Hanna-Barbera and Studio Museum

Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Studio

3400 Cahuenga Blvd., (at Universal Center Dr.) Hollywood
AAA Map: San Fernando Valley Area, Metropolitan LA
Map Reference: S 22
Freeway Exit: Hollywood Freeway, Lankershim Exit.

exterior: Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Studio

Hanna-Barbera has been in this same building for as long as I can remember, and I am a Los Angeles native. However, it was only recently that the building took on this bizarre and certainly attention-getting color scheme.

Just recently built (it was in the process of being built when I took this picture) is a second building which looks like it was lifted straight out of the backgrounds of The Jetsons. It is similarly bedecked in a loud color scheme, this one being yellow and orange.

Now that H-B is part of the Time Warner media empire, it has become clear that the entire H-B base of operations will move either one of two places: into buildings owned by TW near the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank, or into the Warner TV Animation complex in an office building in Sherman Oaks. Universal Studios has long craved H-B's property, and may make a play to buy the building and the land. However, there is a move afoot to have the H-B building declared a Historical Landmark by the City of Los Angeles, which may stay any plans Universal might have to raze this odd but certainly historic building.

Other points of interest in the area: Universal Studios Tour, CityWalk, John Anson Ford Theatre.

Admission: free to look at the building. I don't think H-B has studio tours, so trying to get into the building is probably inadvisable.

Hollywood Studio Museum

2100 N. Highland Ave., (at Milner, near Hollywood Bowl.) Hollywood
AAA Map: Central and Western Area, Metropolitan LA
Map Reference: B 19
Freeway Exit: Hollywood Freeway, Highland Exit.

In the dawn of the movies, most movies were made in New York and New Jersey. The biggest movie company was Edison, and Edison licensed the use of his inventions, the motion picture camera and projector, to other movie companies. The license was enforced by patent law and by hired goons.

Many small, independent companies chafed at the restrictions and threats, and moved their production companies out from the East Coast. Southern California, with its usually sunny climate (important in the days before indoor movie studio lighting) and wide open spaces beckoned the movie makers. Los Angeles, being the biggest city in the area, was the common destination. LA was beyond the reach of Edison's enforcers, and its free-wheeling attitude was a perfect match for the budding motion picture industry.

exterior: Hollywood Studio Museum

Cecil B. De Mille came out to a suburb of LA, a sleepy place founded by farmers called Hollywood, and rented a barn to house his production company. The company shot the Western "The Squaw Man" in the vicinity, which didn't look too far removed at all from the Old West. "The Squaw Man" was the first movie made in Hollywood, and within a few years the name Hollywood was to become synonymous with the movies.

No animation was filmed in or near this building, but animation fans are movie fans and the history of the movies is vitally important to the history of animated movies. The building was preserved by De Mille, and eventually wound up on the back lot at Paramount Pictures, its resting place for several decades. Movie fans, desirous of a home for memorabilia and historic artifacts, goaded the County of Los Angeles into moving the old barn onto property it owned across from the Hollywood Bowl and establishing it as a museum.

Notice: the Hollywood Studio Museum fell victim to fire in 1997. It is closed until further notice. The memorabilia stored within was largely saved, but some major structural damage occurred to the De Mille Barn itself. Luckily a restoration effort has begun, and hopefully it will be back in operation by Summer, 1998's Hollywood Bowl season.

Other points of interest in the area: Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood Bowl Museum.

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