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Animated Debate

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

It was the home of the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo and many other beloved television cartoon series.

But now the studio and headquarters of animation pioneer Hanna-Barbera Productions is the focus of a dispute that raises questions about Hollywood history, corporate mega-mergers and whether early ‘60s-style architecture is worth saving.

The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission is scheduled Wednesday to tour the cartoon-lined hallways of Hanna-Barbera to determine whether the Cahuenga Boulevard studio should be designated a city historic-cultural monument. Such status, much weaker than the type of landmark protection in other U.S. cities, could delay for a year any move to demolish the three green and yellow buildings just across the Hollywood Freeway from Universal City.

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“It’s just a little bitty studio that’s done great things,” said Margaret Roberts, assistant for the past 17 years to company co-founder Joseph Barbera. Roberts is trying to rally animation fans nationwide to support the proposal for landmark protection. As a result, she has upset Time Warner Inc., which now owns Hanna-Barbera and is seeking to sell the complex.

Roberts and her allies concede that the design of the buildings may not be very distinguished except for the decorative concrete screens that shade the street-side exterior and a lobby in the original 1962 structure that now resembles a Jetsons’ space-age playroom. Subsequent annexes, packed with voice-over rooms and artists’ computers, have even more of a workaday warehouse flavor.

But Roberts and others stress that the buildings’ significance to the history of television and Los Angeles should overcome any architectural quibbles.

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“A significant piece of America’s popular culture was produced here,” said Peter Moruzzi, a board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy, the city’s leading preservationist organization. Furthermore, he argues, the original two-story building, designed by architect Arthur Froehlich, exemplifies “the optimistic vision of the future that our city is built upon.”

Time Warner, which acquired Hanna-Barbera last year as part of its merger with Turner Broadcasting System, strongly opposes the landmarking proposal. Time Warner is negotiating to sell the 3-acre property to Universal Studios and is planning to move about 130 Hanna-Barbera employees in the near future to a high-rise in the Sherman Oaks Galleria complex already occupied by Warner animators.

If the purchase goes through, Universal intends to use the Hanna-Barbera buildings as extra office space and has no intention of tearing them down, a Universal spokeswoman said Monday. Universal, she said, is studying what effect landmark status might have on the proposed sale.

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Hanna-Barbera will continue as its own division while sharing space and some services with Warner Brothers Television Animation, said Warner spokeswoman Barbara Brogliatti. It is inefficient to keep the two divisions physically separate, she said.

“We consider it a cherished brand, not a cherished building,” Brogliatti said of the Hanna-Barbera studio. She added that very few people are distressed about the move to Sherman Oaks, which will occur regardless of what happens to the landmarking proposal.

However, Sarah Baisley, editor in chief of the Agoura Hills-based Animation Magazine, said the landmarking proposal has won support among many artists who feel that animation is not given the respect it deserves in the entertainment industry. The campaign shows that animation should “not be relegated to kid stuff,” said Baisley, a former Hanna-Barbera publicist. In an editorial in the current issue, Baisley urges readers to contact city officials and express support for the cultural monument status.

Many employees at Hanna-Barbera say they regret the move from the cozy environment that they contend has inspired them to zany excess, from the early days of Ruff and Reddy to the later days of Banana Splits and the current Johnny Bravo. But while they consider the change inevitable, they hope that a city plaque at least will let future visitors know that creative juices were flowing within feet of the busy freeway.

“There’s so much history here,” said Alison Leopold, an ink and paint supervisor who has worked for Hanna-Barbera for 35 years. Most employees are reluctant to speak out, she added, because they don’t want to possibly endanger their jobs.

In arguing against landmark status, Warner officials noted that some of the most important Hanna-Barbera cartoons were conceived at a previous location in Hollywood in the late ‘50s. Besides, they added, the Hanna-Barbera company itself displayed little regard for the buildings in the early ‘80s when it proposed to demolish portions of them under a now abandoned expansion plan.

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William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, both in their 80s, could not be reached for comment Monday.

As MGM animators, they created the Tom and Jerry cartoons and then, in 1957, founded their own company that became synonymous with an animated form of family entertainment rivaled perhaps only by Walt Disney and Warners itself.

Hanna-Barbera characters--just close your eyes and picture Barney Rubble and Huckleberry Hound--were a childhood fixture for baby boomers and now, through Cartoon Network, for boomer offspring. The firm has gone through several previous corporate mergers, including a 1991 sale to Turner.

At a recent hearing of the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, panel Vice President Thomas Hunter Russell asked an attorney for Warners whether the landmark designation would “botch the sale” to Universal. The lawyer, Michael Woodward, hinted that it might, replying that Roberts’ nomination of the buildings was “certainly unexpected.”

In a letter to the commission, Woodward portrayed Roberts as a disgruntled employee who opposed Time Warner’s acquisition of the studio and the move to Sherman Oaks. But, Commissioner Hunter-Russell reprimanded Warners for that criticism of Roberts. “If it were Charles Manson’s mother and it was a good building, we would want to take a look at it,” Hunter-Russell said.

Roberts, 70, said she took on the cause because of the many fans “who were raised on Hanna-Barbera cartoons who have children now who are being raised on Hanna-Barbera cartoons.”

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“I was doing something I wanted to do whether it cost me my job or not,” she added during an interview in Barbera’s office, where she was helping to pack up his many stuffed animal versions of cartoon characters. A slew of Emmy awards lined glass-covered shelves in the room.

It is rare for the Cultural Heritage Commission to designate a building as a cultural-historic monument if the property owner is opposed. Still, the commission rejected Warner’s request that it not even consider the matter.

“The great landmarks of our past around Los Angeles are often parking lots these days,” said Hunter-Russell, who stressed that he had no opinion as yet about the Hanna-Barbera studio.

After Wednesday’s tour, the commission is expected to discuss the matter on Dec. 17.

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