The Hanna-Barbera team of producers, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, created and/or produced some of the most recognizable and lovable cartoon characters of the 20th century, beyond Disney and Warner Bros. This is my list of the most influential and iconic Hanna-Barbera produced shows.
#5: Powerpuff Girls
For an overview, the show consists of three superhero Kindergartners who live with their creator, a scientist. They use their supernatural powers to help the city of Townsville crack down on criminals and super villains, most notoriously Mojo Jojo, an intelligent monkey who was created by the same scientist who created the Powerpuff Girls. Surprisingly for some people, The Powerpuff Girls was the last cartoon ever to be associated with Hanna-Barbera. Not only is it one of the most popular shows from Hanna-Barbera for the Millennium kids (kids born in the 90's to present), but the Powerpuff Girls were some of Cartoon Network's first recognizable characters from their productions. So why Powerpuff Girls from all the shows created in the 90's? I'll admit I'm biased for this show since I personally watched it as a kid. Yet, besides my like for the show, Powerpuff Girls were some of the few Hanna-Barbera female characters that had their own show. There was Josie and the Pussycats from the '70's, but it had nowhere near the amount of popularity and success of the Powerpuff Girls. This focus on girls didn't come off as a "girl show" but rather portrayed a different image of the stereotypical cartoon.
#4: The Flintstones
Personally, I never watched this program as I did other Hanna-Barbera productions. However, I can see their influence everywhere. The Flintstones was the first iconic cartoon targeting adults instead of children. It would be the equivalent of The Simpson's today (of course a more kid friendly Simpsons)! Yet, being the first doesn't stop there. The Flintstones were one of the first cartoons to ever be used for advertising. The Winston cigarette company was the first, followed by Welch's juice, then most notably for my generation, Cocoa Pebbles/Fruity Pebbles. It was also the first cartoon to have a married couple sleeping in the same bed. Being portrayed as cavemen in a 1960s fashion, The Flintstones started out showing two married couples (Fred and Wilma Flintstone/Barney and Betty Rubble) go about their seemingly modern daily lives. After a couple of seasons, the couples had children: Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. I truly believe if it wasn't for The Flintstones, there wouldn't be The Jetsons, another popular prime time show, focusing on people of the future, rather than the past.
#3: The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show was one of the first Hanna-Barbara cartoons involving an animal character with a sidekick and dressed in a human-like fashion. Yogi was the first character created by Hanna-Barbara. I'm sure some find that surprising since Yogi Bear first appeared on the variety cartoon show The Huckleberry Hound Show, Hanna-Barbera's first successful solo cartoon show. The show had many other notable characters including Huckleberry Hound himself. So why have The Yogi Bear Show over the The Huckleberry Hound Show in my top five? It's because Yogi Bear is a spin off show, the first cartoon spin off in history. Not only that, but Yogi Bear actually was the most popular segment from The Huckleberry Hound Show, which lead to Yogi having his own show a couple years later. The show consisted of Yogi Bear and his small sidekick BooBoo, the bear who always tries to warn Yogi of the park ranger. The setting is in Jellystone Park (sound familiar?) Yogi always got into trouble with the park ranger for stealing "pic-in-ic" baskets from the park visitors. The Yogi character is iconic for his clever rhyming and elongating of words and his phrase "I'm smarter than the av-er-age bear!"
#2: Scooby-Doo
If someone were to ask you what cartoon had the most shows derived from its concept, I hope you would say Scooby-Doo without any hesitation. Josie and the Pussycats, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Speed Buggy, Clue Club, Jabberjaw, with the addition of the 10+ versions of Scooby-Doo (some still being made today) are just a few of the shows deriving from the original Scooby Doo, Where are You? show from 1969. The show focuses on four teenagers: Fred (the leading one), Daphne (the girly one), Velma (the smart one), Shaggy (the "scardy-cat" one), and most notably, Scooby-Doo (the Great Dane who talks). The mysteries they solved always involved something spooky, and the character behind the spooky business was (kind of predictably) a character the mystery-solving gang met earlier in the show. I truly believed this show was the start-up for interest in mysteries (of course after Sherlock Holmes)!
#1: Tom and Jerry
I don't think I need to give any reasons why this show is number one on my list. I think I can safely say that this show is more iconic and loved than any other Hanna-Barbera produced show, and possibly any cartoon show. The concept is so simple: cat vs. mouse, yet it is able to captivate the world so much that it seems more like the most unique concept of any cartoon. I'm confident enough to not even say what the show's about, because most Westernized people know about Tom and Jerry. If this show were to first air today, it would be either banned or marketed for adults, due to the heavy amount of violence. Disregarding the violence, Tom and Jerry were characters who didn't talk; it was their hilarious actions of hatred for each other and the amazing sound track in the background that "spoke" for these characters. Important note: Tom and Jerry is not a show directly produced by Hanna-Barbera productions; it was a show produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera while they were working for MGM (before they made their own success). With that being said, if it wasn't for that experience producing the first Tom and Jerry shows under MGM, Hanna-Barbera productions may have never formed at all.
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