
From Wiki:
In part, it was feared that the name Justice League of America would have seemed too jingoistic during the Vietnam War and post-Vietnam War Era.

Too Damn Right!

http://img.search.com/e/e0/300px-Dastardly_muttley_cast.jpg
At the LZBC clubhouse: L-R: Passantino, Jagger, Noodle, Enriquit.

I really do not recall the Jetsons being on TV at all. I always used to see them mentioned in American comics and think wtf? Maybe they just never played on STV.

Filmation was shark-jumping time.

Were Seven Arts a subsidiary of HB? The only thing I ever remember seeing by them was Marine Boy.

http://i2.iofferphoto.com/img/item/160/551/46/dd.jpg

I really do not recall the Jetsons being on TV at all. I always used to see them mentioned in American comics and think wtf? Maybe they just never played on STV.

Those dreaded words...

"... and viewers in Scotland have their own programme"

We got a Rankin/Bass show called Tomfoolery in the early 70s, which as far as I remember was Yellow Submarine-esque animations of Edward Lear poems. It was my favourite thing as a pre-schooler, would dearly love to see some of it today.

xpost Deputy Dawg was the DADDY

Yes "Tomfoolery" was the business

Tomfoolery was shown just before Wait til Your Father Gets Home, btw. But I usually went out to play once that came on.

I remember Tomfoolery - that was weird! Quite a lot of the "pay the two dollars" routine IIRC.

After 30-odd years I can still sing the theme tune.

http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/behindthescreens/images/300sept-db-westward.jpg

SLOW DOWN!

ahem. xpost.

If I could remember them all I'd do a poll of the great programmes we missed on Thursday on account of fucking Current Account.

Armando Ianucci did a sketch about this

Yes and I once played it over the 'phone to Tommy Boyd on his Human Zoo show. The one about the live coverage of the Second Coming and/or Last Trump except for viewers in Scotland who have something with Paul Coia in it.

I think it was "a quiz show about hills with Paul Coia"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7scMC7YSDQ

Check it yourself

Where is Paul Coia band now?

developing self-deprication: http://www.paulcoia.com/tv.html

Him and Lou Macari helped put Italian Scots on the cultural map

And Lena Zavaroni

Also Tutti Frutti.

I'm saying nothing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/Fonz_and_Happy_Days_Gang.jpg

lol @ the gratuitous addition of a dog named "Mr. Cool" to the cast of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang

Who remembers the added dog in the "Osmonds" Cartoon?

Is it the "let's add something we know" factor?

Complete history of Scrappy Doo:

http://www.povonline.com/scrappydays/scrappy01.htm

Great story.

Via Mark Evanier: an animator named Roger Evans has a Jonny Quest fan site and did a stop-motion version of the JQ opening titles.

http://www.jonnyquest.tv/

Video at the link. Vimeo, otherwise I'd embed it here.

That's amazing!