When you think of iconic cartoon characters, there's a good chance that most of them were designed by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera. Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, The Smurfs, Tom & Jerry... they were all creations of the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. So It would make sense that would be a theme park dedicated to these characters; and there was in the 80s in Texas.

The park was called, fittingly, Hanna-Barbera Land.

Not much is known of the parks history; but thanks to people's home videos & photo collections (like this one from Larry Syverson on Flickr), we know the park was only open from 1984 to 1985. It was located in Northern Texas, in Spring, Texas, very close to Houston.

You can see home videos that were uploaded onto YouTube from the users Chris Loper,

delius98 uploaded footage from May 1985,

and this very nice tribute from BenDempster,

There's even achieved footage of Willy Wonka visiting the park that was filmed in 1984 from Texas Archive.

Why did the park close?

There were a few different reasons; the park had to contend with the very popular AstroWorld in Houston, the prices of oil dropping that happened in the 80s, & very little sales of souvenirs & concessions are played a part in the park closing in 1985.

What is Hanna Barbera Land now?

After it closed down in 1985, it became a Splashtown owned by Six Flags & by Wet n Wild. As of 2019, the park is still operating today owned by Six Flags. It's now called the Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Splashtown.

It's clear with more people sharing the photos of the park & home videos of their families going to the park back in the day, people DO miss Hanna-Barbera Land. Even if you scroll through some of the comments in the videos, people have fond memories of the park. It's unclear if it'll ever come back again but... at least we have the memories.

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El Paso Artist Jessie Gandarilla

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