Hanna-Barbera

In 1957, Metro-

Goldwyn-Mayer closed down its animation division, leaving animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of Tom and Jerry, unemployed. They therefore decided to form their own animation company, producing relatively inexpensive limited animation cartoons for the new medium of television. The venture proved successful, and Hanna-Barbera Productions came to dominate the field of television animation for nearly forty years, producing such popular series as The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, Top Cat, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and many others.

However, with the advent of cable, Saturday morning animation blocs were no longer maintained by the main broadcast networks, and Hanna-Barbera's original series were less and less in demand. In 1991, Hanna-Barbera's backlog of series was purchased by Ted Turner for use on his new animation channel: Cartoon Network. In the same decade, Hanna-Barbera began producing original programming for Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon! show, which introduced some of the network's most popular series, such as Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, and The Powerpuff Girls.

When Turner Broadcasting merged with Time-Warner, Hanna-Barbera Productions became a subsidiary of Warner Bros.. In 2001, Hanna-Barbera was absorbed fully into Cartoon Network Studios, and, as of 2016, Hanna-Barbera Productions is an in-name-only unit of Warner Bros. Animation, which administers the rights to its catalog and characters. Hanna-Barbera characters continue to appear in new productions animated by Warners.

In FusionFall, Hanna-Barbera's achievements are memorialized in the "Hani-Baba Temple," and on a totem that portrays the classic Hanna-Barbera characters Top Cat, Scooby-Doo, Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear, George Jetson, and Quick Draw McGraw.