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House of Hanna-Barbera House of Hanna-Barbera

MeTV Toons has announced The House of Hanna-Barbera, a new weekday and Sunday afternoon programming block, will premiere in a three-hour showcase featuring a cavalcade of classic tv icons created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.

The beloved characters appearing on the block will include the urbane, picnic-loving Yogi Bear, the Southern-drawling Huckleberry Hound, super-spy rodent Secret Squirrel, hammy pink puma Snagglepuss, Jinx the cat and his nemeses mice Pixie and Dixie, swamp-surfing Wally Gator, sword-wielding Touché Turtle, and more.

A three-hour primetime sneak peek will air on Sunday, February 16, from 8-11pm ET/PT. The House of Hanna-Barbera series will then continue in a Monday-Friday timeslot, airing 11am-1pm ET/PT, beginning on Monday, February 17. The block will also air on Sunday afternoons from 1-3pm ET/PT beginning on February 23.

The MeTV Toons press release details the Hanna-Barbera legacy:

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are two of the most highly esteemed names in the world of animation, and their studio output is widely regarded as among the most prolific and successful in animation history. After spending decades with MGM creating the Academy Award-winning Tom and Jerry cartoons, the duo founded their own studio in 1957, Hanna-Barbera, and then quickly came to dominate cartoons on television. The Hanna-Barbera Studio produced hundreds of animated series during its 67-year run, introducing many beloved characters that have become permanent pop-culture icons.

Animation historian and Cartoon Brew co-founder Jerry Beck, author of the 2007 publication The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, is also quoted:

“The characters are the backbone of the studio – the personalities, the character designs, the whole Hanna Barbera aesthetic. The lines, written by their top writers, formerly of Warner Bros. and Disney, with quotes we all remember: ‘How much is that gorilla in the window’, ‘Touche away!’, ‘I hate those meeces to pieces!’ These cartoons are filled with the voices that became the soundtrack of our childhood. Daws Butler, Mel Blanc, June Foray, Don Messick on and on – the theme songs by Hoyt Curtin – all classic. The H and B cartoons became the inspiration for other artists and future studios, and pretty much all television animation that followed. And here’s the best news – they are still funny. In fact, they seem to have gotten better over time – I’m laughing at jokes that went way over my head when I saw them as a kid.”

The Feb. 16 preview will feature more than 20 Hanna-Barbera shorts, airing back-to-back, including many of the above, plus the dapper derby-hatted Magilla Gorilla, the flying superhero Atom Ant, and the six-tentacled, musical mollusk Squiddly Diddly.

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