How did H-B do it?

[Old Guy]

Ever since I was a kid (especially since I was one of the few who actually paid attention to credits) I wondered how Hanna-Barbera managed to direct so many half-hour cartoons. One thing is to be an executive producer (which was what they mostly did after 1972) but another is to be a director. Does anyone know how H-B managed to do it?

[Taoku]

Well, when half of your shows are part of the same genre (mystery solving), how hard can it be?

[Silverstar]

^He has a point. It's not like H-B's shows at that time were varied and diverse; during the 70's through the 80's, they all basically followed the same formulas. Since the shows themselves were more or less interchangeable, they could grind them out at an almost assembly line fashion.

Bear in mind also that H-B was working on a limited TV budget at the time. Since their cartoons were relatively cheap and inexpensive to produce, H-B could whip out 2 or 3 shows in the time it would take a studio like Disney or Nelvana to produce 1.

[Kolbar]

Yes, but during the '70s and '80s, Hanna and Barbera moved on to just being the executive producers for everything. Their names would always come first, followed by the director of that show, usually Charles A. Nichols or someone else.

They did direct and produce almost everything in the '60s, though, and I think that's what the original poster was referring to.

[Old Guy]

I don't think you guys understood my question. Directing a show, whether its cartoon or live-action or expensive or cheap, takes a lot of time to do. So, my question was how they managed to do it. If you look at their 1960s work, for example, it was A LOT of shows. How did they find the time to direct all of that? Like I said, there's a different between being an executive producer (which is like a supervisior) and being a director.

[Eric Brown]

Interestingly enough, over the past 45 or so years, I have wondered the same thing. I first noticed a decline in animation quality in the Yogi Bear show (1961). I began to wonder how much personal attention Bill and Joe were still putting in to the production of their creations.

This was a boom period for H-B and they were hiring any and all animators and production people they could find. At this point, I think Bill and Joe were putting their time into their prime time productions.

According to several articles and both of their books, they divided the production duties, much as they did at MGM. Joe handled some of the writing along with directing the voice over recordings. Bill assigned duties to the animators and worked with the timing sheets. Looking at credits, it's obvious they didn't do it all by themselves. Sound directors Richard Olson / Bill Getty and production supervisor Howard Hanson were given due credit.

The first noticeable change in their producer / director credits showed in the 1966 Alice in Wonderland tv special. Bill and Joe were credited only as producers, with Alex Lovy given the director credit. If you read the Alice credits further, you will see that Alex was also the Associate Producer. In the 4th week of March 1966 TV guide article on the Alice special, Alex was given the producer / director credits.

As they moved into the Saturday morning superhero period, Bill and Joe were still given the producer / director credits. This is when I really wondered how in the world they could do it. Maybe they did. They had no prime time shows, other than the short lived " Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

I think the key is in reading the credits of the older shows and look for any associated produced credits. A re-reading of Bill's and Joe's books may also give hints. Personly, I think they just had "good help" from a hand picked creative staff.

THANX

[Daikun]

Ever since I was a kid (especially since I was one of the few who actually paid attention to credits) I wondered how Hanna-Barbera managed to direct so many half-hour cartoons. One thing is to be an executive producer (which was what they mostly did after 1972) but another is to be a director. Does anyone know how H-B managed to do it?

Limited animation = Cheap. Who needs ideas when you can save money for more clone shows?

[desi]

I don't think you guys understood my question. Directing a show, whether its cartoon or live-action or expensive or cheap, takes a lot of time to do. So, my question was how they managed to do it.

Well how do you know it took a lot of time? Maybe it didn't. If you are creating a show around the same concept, it doesn't take too much of thinking. Besides, they did not direct every single show. They hired others to do that.

The way I see it these people understood your question but you did not understand their answer.

[The Cartoon]

There was a mystery show era that H-B went through, but it was not half of their shows. Let's get that off straight away. I don't know how they managed to work on so many cartoons at the same time and have them be successful ones at that. They were geniuses and able to come up with a new idea at the snap of a finger. What they were able to do was amazing, but I will never know how they did it.