The Hanna-Barbera building

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As Hanna-Barbera was exploding with the success of hits like The Flintstones and Huckleberry Hound, renting studio space was on longer an option. In 1963, architect Arthur Froelich designed them a building that, in retrospect, seems to prophecize The Jetsons (1964). With its beige exterior the building languished under the frugal nature of Bill Hanna (and the company’s subsequent owners, Taft Broadcasting), nearly as anonymous as a post office.

Travelling to Los Angeles during the 1980s, I would randomly drive by the building at 3400 Cahuenga Boulevard and gawk like a child. When I almost accidently became president of the company in 1992 I was slightly depressed at its almost willful dullness. But within days of putting up two story high banners of the studio’s classic characters on the front the tour buses were stopping and bragging instead of quickly passing by.

Personnel expansion gave an excuse for a facelift throughout 1994. Supervising producing Buzz Potamkin suggested painting the exteriors in day-glo after thirty years of biege prompting outrage in every corner except mine. Architect Christopher Coe was brought in to emphasize the ‘Googie’ nature of the facades, day-glo type period colors motivated a lawsuit from the neighbors, and Bill Hanna happily came by my office one day and smiled as he told me, “Well, it finally looks like we work in a cartoon studio!”

Click here for a photo gallery of the Hanna-Barbera building.