Saturday, June 13, 2009
Pre-Historic Flintstones, Historic Hanna-Barbera
From June 1964 (when TV Guide ran actual, in-depth articles), here's a TV Guide story covering Hanna-Barbera, complete with a specially created cover starring TV favorite Fred Flintstone, then at the height of his prime-time popularity. Published just before Jonny Quest (still entitled Jonny Quest File 037 as this article was printed) premiered in the fall, the article includes some interesting tidbits, including the number of Hanna-Barbera comic books published per month (55,000,000) and that film director George Sidney owned 22 percent of Hanna-Barbera Productions. There's also a quote from Walt Disney, who diplomatically says, in essence, they did the best they could with the money they spent. Read on and enjoy this historic article about the creators of the pre-historic Flintstones.
What an interesting article - mixed feelings on reading it. It's odd to see them say Disney "never could have adapted" to limited animation production on television. I'd just think Walt had no interest in adapting to it... he explored limited animation early and was done with it. It seems a little like a "sour grapes" statement from H&B, like they were defensive about being compared to Disney. I hope not. H&B are not "known" for great animation, but for creating great characters.
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