THE HOUSE THAT HUCK BUILT

Before The Simpsons , before Ren and Stimpy, before Beavis and Butt-Head, there
was Huckleberry Hound. A true blue canine with a flair for fantasy, Huck was the star
of the first show to smash the barriers against television animation and emerge as a giant
hit. And who smashed those barriers for the sake of all future cartoonists? Bill Hanna
and Joe
Barbera.
Without their inspired efforts, a genuine American art form -- cartoons – might
have died a pathetic death. Theatrical cartoons were over, the victim of economic
forces. Television was deemed too expensive to animate. But then, a giant light bulb
went off above Hanna and Barbera's collective head. Limited animation, it said!
(Luckily, it was a
talking light bulb.) Use fewer drawings!

And so The Huckleberry Hound Show was born. And Huck begat Pixie and
Dixie who begat Yogi Bear who begat Boo Boo who begat Snagglepuss. A classic
cavalcade of characters all born from one show.

Buoyed by success, Hanna-Barbera proceeded to make America's evening hours

their personal empire with Quick Draw McGraw and Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy,
The Hanna-Barbera Series featuring Wally Gator and Touche Turtle, and The Magilla
Gorilla Show.

And then the lodestone: The Flintstones, the world's first prime-time cartoon
sitcom, followed by The Jetsons, Top Cat, and the first cartoon show to feature realistic
humans, The Adventures of Jonny Quest.

Expanding their empire to the realms of Saturday morning, Hanna-Barbera

created instant favorites like Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines and
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You ?

All in all, the body of work begat by Huckleberry Hound adds up to the largest
video library in the world. Hanna-Barbera boasts more than 3,500 half-hours of cartoon
programming and more than 350 television series, specials and films. And of course,
now that Hanna-Barbera is sponsoring the biggest commitment to original programming
in over
thirty years, with 48 new short cartoons debuting on The Cartoon Network, Huck's
legacy just keep's on a-growin'.

Not bad for a slow-talkin', Southern-drawlin', calamity-bound blue hound.

Bill Burnett
Creative Director
Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Inc.