From Always Use Zip Code: One day, I read somewhere that the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado grew so tired of processing mail addressed to Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble that they had a stamp made especially for rejecting such mail.
I had to see this, so I mailed a letter to the the 850 person town of Bedrock. The results did not disappoint.
(via Mike Hudek’s Tumblog)
Whenever I get a little free time (like now, on vacation) I pull crap off of my shelves and scan it for posterity. Like these two Hanna-Barbera Cartoons calendars from the 90s (I posted 1995 on last summer’s vacation).
Over the years I’ve collected all sorts of stuff that have pop culture images printed on them (skateboards, glasses, calendars, et cetera) and when I got to Hanna-Barbera it seemed to me the studio was in need of some image repair. Calendars were my obsession of that moment, so we put together some incredible design talent and photographers (SpotCo and Mark Hill for 1994, HB in-house talent in 1995) and spiffed ourselves up a little.
Blog History of Frederator’s original short cartoons.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.
Part 7. Part 8.
Our career making cartoons was over before it began. We continued to consult on cable network branding and promoting Nickelodeon’s first original slate of animation, but it looked that our idea of using shorts to find the new generation of stars was going to be another one of those ‘coulda been’ things.
Alan Goodman and I had been involved in more than 10 years of building, branding, and programming cable TV networks and we were a little bored by it. Everyone wanted to know our secrets, but were more interested in paying for programming than branding. Never shy, I kept whining and by February of 92 we were completely exasperated at an endless, annoying negotiation with MTV Networks; we woke up on a Tuesday morning and announced the end of our company after 12 years. No plans, no nothing, just please make it stop.
The very next morning Scott Sassa, then the President of Ted Turner’s entertainment networks (eventually President of the NBC Television Network) and always on top of the best gossip, called and told me he’d heard about our closing, reminding me that Turner had just purchased the venerable Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio. Half listening I glanced down at my cartoon watch; it was 10:35am and, believe it or not, at 12 was Fred Flinstone, 3 was Yogi Bear, 6 was Scooby, and 9 was Huckleberry Hound! (It’s not the watch up above, by the way. When I find it, I’ll snap a pic and replace it.)
“So,” says Scott, “do you want to come out to Hollywood and run Hanna-Barbera for us?”
(More next time.)
Blog History of Frederator’s original short cartoons.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.
Part 7. Part 8.
