The Banana Splits Movie (2019) and Hanna-Barbera Adaptations that Changed Things Up

On July 7, 1957, the television landscape was changed forever. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera partnered with director George Sidney to found an animation studio called Hanna-Barbera. Through this new studio, they would turn out some of the classic shows that children would watch for years to come. Many generations were raised on characters that the two animators helped usher into the world. As the generations grew into adulthood, they would take the shows and bring new life to them.

Many of the characters that Hanna-Barbera created throughout the years became influential on what would follow. As early as 1959, they had characters like Quick Draw McGraw, Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi Bear gracing television screens. They would soon be joined by The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Top Cat, Snagglepuss, Atom Ant, Space Ghost, Birdman, and the Wacky Racers by the end of the decade. Scooby-Doo would bring them into the 1970s, where Josie and the Pussycats, Speed Buggy, Superfriends, Dinomutt, Hong Kong Phooey, Jabberjaw, and Captain Caveman would also entertain. The 1980s saw a slew of animated adaptations of things like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Snorks, Smurfs, and Pink Panther. There were also sequels to established characters, crossovers, and some prequels. And their final years in the late 1990s saw a creative resurgence when they paired with Cartoon Network to make Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and The Powerpuff Girls.

A bunch of those names might sound familiar. Maybe all of them. Maybe only a few. The point is that many of those characters influenced the people who watched them as kids. They might have seen them when they first aired. They might have seen them in reruns on Cartoon Network or Boomerang through the 1990s, 2000s, or 2010s. Or they might have seen one of the many adaptations that came out on the big screen throughout the years.

Take Scooby-Doo, for example. The franchise began with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which debuted in September 1969. It lasted two seasons until Halloween 1970. The series was followed by The New Scooby-Doo Movies in 1972. The main characters were Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and a talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo. They would ride around in a van called the Mystery Machine and solve mysteries. Each subsequent series would feature at least some of the gang, as well as a selection of other wacky supporting characters that included Scooby-Dum, Scrappy, Vincent Van Ghoul, and Flim-Flam. The two constants were always Shaggy and Scooby. No matter if the franchise went to 13 Ghosts or a prequel where everyone was children, Shaggy and Scooby were always there.

Scooby-Doo is the most prolific of the Hanna-Barbera franchises in terms of movies. The spin-off movies began in 1987 with Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers. It was the first of four animated TV films by the mid-90s. The franchise then started a direct-to-video film series in 1998 with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. That one is still going to this day. Two live action theatrical films were released and were followed by two live action TV films and a live action direct-to-video film. There’s a theatrical animated film coming this year, as well.

The many iterations of Scooby-Doo help to highlight something important with Hanna-Barbera adaptations and continuations. In many cases, when people make new properties with the established characters, they change things up. They grew up on the characters and put their own spin on them. That’s how you end up going from a basic mystery to Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, where the monsters were real. That’s why the Scooby-Doo film turned Scrappy-Doo into a punchline before ultimately revealing him to be the villain. It was a fresh spin on the material that the creatives loved when they grew up.

Another example of this new spin could be seen with Space Ghost. Remember that name from the giant list of Hanna-Barbera characters above? He was a superhero out in space saving worlds from whatever troubles they were facing. His original show ran from 1966 until 1968 before the character was revived for 22 episodes in 1981. It was the next revival that took the character to new places.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast debuted on Cartoon Network in 1994. Instead of being another iteration of Space Ghost fighting off bad guys in space, it grounded things as much as possible. The show was a satire of the talk shows of the time. Space Ghost was now a talk show host. It began as a more serious talk show in the first couple seasons before growing more surreal. Two spin-offs were made. One was a variety show called Cartoon Planet, which also starred Space Ghost. The other was The Brak Show, which spoofed early sitcoms and the tropes within. Space Ghost had gone from a serious kids’ superhero show to a spoof of anything television.

Then there was Birdman. He was another superhero character from early in the Hanna-Barbera days. With the success of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and the use of Birdman in that series, they decided to make another comedy series revolving around him. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law premiered on Adult Swim in September 2001. The show lasted 39 episodes. It would see Harvey Birdman, as the character was now named, defending various Hanna-Barbera characters when they were put on trial for whatever offenses they were accused of. It was an entirely new take on the character that has become as loved as, if not more loved than, the original show when it debuted in 1967.

Outside of the television reimaginings, there have been many Hanna-Barbera characters who got their time to shine on the big screen. The Flintstones got two live-action movies in the 1990s. Scooby-Doo got two live-action theatrical films in the 2000s, and an animated one coming this year. Yogi Bear got a movie and The Smurfs got a few. But there are two movies that stand out for trying something different. They took what were fairly basic Hanna-Barbera creations and spun them in a new way on the big screen. Or, in the case of the second one, for a home video release.

Josie and the Pussycats debuted in Archie Comics the early 1960s. They were licensed by Hanna-Barbera for their own show in 1970. The show was very much like Scooby-Doo. The characters would end up involved in a mystery, they would be chased by the bad guy, then they would turn the bad guy in to the authorities. In 1972, the show was retooled into Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. Their last appearance in the Hanna-Barbera universe would be in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies in 1973. That was it. The two shows were rerun for a few years, then faded from memory. Well, until the episodes were brought back for Boomerang in the 1990s.

Josie and the Pussycats got the film treatment in 2001. It took much of the storytelling inspiration from the two television series that were produced by Hanna-Barbera. Three friends formed a band that played small venues in Riverdale to almost no audience. They were fun little pop rock songs, but the band wasn’t going anywhere. One day, a record executive noticed them and gave them a deal. That deal saw the trio of female friends in the midst of a corporate scheme to mind control the teenagers of America. It was the band being roped into a mystery. The bad guys would chase them in a scene set to a Pussycats song. Then the bad guys were turned in to the authorities.

The mystery itself was what set the Josie and the Pussycats movie apart from the earlier Hanna-Barbera iteration. The animated show was basic spy, mad scientist type of stuff. The struggle would be over a device or coded message or something. The device was also present in the movie. There was a sound board that could insert subliminal messages into songs to change what the audience would be thinking at any given moment. But that device came with a major theme that ran through the entire movie. Josie and the Pussycats had become an anti-capitalism statement.

The idea behind the mind-controlling subliminal messages was that the messages could influence what people would buy. With the everchanging landscape of consumerism, and the changing tastes of people, corporations wanted to control what people would buy. Companies would be able to put out a line, have it saturate the market, then not have to worry about risking making more and having nobody buy the new stock. They could just make something else and switch people’s interests to that new item. It was the big corporate way of gaming the system so that they could get more profits and become richer.

Other than the anti-capitalism storyline where Josie and the Pussycats had to fight against big corporations, the story beats of the movie were still the same as those of the television show. It was an adaptation of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that stayed fairly true to what the Hanna-Barbera cartoon was. It didn’t change the story structure up. There were a group of teenage pop rock stars going up against someone with an evil plan and stopping them in the end. There was only one Hanna-Barbera film adaptation that fully twisted the original on its head.

The Banana Splits Movie premiered at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 before being released to home video in September. It was based on The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, which was a variety show that ran from 1968 to 1970. The variety show featured four anthropomorphic animals: Fleegle the dog, Drooper the lion, Bingo the gorilla, and Snorky the elephant. The animals were part of a pop band that would perform between different, mostly animated, sequences during the hour-long show. The movie featured the same four characters, but came along with a whole different story.

Beth (Dani Kind) gave her son Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) the birthday gift that he wanted more than anything. He was going to get to be in the live studio audience of the taping of an episode of The Banana Splits television show, which was for some reason still a thing in this world. They brought along one of Harley’s classmates, Zoe (Maria Nash), as well as Beth’s husband Mitch (Steve Lund), and her oldest son Austin (Romeo Carere). After the show finished taping, something happened to the animatronic characters. They started killing the audience. It was up to Beth and her family to stop them and save the other children that were attending.

The Banana Splits Movie showcased a major shift in tone from the original television show, one that could only be rivaled by the Space Ghost and Birdman shifts. The writers took what was originally a children’s variety show and turned it into a low budget slasher flick. Something originally intended for a child audience became an adult gore showcase. The friendly animals were sadistic murderers. All because the show must go on, no matter what the cost.

It was an inspired take for an adaptation of a children’s variety show. The characters who were essentially the heroes of the television show were the villains. They went from a kid friendly pop rock band to crazed robotic killers that couldn’t be stopped. The joy was replaced with fear. Genres were flipped, as was the script. This wasn’t The Banana Splits as it was in the 1960s. This was something much more adult, like the people who had watched it when it first aired.

Hanna-Barbera was founded 62 years ago. Since then, they have created, showcased, and reintroduced popular characters for generations of children. They’ve given many different versions of their characters. They’ve adapted a bunch of them into feature films, some of which have become as beloved as the shows they were based on. Some of the adaptations were fairly true to the source, while others took liberties with the material and changed things up. There have been a wide variety of options.

When Hanna-Barbera officially ceased to exist as a studio in 2001, the only thing that remained was their name. Their legacy stayed behind while the studio was absorbed into Warner Bros. The name was the most important part, anyway. It was a stamp of quality children’s programming. It was their legacy. The studio didn’t need to keep putting out new material, though they easily could have, since they had such a vast back catalogue. That legacy is still around today as people appreciate what Hanna-Barbera did. That legacy will stay forever.

Now let’s get to the notes:

• The Banana Splits Movie featured Jenna Saras, who was previously in Death Race 2 (week 9).
• Have you seen The Banana Splits Movie? What did you think? What are some of your favourite Hanna-Barbera characters? What are some of your favourite Hanna-Barbera adaptations? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• If there’s a movie that you think I should be covering for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know in the comments. Or you can tell me on Twitter. Either one works. I’m always open to suggestions. They help bring variety to the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
• There’s an Instagram for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. Check it out sometime.
• After going direct-to-video this week, next week, the Sunday “Bad” Movies will be featuring a television movie. In the 1970s, Kiss was a huge band. They were great at marketing and merchandising as well, which led to a television movie called Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. That’s what will be coming up. See you when that post is out.