What if MCA/Universal bought Hanna-Barbara in 1991 instead of Turner Entertainment?

F150Dog said:

Don't forget about Hallmark too and if Hallmark bought H-B, so entire of H-B animation would be destroyed and lost forever, known as dark age for animation. Remember about Funimation.

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Oh yeah. That's still fresh in my brain, and after the dumb decisions Crunchyroll's did, I kinda lost a bit of respect for them. I knew something was up when they added the old Dragon Ball anime in the PREMUIM tier. And now I know this merger was done for naught.

F150Dog said:

If CN didn't exist, Disney likely to create a permanent anime block on Toon Disney/Jetix and eventually Disney XD, also Vault Disney would stay on Disney Channel today instead of discontinued in 2002. It could possible for Fox to get involved in animation business.

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Yeah. In fact, Jetix could actually launch much earlier than 2004. And all Fox had to do was have a stable animation studio, buy out Saban, fix Fox Family Channel, fix the Bchannel and Gchannel among a few more things, and they could've been set.

F150Dog said:

Oh wow, very interesting and I have same feeling about it too.

I do think if Turner didn't bought H-B, but bought by Universal/MCA so they likely to air on Nick and they can launch new Nick version to air retro cartoons. It means less kid games and live action shows in 90s. Disney could acquire some H-B contents to air on Disney Channel during premium era and they may succeed to launch the multiplex sooner in 1991 rather than later (Toon Disney started in 1998), so it means one of Disney Channel's multiplex run H-B shows.

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Yeah. I could see Toon Disney being capable of launching in 1995 with their library, along with some DiC shows and maybe some anime.

F150Dog said:

USA's Cartoon Express could expand into one 24/7 digital channel that is slotted for Cartoon Express.

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Yeah.

Otakufan2006 said:

Oh yeah. That's still fresh in my brain, and after the dumb decisions Crunchyroll's did, I kinda lost a bit of respect for them. I knew something was up when they added the old Dragon Ball anime in the PREMUIM tier. And now I know this merger was done for naught.

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Oops, I made a mistake, I means Filmation that was bought by Hallmark and they destroyed most of their master tapes that forced Entertainment Rights to reconstruct the poor PAL quality of digital version as prepare for DVD releases.

but no worries, I can see about Crunchyroll and yeah, many of Funimation contents behind the paywall.

Otakufan2006 said:

Yeah. In fact, Jetix could actually launch much earlier than 2004. And all Fox had to do was have a stable animation studio, buy out Saban, fix Fox Family Channel, fix the Bchannel and Gchannel among a few more things, and they could've been set.

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Yes, Fox Family Channel may stay longer instead of rebrand to ABC Family and eventually Freeform. When CN doesn't exist, so less impact from heavy competition, but if WB Kids got popular so they could launch own channel, known as delayed CN, so it means CN launched in 2000 instead of 1992, so only difference is no H-B contents. Not sure about popularity of CN/WB Kids today, so it means they have to compete with Universal, Nick, Fox and Disney because WB Kids declined very much later in 2000s.

Comedy Central, MTV, TNN/Spike and Fox could get in adult animation business instead of Adult Swim, so they likely to use Nick cartoons to make animated adult shows.

Otakufan2006 said:

Yeah. I could see Toon Disney being capable of launching in 1995 with their library, along with some DiC shows and maybe some anime.

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Yes, Disney may have 5-6 channels today and possibly to continue the premium version, but treat more like Encore. Disney's plan to launch multiplex channels stopped after Turner bought H-B contents, so it was very big acquisition in 1991 and Disney thought that Turner would buy almost everything and hoard the libraries of cartoon shows in 1990s.