CARTOON NERD TIME.

HB isn't all bad. It served an important purpose in the early 60's: It killed the myth that animation produced for TV was unfeasible. They did they by severly cutting corners (inventing such tricks as the repeating background) and creating characters whose humor came from dialog more than action (because less action means less animation.) Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss, etc, were all big successes due more to how cheap they were to produce than their popularity.

Pretty soon the whole industry was following suit. And despite their cheapness, these early HB shows had a wonderful charm to them.

After the Flintstones and the Jetsons ended, though, HB found itself with only one popular show: Scooby-Doo. And so it began.

By the 70's HB had jumped the shark in a truly epic manner and was basically holding the industry back. Sad to think this show was created by the same guys who gave us Tom and Jerry.

You can't really give Hanna-Barbera credit for keeping American animation alive during its darkest days. They were the ones responsible for those darkest days.

The blame should really be placed on corporate marketing methods -- TV shows based on past ratings, 'proven' formulas, etc. The whole formulaic thing has been pretty typical of American television since the 1950's. Cartoon shows were especially vulnerable to this trap due to how much time and labor is invested in production (back then), so they were less likely to try risking anything new and original. Thank god for Flash

Early H-B borrowed from the success of radio shows when TV was more like radio with pictures, so, more emphasis on dialog and character acting.

Xenocide, does that even sense, even to you? H-B proved that animation was feasible for television by introducing a style of animation that was cheap, terrible, and pervasive for a quarter century? That turning Chuck Jones mayhem into the Honeymooners at 3-frames-per-second was charming? Can you possibly believe that?

You can do cheap animation and still have it come out looking good, John K proved that. Hanna-Barbera didn't save tv animation, they nearly ruined it. Without them, the 90s animation resurgence would have come a lot sooner.

The 90's animation resurgence owes a lot of its success to anime.

I'm thinking the Cassidy name was supposed to draw "i.e. dupe" girls. David and Shawn remember?