HANNA BARBERA

In the 1980s, Hanna-Barbera slowly began to cease using their trademark sound effects. This was especially true with the action cartoons of the time such as Sky Commanders. By the 1990s, with cartoons such as Fish Police, Swat Kats and the animated telefilm Arabian Nights, the sound effects were virtually nonexistent, being replaced with newer, digitally-recorded sounds, as well as other cartoon sound effects such as the few early 1990s cartoons continued to use the sound effects, such as Tom & Jerry Kids and Gravedale High. By 1996, each cartoon from the company had its own set of sound effects, including some selected from the classic H-B sound library, as well as some new ones and various sounds cartoons. Several of the classic H-B sound effects still pop up from time to time in Cartoon Network Studios' productions. However, on What's New, Scooby-Doo? and many of the direct-to-video Scooby-Doo animated movies, the Hanna-Barbera sound effects are very rarely used. Exceptions were two direct-to-video movies from 2002-2003, Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire and Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico, which extensively uses the H-B sound effects, along with remixes of the original 1969 Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! background music and the original voice cast (sans the departed Don Messick). This was soon quickly dropped. However, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! seemed to use the H-B sound effects more often than the previous series did. However, since the 1960s, several other cartoon studios have used the sound effects, including, but not limited to, Filmation, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, DiC Entertainment, Film Roman, Spumco, Nickelodeon Animation Studios and many others. By the 21st century, almost every animation studio was using the sound effects. Nowadays, like Hanna-Barbera, they are used sparingly, while some cartoons like Warner Bros. Animation's Krypto the Superdog and Spumco's Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon make heavy use of the classic sound effects, mostly for a retro feel. Some Hanna-Barbera sounds show up in various sound libraries such as Valentino and Audio Network. Hanna-Barbera Records (the studio's short-lived record division) released a set of LP records in the late 1960s entitled Hanna-Barbera's Drop-Ins, which contained quite a few of the classic sound effects. This LP set was only available for radio and TV stations and other production studios. In 1986, H-B released a second sound effect record set; a seven-LP set entitled The Hanna-Barbera Library of Sounds, which, like the previous set, contained most of the classic sound effects. Like the previous set, this was only available to production companies and radio/TV stations. Then in 1993, the last President of the studio, Fred Seibert recalled his early production experiences with early LP releases of the studio's effects and commissioned Sound Ideas released a four-CD set entitled The Hanna-Barbera Sound FX Library, featuring nearly all of the original H-B sound effects used from 1957 to 1990 (including the sounds H-B had borrowed from other studios). The sound effects were digitally remastered, so they would fit easily on new digital soundtracks. A fifth CD was added in 1996, entitled Hanna-Barbera Lost Treasures, and featured more sound effects, including sounds from Space Ghost and The Impossibles. Also in 1994, Rhino Records released a CD containing some of Hanna-Barbera's famous sound effects, titled simply as Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Sound FX, and also included some answering-machine messages and birthday greetings and short stories starring classic Hanna-Barbera characters, and was hosted by Fred Flintstone. In 1996, it was reissued with the Hanna-Barbera's Pic-A-Nic Basket of Cartoon Classics CD set, which also contained three other CDs of H-B TV theme songs and background music and songs from The Flintstones. Here, the CD was relabeled as The Greatest Cartoon Sound Effects Ever