Dr. Quest creates intelligent talking animals by mixing Smurf and Snork DNA with various species. But many of the test subjects, such as Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Magilla Gorilla, Scooby-Doo and Top Cat's gang escaped into the wilds or into the cities. As these animals grew more intelligent, some like Hong Kong Phooey, Quick Draw McGraw, Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel would help humans in keeping the peace as superheroes or secret-agents. Government genetic engineering efforts to create their own heroic talking animals, robots and superheroes ranging from Dynomutt to The Impossibles and Frankenstein Jr. met with mediocre success or just making things worse.
When The Valley of the Dinosaurs was discovered in South America, the U.S. government rushed to create more intelligent creatures, though only resulting in rather docile prehistoric experiments. As things on the surface continued to get worse, humanity's elite bailed from the surface, ranging from going into towering ivory "magic sky castles", under the sea or into space. The people and intelligent animals, prehistoric and otherwise, that were left behind reverted to a more prehistoric culture that still resembled the lost ways—a modern Stone Age, if you will—followed by a slightly less ancient culture.
As humanity declined, the more human-like talking animals would create their own civilizations resembling those of humanity before the fall including Megakat City and an undersea city with the law being kept by Fish Police.
Laff-A-Lympics, Yogi's Gang and Wacky Races confirm this for early Hanna-Barbera.
- How do the later Cartoon Cartoons fit into this?
Hanna Barbera shows did not have a set rule, but has the standard logic that we can see stand true back at MGM, through their own and into some modern attempts at them.
All HB shows exist in one universe, but it is a faulty timestream. The amount of characters who time travel or warp reality are numerous (The Great Gazoo, Shazzan, Jeannie and Babu, The Pastmaster, The Smurfs in the last season, Cupcake, plus one-time baddies like Dr Millennium, Time Slime, Timeatron, etc.) that if one takes the assumption they all co-exist in order to crossover, then all that damage to the timeline has created many cracks and issues, that resulted in times where canon meant something and times where it was irrelevant, because the timeline was changed without anyone realizing.
This, at its' bare minimum, creates reasonable excuses for every continuity problem there ever was or ever will be. This creates the plausible world and why these cartoons sometimes have zero regard for continuity, but sometimes pull it out for pure brilliance (the Herculoids using a ship they captured earlier in the series, the Smurfs being one short of 100 which later revealed because they lost Wild Smurf, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo bringing back Shaggy and Scooby's sisters, Snagglepuss's earlier antics being blamed on his brother Snaggletooth that shows up in a Snagglepuss short, etc)
In addition to the above, perhaps the real life Turner buyout was a crisis crossover to the Hanna-Barbera world? They exiled Cartoon Network's characters out of their world, but the result ripped shells of their former selves into the Cartoon Network and Adult Swim shows. Also explaining why those shows often feature cameos of older cartoons yet the modern continuations of the Hanna-Barbera shows do not return the favor with Cartoon Network references.
Given they do have plans for more than one film (four animated ones at least), they will name drop or cameo other characters in the Scooby one. This they probably will hope for other lesser remembered characters to possibly be used in future films or at the very least provide easter eggs for long time fans in the movie.
- This has practically been confirmed as the plan by Tony Cervone. But the description of the first movie seems to be starting off as a blatant crossover. So it appears more than just name drops and cameos.
- It's unknown if the pushback will alter much from what the first description was, but given the recent developments of the others some of this might change. It also may give them more time to re-promote who else is crossing over, given 2017's Diamond Collection wasn't expected, they've got three years essentially to raise a few character's profiles.
- As of 2018 it seems the plan is to lead to a bigger presence for the characters in theaters it may handle it's possible crossovers in more usual Hanna Barbera developing than a MCU-esque world building. Which is probably the better choice for a lot of the fanbase who wouldn't support a movie series that doesn't feel Hanna Barbera enough.
- As best we know Scoob and the hybrid Tom and Jerry movie basically have two finish lines to cross. There is one that more than likely is just money based. They need to make so much in order to justify WB spending money on more HB projects in the theatrical market. They more than likely won't perform poorly enough to end WB using Scooby and Tom and Jerry in general but tv and dtv production and theatrical production just isn't the same in the pocketbook. The second finish line is more in fandom response. If you want there to be more of this new setting in Scoob people got to care. If you want more hybrid movies with cartoon characters and live actors people got to care. If they make the financial headline but don't get the care, they'll probably try other projects. If they don't get either, the theatrical push is done. The third option of getting the care but not the money is probably unlikely.
- Taken with the above if you are a fan who wants more traditional movies with HB characters but not this new modern setting. You may have a hard choice to make in seeing these movies. If these pushes don't make the money you might not get your chance. But if these movies make the money but not the fan response, you are totally one of the options they would pick to try next. Watch this audience here, what they do may make a decent impact where this goes.
- The covid-19 situation clearly altered this goal slightly given Scoob is bound to make less than intended than the theatrical. That being said given that goal was something that needed to follow both Scoob and the Tom and Jerry feature, we won't know how well it paid off until after that one has passed too. Although at the very least it may have bought them time for another movie, given them getting bumped from theaters wasn't the fault of the properties.
- In general this WMG should note that in the What Could Have Been direction was that Scoob was originally going to be a Darker and Edgier Ultimate Universe but that was altered in favor of more Alternate Continuity Hanna Barbera Crisis Crossover. While no official decision has been announced some WB marketing programs appear to be wanting feedback on what changes fans would like to see in a sequel. So it seems despite the lack of a theatrical release it crossed that line enough for WB to be considering a sequel. What exactly that could be and whether any of the other announcement movies are going to be in the setting is the next chapter of this to be debated. The Tom and Jerry project being live action is clearly not connected but we might also theorize it got changed from an animated feature because they knew they'd want animated Tom and Jerry in one of the sequels. If years of WB sticking Tom and Jerry into other stories has taught us anything, they could clearly help another series out hitching it to their movie as much as adding Dynomutt and Cavey to Scooby will help their series.
Think about it for a moment. A theatrical push would be more expensive and risky, the dtv's are more affordable, have shown to have a built in audience and have been getting away with bringing things back for the last several years. It was not a coincidence Tom and Jerry and Jonny Quest crossed over and later in the year when Scooby-Doo met the super powered Kiss from KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park they tossed in a Jonny Quest reference. It's not even a coincidence they licensed back Kiss and Bunnicula. It's no coincidence Wacky Races (2017) has featured other Hanna Barbera characters. Look for more older characters to return in Direct to Video movies and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?. In several years they'll make a Massive Multiplayer Crossover DTV movie for Hanna Barbera's properties.
- News has come that it does look like the Scoob theatrical is still a Massive Multiplayer Crossover. However based on the comments made by Tim Sheridan on the creating process of Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost it appears WB won't be taking continuity in any of these projects as much beyond Rule of Fun and Rule of Cool. So while you could see crossovers, a modern Shared Universe is probably not the goal going forward.
- Then again Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island continued the plot from where Curse left off with the gang still not having the Mystery Machine. This coming up after the past two Scooby movies had Zombie Island easter eggs embedded in them. While we need more evidence this WMG may not be entirely crazy after all.
. So it's the perfect opportunity to add more shows to HBO Max, such as:- The Huckleberry Hound Show, accompanied by Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks and Hokey Wolf
- Snagglepuss
- Yakky Doodle
- The Ruff & Reddy Show
- Quick Draw McGraw, accompanied by Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and Snooper and Blabber
- Loopy De Loop
- Top Cat
- Wacky Races
- Magilla Gorilla, accompanied by Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long Coyote and Punkin' Puss and Mushmouse
- Peter Potamus, accompanied by Breezly and Sneezly and Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey
- The Atom Ant Show, accompanied by Precious Pupp and The Hillbilly Bears
- Secret Squirrel, accompanied by Squiddly Diddly and Winsome Witch
- The Banana Splits
- Space Ghost
- Shazzan
- Birdman (1967)
- Mighty Mightor
- The Galaxy Trio
- Valley of the Dinosaurs
- Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har
- Touché Turtle and Dum Dum
- Wally Gator
- Jabberjaw
- Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels
- The Funky Phantom
- The Cattanooga Cats
- The Great Grape Ape
- Hong Kong Phooey
- Jossed. HBO Max's lineup for July 2022 mentions nothing about Hanna-Barbera properties. However, Top Cat, Wacky Races, and Penelope Pitstop are all on HBO Max in Latin America, so I guess you win some, you lose some.
