Fred Seibert's Blog

Click a card to see the whole set.

As I was getting together the post about The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, I realized I’d added some rarities from my collection to my personal website and never mentioned them here or at RAW.

My close colleagues from over the years can attest to my obsessions of collecting printed artifacts with pop culture illustrations or photographs, like posters, calendars or skateboards. So in the early 1980s, when Yazoo Records commissioned R. Crumb to come up with his “Heroes of Blues, Jazz, & Country” for collector card boxes I thought it would be cool to apply the concept to cartoons.

From Hanna-Barbera’s founding in 1956 until 1992 (the studio was effectively closed by it’s latest owner Warner Bros. in 1997) the studio had no sense of its place in popular culture. When Ted Turner bought the company in 1991 he and Scott Sassa installed me as the president and we started to blow the roof off the sucker. There were many of us working at the company who grew up with it’s radical and wonderful innovations and wanted to finally gather up the respect we thought the place was due.

I figured collector cards would be a quick way to gather up a lot of the wonderful characters in our library (while we were busily trying to come up with new ones) in a way that would show them off in the hippest, most contemporary way possible (short of Frank Kozik’s posters). They were never sold at retail; they were for our various business associates and staff. Actually, I had no idea how bloated the bureaucracy at the studio ahd become and that it would take over two years to get both these sets out.

It was particularly satisfying to me that we were able to go into the never publicaly seen before archives and pull presentation art, storyboard frames, and work sketches and include some in the adventure set.

In retrospect, my biggest disappointment with these boxes is that they happened before I gained full appreciation of the way the HB art had changed over the years. Starting in the mid 1960s the original, funky, post UPA, designs of the classic characters (like Huck, Yogi, The Flintstones, and the like) started to cute-ify and became rounder, less raw, and overall less distinctive. When I asked about it at first I was told there was a need to standardize the models because the original animation was all over the place. There are some who claimed the changes began with the ascent of Iwao Takamoto to design director, but, not being there at the time I don’t know; however, it’s clear to all that everything that was done happened with explicit consent from Joe (in particular) and Bill. Eventually, it became clear to me that the prevailing winds just disliked the original art and there was a 30 year effort to actually deny its existence. I wasn’t able to do all that much about it until near the end of my tenure when we hired Craig Kellman to vintage up The Flintstones; but that’ll be another day of scanning and posting.

By the way, I can’t for the life of me remember why I was convinced The Flintstones should be included in the “Adventure” cards. Maybe it something to do with the movie… Ah well, such are the paradoxes that make collectors happy.
……
Hanna-Barbera Trading Cards
Hollywood, 1993

Credits (from the box):

Special thanks to all those people who made The Hanna-Barbera Trading Cards possible!

CREATORS

Wiliam Hanna, Joseph Barbera

DESIGN
Roy Guzman, Bobbi Jankovich

WRITERS
David Burd, Marty Pekar

THE HANNA-BARBERA CREW

Models
Linda Moore
Dana Granger
Barbara Kruger
Donna Zeller
Marcus Nickerson
Bob Onorato
Pete Alvarado

Xerox
Star Wirth
Martin Corssley
Richard Wilson
Danny Conté

Ink & Paint
Alison Leopold
Suzette Darling
Joanne Plein
Christine Kingsland
Nelda Ridley
Lori Hanson
Lydia Swayne

Creative Services
Curt Covert
Lynn Domenico
Mary DeMarle
Shannon Dashiell
Jill Jones
Sue Doc
Betty Tropp

Research
Iwao Takamoto
JeffEckert
Hillary Dunchak
Glenn Leopold
Jerry Eisenberg

Marketing
Fred Seibert
Sally Prendergast
……
Hanna-Barbera Adventure Cards
Hollywood 1995
©1994, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc.
…..
Credits (from the box):

Special thanks to Fred Seibert, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, and to all those people who made The Hanna-Barbera Adventure Cards possible!

DESIGN
Jill Jones
Ray Guzman
Bobbi Jankovich

WRITERS
David Burd
Marty Pekar

THE HANNA-BARBERA CREW

Models
Iwao Takamoto
Ric Estrada
Tony Sgroi
Ron Roesch
Barbara Krueger
Donna Zeller
Scott Awley

Xerox
Star Worth
Martin Crossley

Ink & Paint
Alison Darling
Suzette Darling
Joanne Plein
Chirstine Kingsland
Nelda Ridley
Lori Hanson
Lydia Swayne

Backgrounds
Bonnie Callahan
Jim Hickey
Ruben Chavez
Jerry Loveland
Craig Robertson
Richard Daskas

Art Services
Mary DeMarle
Shannon Dashiell
Liz Watson
Scott Miller
Betty Tropp

Creative Services
Sue Doc

Research
Jeff Eckert
Hillary Dunchak
Scott Awley
Tom Barreca
Lance Falk

Marketing
Sally Prendergast
Stephanie Sperber

From Eric: “We should see some of the cards’ backs. People loved those, and every time I showed them to someone, I’d always be asked, ‘Do they make a puzzle?’ ”

They’re in the same album on RAW, but here’s one as a teaser.

Jerry Beck was the one who kindly asked me to write an introduction for his upcoming book on great art from Hanna-Barbera and how neat it was in our contemporary culture. And I asked you what I should write and you gave me some great ideas.

I’m really late with this essay and I have no idea whether it’ll even be accepted. But I wanted to say thanks and share it with you all.

The Coolest Job
By Fred Seibert

One of my proudest working days was when I became the President of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1992. The coolest job at the coolest place.

When I first started traveling to LA in the late 70s I’d get a chill going past the Hanna-Barbera Cartoons building, wondering what kind of magic went on behind the imposing concrete screens. Just the studio name in plain black type up top screamed out to me. But my work had nothing to do with cartoons so there was really no reason to stop and go in. “I was a seven year old fan of Huckleberry Hound. Could you show me around your studio?”

Fifteen years later, in June 1990, I was at Universal Studios Florida on its opening day at the first Hanna-Barbera theme park ride. At the end of the ride they had a store, and I bought as much as I could hold, including a great watch. Months later, out to dinner with friend at a fancy restaurant, he asked “What’s that watch?” I said, “This is my Hanna Barbera watch; here’s Yogi, Scooby, Fred and the gang. What’s yours, a rolex?” My friend, Scott Sassa, was President of Turner Broadcasting and, fast-forwarding 18 months, he calls one day and says, “You know we just bought Hanna-Barbera. … You want to run it?” And I looked down and I had the same watch on. (It was 10:35am.)

We worked like hell to revive the magic and produce the greatest cartoons of a (new) generation. We plugged away almost as hard to make the building special. Painting it day-glo colors and putting up giant posters of the classic characters was a great rush. (Of course, that was before the neighborhood association threatened to sue, not to mention the purists in the building who wanted to keep the original post-office-beige color.) And searching the world for vintage toy collections of the company’s characters to decorate the offices was better than toys at Christmas.When Bill Hanna came into my office (originally his) and exclaimed, “Wow! It really looks like a cartoon studio now!” I knew I was in the right place.

If I was compiling a book like this to collect those feelings, Jerry Beck would be my first ten choices to do it. Here’s hoping his publisher will send over a case of them to share with family and friends.

A close friend of ours is writing a short deadline book on the imposing legacy of the Hanna-Barbera studios. It sounds like the fun book I’ve been waiting for for years. He’s been nice enough to ask me to write a preface, and, notwithstanding my halting ability to write, I’ve agreed.

Because how can I miss a chance to publicly acknowledge one of the great honors of my life? The chance to brush against greatness, to spend a little time around two of the men who helped me laugh throughout my life?

I’ve been given a little guidance, but I thought maybe you could help too. Here’s some of what’s been suggested all of which makes sense to me:

1. “When I became president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1992, I was most concerned with revitalizing an amazing heritage and legacy…”

2. How & why you started/purchased the H-B archive (the merchandise)

3. What it was like working with Bill and Joe. What influence they’ve had on your career.

And it’s safe to assume the author, one of our great historians, will cover all the facts on the characters and the series.

But, what would you want to hear from me?