Screen Gems became the new studio's distributor and its licensing agent, handling merchandizing of the characters from the animated programs. Harry Cohn, president and head of Columbia Pictures, took an 18% ownership in Hanna and Barbera's new company, H-B Enterprises, and provided working capital. A coin toss determined that Hanna would have precedence in naming the new studio. Īfter they failed to convince the studio to back their venture, live-action director George Sidney, who had worked with Hanna and Barbera on several of his theatrical features for MGM, offered to serve as their business partner and convinced Screen Gems, a television production subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, to make a deal with the producers.
During their last year at MGM, they had developed a concept for a new animated TV program about a dog and cat duo in various misadventures. While contemplating their future, Hanna and Barbera began producing additional animated television commercials. With the emergence of television, MGM decided in mid-1957 to close its cartoon studio, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release. In addition to their work on the cartoons, the two men moonlighted on outside projects, including the original title sequences and commercials for I Love Lucy.
In addition to continuing to write and direct new Tom & Jerry shorts, now in CinemaScope, Hanna and Barbera supervised the last seven shorts of Tex Avery's Droopy series and produced and directed the short-lived Spike and Tyke, which ran for two entries. With Quimby's retirement in 1955, Hanna and Barbera became the producers in charge of the MGM animation studio's output. : 83–84 Also, the duo did sequences for Anchors Aweigh, Dangerous When Wet and Invitation to the Dance and one-shot shorts Gallopin' Gals, The Goose Goes South, Officer Pooch, War Dogs and Good Will to Men. However, they were awarded to producer Fred Quimby, who was not involved in the development of the shorts. Seven of the cartoons won 7 Oscars for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) between 19, and five additional shorts nominated for 12 awards during this period. Hanna supervised the animation, while Barbera did the stories and pre-production. Their first cartoon, the Oscar-nominated Puss Gets the Boot, was released in 1940 and served as the first entry in the long-running short subject series Tom and Jerry. Having worked at other studios since the early 1930s, the two solidified a "six-decade" partnership. William Debney Hanna, native of Melrose, New Mexico and Joseph Roland Barbera, born of Italian heritage in New York City, first met at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio in 1937, while working at it's animation division. History Tom and Jerry and birth of a studio (1937–1957)
has continued to produce new programming and material based on Hanna-Barbera's classic properties, with their logo still occasionally appearing in select projects. Īfter Hanna died in 2001, Hanna-Barbera was absorbed into Warner Bros. Turner Broadcasting later merged with Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) in 1996. In 1991, Turner Broadcasting System purchased it from Great American Broadcasting (renamed from Taft in 1988), and used its back catalog as programming for Cartoon Network. It's fortunes declined by the 1980s, as the profitability of Saturday-morning cartoons was eclipsed by weekday afternoon syndication.
Taft Broadcasting bought the company in 1966 and retained ownership until 1991. įor five decades, it produced a variety of animated series, including Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Top Cat, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Wacky Races, Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs and was awarded eight Emmys and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. ( / ˈ b ɑːr b ər ə/ BAR-bər-ə), also variously known as H-B Enterprises, H-B Production Co., and Hanna-Barbara Cartoons, Inc., was an American animation studio and production company founded on July 7, 1957, by Tom and Jerry creators and former MGM cartoon studio staff William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Sherman Oaks Galleria, Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, U.S.