February 14, 2025 • 27 mins
MeTV Toons creator NEAL SABIN takes us behind the scenes of programming at MeTV and MeTV Toons and discusses the star-studded galaxy of classic cartoons included in the new series, THE HOUSE OF HANNA-BARBERA.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Henna
Barbera. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe
(00:32):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Airbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony,
welcome to the fantastic world of Hanna Barbera.
I am Greg Airbar. Thank you for listening and
subscribing and liking and engaging and all the things you
(00:53):
do that are nice to podcasts. And thank you also for those of
you who are interested or have purchased the Hanna Barbera, the
recorded history book now on audio.
But above all that, we have a really, really special guest
who's returning. He has a lot of cool stuff to
talk about. The Internet as a buzz with
positiveness about this fact. I have not seen anything,
(01:18):
anything that's like, we want this, we can't wait.
And that is the House of Hanna Barbera coming.
And this Sunday with a premiere.And then starting Monday through
Friday on ME TV Tunes, the new destination for great, great A1
cartoons we all love. And here with me is the head of
(01:40):
ME TV Tunes, Mr. Neil Sabin. Hello Greg, it's great to be
with you gave me such a build upthere.
I hope I can live up to everything you've now promised.
What is actually your title? Well, my title at the company is
currently Vice Chairman, but I'dsay I created me TV Tunes.
Let's just say it that way. Greater me TV Tunes.
(02:01):
Oh and you know, I don't think there is any venue or platform
or content every every one of those things they say now where
you can find as much of the bestand also the lesser known.
But wow, that's a great show. How did I not know it?
Collection of animation anywhere.
(02:23):
Thank you. That's that was our goal.
That is our goal. It's an ongoing goal and process
and we kind of modeled it Greg after Me TV, the original
network, which is a place where almost 60 different shows appear
every week. It's not 3 or 4 shows that run
for 8 hours a day or whatever. That was by design to bring in
(02:45):
the widest audience possible. And it's the same thing with Me
TV Tunes. We've got everything from
classic anime to Warner Brotherscartoons to Hanna Barbera to,
you know, you're going to start to see, if you haven't already,
some really esoteric or not as well known shows that we think
people are going to like. There's always more and there's
always changes so that we keep it fresh.
(03:07):
Learned a long time ago there's certain, certain shows that you
got it on the air all the time, whether it's Andy Griffith on ME
TV or it's Bugs Bunny on ME TV tunes, and then you spice it up
with some different things. Yeah, and I've read this, you
know, Jerry Beck has mentioned this and of course he, he
appears once in a while on the Tune In With Me show.
And that's always kind of cool. And that's a great show.
(03:28):
And that was sort of paving the way to show that this was a
viable thing. And that's part of both Me TV
and ME TV Tunes. Before we begin our journey into
the new programming, let's bringup two very important things.
First of all, how do people access ME TV tunes and how will
they access it in the future? OK, good question.
(03:50):
I will answer for you. First of all, we are now on over
100 broadcast stations around the country, both full and low
power stations. Got some big markets, we've got
some small markets. And the best way to find out if
it's in your town is to go to metvtunes.com, click on where to
watch, put in your zip code and see where it's available.
(04:12):
It's available on Friendly and Philo, those streaming services
throughout the country. People will say why aren't you
here? Why aren't you there?
Why aren't you on YouTube, TV, Whatever.
Believe me, we're asking. We're pushing.
We want to get on there. It's hard, it's frustrating.
It would be helpful if people continue to ask their providers
(04:35):
to pick us up, because that doesmatter.
We're making it relatively easy for them to do it, and we're
making some progress. I think the audience for this
network has made their voices heard, and we've got some people
looking at us now. And it's all a process.
Nobody moves as fast as we do. We got this network on the air,
you know, with about six months of planning and work.
(04:58):
It takes longer than that to getsome of these big cable and
satellite companies to recognizewhat we're doing and to add it.
But there's more coming, and we are on Spectrum cable in New
York, in Los Angeles and Dallas,and we are now on cable in
Minneapolis on Comcast. And there's more coming.
But the bottom line is go to metvtunes.com, put in your zip
(05:21):
code and see where to watch it and get an antenna so you can
watch this network and a whole lot of other things for free.
Yeah, because essentially it is a free network.
It's just that on the services it's gotten a little more
complicated. We have the Spectrum Los Angeles
account. At first, Spectrum wasn't
letting you record the cartoons side place to call which folks
(05:41):
they want to hear if there's a problem.
And they were very responsive. And now everything is
recordable. And that's another thing too,
viewers who love a show. And I know we mentioned this on
the last one, but I want to emphasize it.
If you love a show, it's just like with I want to see this on
DVD, you know, with Warner Archive.
In that case, don't wait, eitherpreordered or get it right away
(06:04):
because that's what the numbers people look at.
And if they don't sell enough, then they say, oh, nobody wants
it. Sure, we want it, but we don't
understand that. And in your case, the
measurement of what the viewership is is watch it live
as rule one or up to three days is fine.
Yes. And then 7 is OK, right?
(06:26):
Yeah, watching live is obviouslybest in the 7 + 3.
The network is not nationally rated yet.
We're working with Nielsen on that.
But it helps to have people watching it even though the
network isn't rated because Nielsen will then know that
there are homes viewing this newchannel and it takes Nielsen
time to find them all too. So I don't want to go into too
much of what's going on with Nielsen, but their negotiations
(06:48):
there too. It's just if you can watch it
live, if you can request it by your service is great.
And if all else fails, get an antenna.
And an outdoor antenna is alwaysbest.
Just like when, you know, we grew up in the 70s, if some of
us were growing up in the 70s or80s, if you had an antenna
outside your house, you know, itwas all free and it all looks
beautiful. And you can do it again and have
(07:09):
a switch between your streaming services and your antenna and
you'll be all. When we were growing up, those
of us who were growing up in the60s, seventies, 80s, and we had
the UHF's which became the superstation, some of them
became the superstations to us. That's where most of our
favorite shows that were in on Saturday morning were, in my
(07:30):
case, Flying None, Bewitched, Jeannie Gilligan, I Love Lucy,
Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke. Most of the places you'd find
them were on the UHF channels. Well, they.
Were on the independence and then most the.
Independence, too, yeah. The whole strategy, because I
was an independent TV programmer, Greg, was you
heavily programmed to kids with cartoons and young skewing
(07:51):
sitcoms because kids were alwaysthe early adapters, although we
didn't have that term back then.And they would bring parents to
the sets, to those channels thattheir parents never heard of
because they had double digits. Unless you were in a market like
Peoria, IL where everything was always UHF.
It was like the kids found that Channel 47 on UHF where they had
all the cartoons and then the programming would transition to
(08:15):
more adult fare later in the daywith the hope that the channel
was left on or discovered by thekids and the parents would find
it. And along with that, success
with those shows, with the independence stations is, and
you probably had better access to it than I ever would have
having been there, is that they say kids only want to see other
(08:36):
kids, which is true to a point. You know, researchers say kids
only want to see other kids in TV shows and sitcoms and kids
only want to see new stuff. When we were watching Dick Van
Dyke and The Honeymooners and Lucy, those shows were several
generations back. And so the myth of kids won't
watch something old. No.
Kids will watch something good and something that appeals to
(08:58):
them. Yeah.
And to transition to what we're doing on ME TV Tunes and all,
it's not geared towards today's kids.
We have very few children watching and we know that from
what our numbers are like on ME TV with the animation and in
Chicago, ME TV Tunes is rated and I can see that they're
virtually no kids watching. It is a baby boomer and 2554
(09:21):
kind of a network, which is exactly what we wanted and how
we're pitching it to advertisers.
But I mean, my kids were raised on this stuff too.
The generation after passes it along and.
Yeah, there's that going on. It's just most kids today are on
YouTube and other apps and watching short little content.
And they, it's too bad. I mean, this network can help
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bring people back to broadcast TV as parents and grandparents
introduce their kids to these shows.
And there's that joy of passing it down generation to
generation. So there is some of that, but
it's not a kids network. And as you know, many of these
cartoons like theatricals were not produced for kids.
And the Hanna Barbera stuff, while it was a lot of it was
(10:03):
kids, the Yogi Bears, the Huck Hounds, all of that were
produced for multi generational and the writing, as Jerry Beck
noted it. And when he was talking about
this network, there are jokes inthere and and scenes and stories
that went over your head when you were a kid, but now you get.
And that's why we're so glad to have all these Hanna Barbera
cartoons joining us. And it's taken a long time to
(10:25):
get them. People have wondered why isn't
Huckleberry Hound on yet or YogiBear?
It's because they're all being restored by Warner Brothers.
They've done an excellent job, but it takes time to get it
done. Speaking of Huckleberry Hound,
maybe we can step into the homeyyet large library of The House
of Hanna Barbera that's going topremiere this Sunday.
(10:45):
In prime time with a special. Right this special.
This Sunday from 8:00 to 11:00 is when we're going to do a
little sneak peek of it, but it's 11A to 1:00 PM Eastern and
Pacific Time, A2 hour block, andthat begins on Monday the 17th.
We've got another interesting thing.
Hey there, it's Yogi Bear. We're running.
That theatrical feature is a lead in from 6:00 to 8:00
(11:07):
Eastern and Pacific on this Sunday too.
And that's a fond memory of minefrom when I was a kid.
It was a big deal when that cameout.
Hey there, It's Yogi Bear was Hanna Barbera's first full
length theatrical movie. It is historically significant
because many of the Disney veterans and veterans from other
(11:28):
studios worked on it. They worked on many of the TV
cartoons as well. But for the feature, they needed
to bring in a lot of people. And it did really well too.
I mean, it was highly publicizedwith Kellogg's and everything.
They went for a much more lush style.
So you're going to see a beautiful Jellystone Park.
(11:48):
Not that the ones on the regularcartoon aren't, but they're more
of the TV, the UPA, the stylizedgorgeous too.
But these are lush. The animation is very fluid and
it has Doz Butler and Don Messick, Julie Bennett doing the
voices and wonderful songs by Oscar winning Ray Gilbert and
(12:10):
then the theme is written by David Gates of Bread.
Oh, really? I didn't know that.
That's great. Yeah, this was when he was.
He was one of those songwriters Columbia Screen Gems was using
at 1650 Broadway. That was all what the Monkeys
was, and that's why Making With the Magilla was released as a
single from Magilla Gorilla. So it's got a wonderful score.
(12:32):
It's really worth seeing again if you haven't seen it.
And seeing it for the first timewill kind of be a revelation.
And that's part of the new schedule, too, is that you're
going to be running the originalYogi Bear show.
Right, that one has been finished and restored and will
be part of our schedule along with the Mid Gilla Gorilla show.
The Huckleberry Hom full half hour show will probably not
(12:53):
premiere until the late spring, early summer.
It's still being worked on and the one everybody keeps asking
about is Quick Draw McGraw. There are still music issues
with that one that Warner's working on.
They know we want it. But the Auggie Doggie and Doggy
Daddy cartoons and the quick John McGraw and the third one
was it snooper and blabber? You know, that was the one.
(13:14):
I think we have some of those, but Auggie Doggie we don't have
yet, and so they'll always be some people after we put on 40
different Hanna Barbera, why don't you have this?
That's the old joke, you know, with the drowning kid in the
ocean and then the lifeguard saism, and then his grandmother
says when he went in the water, he had a.
Hat, right? Yeah.
Yeah. But believe me, we know we're
(13:36):
fans. We're trying to get it all done
and get it on. But we've got a pretty good list
of characters that are going to be in this House of Hanna
Barbera. I mean, we will have the
Huckleberry Hound shorts. You've got Secret Squirrel,
Loopy De Loop, Snaggle Puss, Winsome Witch, you know, it goes
on and on. Wally Gator, Hillbilly Bears,
Adam Ant, Hokey Wolf, Precious Pup, Magilla, of course, Peter
(14:00):
Ponomus, Yippie, Yippie a Booey,and a few other surprises.
And down the road we'll see if we can format in things like
Wacky Races, because those segments are longer than some of
these others. It's not as easy as you think to
just put on a compilation show like this.
There are all kinds of timing issues and scheduling issues.
We'll have a couple of differentformats that will rotate.
(14:21):
So every every day. It won't start with Yogi Bear.
You know, there'll be a mix up of stuff that's in there to keep
it fresh. You know, we've got hundreds of
cartoons, so it's going to be a lot of fun and they did a great
job. If you've seen the promo with
the graphics and all of that, you know our people love this
stuff and it's obvious when you watch the network.
So Huckleberry Hound cartoons will be part of it.
(14:42):
Will it be see because on video we only got really the 1st
season but there were more afterthat.
I believe so, yeah. I think we had more than the
first. Season that was the same with
Pixie and Dixie and Yogi Bear. We got a limited supply and
there are many, many more. So if you have the DVD, you
don't have them all. So it's worth it for so many
(15:04):
reasons. Huckleberry Hound, you know, you
mentioned the adult appeal. Huckleberry Hound is really not
as well remembered for the adultaudience that he had and how it
brought a sophistication to animation for television that
was revolutionary. Others took it and ran with it
and got even more snappy, more grown up, more multi level.
(15:27):
But it was first with Huckleberry Hound.
He had that droll, dry sense of humor.
Colleges had fraternities that made him the mascot.
He was the darling, just like Beanie and Cecil was, you know,
with Einstein watching and stuff.
So Huck really deserves this exposure and it's really cool.
(15:48):
Great. I'm, I'm learning things from
you I didn't know. And maybe you will know this
because I have a childhood memory, that the first
Huckleberry Hound show, which bythe way, in most markets ran at
6:00 or 6:30 or 7:00 at night because it was aimed at a
general audience and not just kids.
As you mentioned in the humor and the writing.
The first iteration of that showwas Yogi Bear, one of the three
(16:11):
cartoons they would show on that, and then they spun it out.
Yeah, Yogi got his own show. Yaki and Snagglepuss were part
of the 61 show, and then they replaced Yogi with Hokey Wolf in
61 I. Loving it and reliving that my
childhood like a lot of people have.
And I believe that Warner is restoring the Huckleberry Hound
(16:32):
show without Yogi in it. The ones post I don't know yet.
I haven't seen it, but we'll seeit.
I think they're going to deliverit to us in March or April and
then it'll take us a month or two to get it on the air.
In the meantime, on House of Hanna Barbera, we will get Pixie
and Dixie, yes, and we will get the original Yogi's.
Yes, the segments are all done. They're working on the bridges
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and the opens and closes, I think.
And then you've got the trio of Touché Turtle, Wally, Gator, and
Lippy and Hardy. Yeah, Lippy the Lion got axed on
the Sunday night first show for time.
We don't have time but it will be in on Monday probably.
Those are their shortest cartoons because those were
created when local stations wanted something they could
place anywhere. Yeah.
(17:16):
And in hosted cartoon shows likewhat Tune In With Me is supposed
to be a tribute to, yeah, they were sold to stations around the
country to be segments of a bigger show.
And what to look for in those isthe brevity of them.
And yet they have to set up a situation so fast.
They have to give you a little bit of the characters.
Each one of these is just a fascinating thing.
(17:38):
Yaki Doodle, which was originally, I think Red Coffee.
It goes back to Tom and Jerry, and you're showing Tom and Jerry
so you can see little. That's the cool thing too, is
that you've got these great Tom and Jerry's, so you can see
where a lot of Hanna Barbera's style came from, a lot of their
great voice actors. And also on your schedule you've
(17:58):
got, besides Yogi Bear. Am I correct in that Wait till
Your Father Gets Home is going to become a nightly show?
Yeah, but right now at 11:00 Eastern, it'll be wait till your
father gets home. I'll be starting soon.
We've had the Flintstones in there for a little while.
We're going to put that show in on a nightly basis for a while.
Has that been a pleasant surprise because so many people
(18:20):
either didn't see it or are seeing it with new eyes now?
Yeah, we've gotten a lot of buzzabout it.
Again, I don't have a lot of ratings.
I just have Chicago ratings for it.
It does fine. The restoration that Warner did
was terrific and people are really enjoying the show and
seeing how it was the precursor to all the adult animation that
Vox did. Kind of a show before it's time.
(18:41):
You know, it was created for that prime time access rule
where the networks had to give back 63730 Eastern Pacific to
the stations and it was done in syndication for that I believe.
And it was like probably not positioned properly and.
No, no, it was. That's the way I feel about the
Ed Grimley cartoon that you showweekly.
(19:04):
Because it is really good and it's got all these SCTV people
in it and Count Floyd and, and it should have been on before
SNL or Sunday at 11:30 or in prime time.
They totally wasted it because Ihadn't seen it in a while.
It's really, really great. You know, again, you're giving
this opportunity to rediscover these shows.
(19:24):
Yes, you're right. You know, with SNL celebrating
50 years, you know he was a SNL character.
So too. I just wish that there were more
episode counts. I mean, one of the things, Greg,
that people wonder about is why we keep changing out the
schedule pretty frequently in some time periods.
And like, oh, Frankenstein Junior is off the air.
And, you know, it's because there's only 13 or 18 or 20 of
(19:48):
some of these shows. So we tend to run through them
once or twice, change them out, or in the case of something
like, you know, Michaela gorilla, we'll run through all
the Mcgilla gorillas maybe twice.
Then we'll go to Peter Ponamus and run them twice, and we'll go
back and forth. And it keeps things fresher.
And it allows us also in some cases to add more shows.
By saying, OK, we're going to rest dastardly and muttly now
(20:09):
because we're going to run Pac-Man or, you know, I'm just
picking something out of the blue.
So people need to understand we're in this again for the long
haul and we have to keep it fresh so we can't throw
everything on the air all at once.
We picked up the Ninja Turtles, which is a big deal for a big
portion of our audience, and so we're going to put that in.
Something's going to have to come off the air to get it in.
(20:30):
That's a good point too, is thatas somebody who was in the
independent stations with syndication, I remember as a kid
saying what happened to Gilliganor what happened to this or
that, that I called the station once, programming.
Then I said, why isn't this there?
He says it'll be back, don't worry, we're resting it.
Can you explain what resting means?
(20:52):
Well, what resting does is it rests the show.
It's like, first of all, you like to take things off the air
at times before it starts to fade.
You always want to leave them wanting more.
That's part of the strategy there.
It could also be that the station only has so many runs
telecast of the show in their contract and they want to save
them a lot of time. Stations would take things off
(21:13):
in the summer and put on something cheaper or not as
successful because the audience is smaller in the summer.
And then when they bring back a show, it's newer feeling, it's
fresher feeling. It's, oh, it's back.
I love this show and it gives some kind of a little twinkle to
something. There's less of that now than
there used to be going on because of the way shows are
(21:35):
sold now for broadcast. I show like Seinfeld has barter
in it everyday, has commercials from the distributor in it, and
they have to run. So you can't really take
Seinfeld off for the summer, hasto run continuously.
But we're more old school with, you know, the cartoons and
changing them out to keep them fresh.
And I can hear people screaming like, why don't you change more
(21:56):
on ME TV? And there is a reason that not
that much of the schedule changes on ME TV.
It's because it's working really, really well.
In this world of hundreds, maybethousands of choices that people
have. When something's working really
well, you don't want to disrupt the audience unless there's a
significant reason that you believe the change you're going
to make is going to materially change the ratings and make them
(22:19):
better and materially change them in an upward motion.
Also, because there's so many outlets for all these shows,
they're not so cheap. So any decision to acquire
another show and again, broadcasting is a business.
All of this is a business. We spend a lot of money on the
programming and we got to get more money in for the ads, a lot
more than what we spent for the programming to make this work
(22:40):
because you're getting it for free.
Have you attracted new advertisers now with all the
programming? Has Me TV tunes have been
successful in that way too. Well, again, because it isn't
rated, there's certain advertisers that won't buy you
until you're rated. And we couldn't be rated by
Nielsen until we had enough affiliates and enough
distribution. So that's coming, but I'll give
you an example. Burger King is on Me TV Tunes
(23:01):
now and people posted on Facebook.
I just saw Burger King on On Me TV Tunes and they started
talking about it. And of course, we're showing
that to Burger King and saying what other networks with what
other audiences are watching thecommercials and rooting so much
for success that when they saw Burger King on there instead of
just, you know, 100 pots and pans for $50, they're excited
(23:25):
about it. So we're going to, you know, a
lot of them, oh, we can't buy itbecause you're not rated and
it's cartoons, this, that, whatever.
It's like, no, we want to show you that this audience is there
to support this network and theywill buy your products and they
will notice your things if you put it on this network.
It's not going to be easy, but we're going to do it.
And I, we had one client, they were a direct response client,
(23:46):
you know, one where you make a phone call and the agency said
we're getting really good response from me TV tunes, but
we don't feel it's the appropriate programming for our
product. And I just wanted to, you know,
go, what do you mean? It's working, but it's not
appropriate for that is a buyer who thinks her product or his
(24:07):
product is the best thing going and that running it in Bugs
Bunny cartoons is beneath them. I so hear that my favorite is
the the little steppy machine that you go step step steppy
thing. Get a kick.
Out of that. Pays the bills.
Pays the bills. Yeah, you got it.
But I'll tell you, if you like any of the products you see,
(24:28):
please order them through the number that's on the screen.
That will help keep the network healthy.
That's true. That's true.
And if you don't want one, buy it as a gift.
There you go. Thank you.
Who doesn't need pots and pans, you know?
Yeah, go to Burger King and say you saw it on me TV too.
You know what? There are Whopper Wednesdays
where you can get a great deal on Whoppers and they're they're
(24:51):
grilled, not fried, and you get vegetables, more vegetables with
them. So I've always preferred Burger
King. No, that's great.
And they get it. So in general, though, you are
looking like this was also worthit.
I knew it. It's going great.
You must feel a sense of cautious pride.
Cautious optimism that we're going to get the distribution we
(25:12):
need, to get the advertisers we need and the audience we need to
make it a super duper home run. We know it's the most loyal,
loving, engaged fan base of any of our networks and that people
are rooting for us to be successful, that they're
spreading the word that they're going to metvtunes.com to find
(25:34):
out how to watch it and getting antennas or signing up for
friendly or some other way of watching this network.
And we appreciate everybody's loyalty to this, their patience,
their understanding, their support, their promotion, all
that other stuff. And you're one of the guys,
Greg, helping us big time. Thank you.
Oh, you're very, very welcome. And you know, we we kidded a
(25:55):
little bit about, you know, why don't you have this and why
don't you have that? But you know, those are the
loyal viewers. It's just like you have like my
mom, you know, she'd say, oh, this is wonderful, but what what
happened to that? You still love them and
appreciate that. And you want to provide all that
you possibly can and. And I look at all of them.
(26:16):
I see all the requests that comein and all that.
So just be careful when you poston social media because Neil's
watching. Well, I'm glad you're watching
and we're going to be watching and this is what we've wanted
for a really long time. I leave it on even if I'm doing
other things or I'm working. I love the ambiance of having
(26:39):
cartoons on daytime cartoons, nighttime ones and Saturday
morning. It's that sound.
It truly is a wonderful thing. And I really, really thank you
for all you're doing and you andthanks to Hanna Barbera 'cause
you know, they did stuff that stood the task of time.
And thank you so very much. And hopefully we'll get together
(27:01):
again. We can talk about the new stuff.
We will and we shall, and I thank you.
Thanks everybody for listening and until then, bye bye.
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hanna and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many
thanks for listening.
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Henna
Barbera. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe
(00:32):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Airbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony,
welcome to the fantastic world of Hanna Barbera.
I am Greg Airbar. Thank you for listening and
subscribing and liking and engaging and all the things you
(00:53):
do that are nice to podcasts. And thank you also for those of
you who are interested or have purchased the Hanna Barbera, the
recorded history book now on audio.
But above all that, we have a really, really special guest
who's returning. He has a lot of cool stuff to
talk about. The Internet as a buzz with
positiveness about this fact. I have not seen anything,
(01:18):
anything that's like, we want this, we can't wait.
And that is the House of Hanna Barbera coming.
And this Sunday with a premiere.And then starting Monday through
Friday on ME TV Tunes, the new destination for great, great A1
cartoons we all love. And here with me is the head of
(01:40):
ME TV Tunes, Mr. Neil Sabin. Hello Greg, it's great to be
with you gave me such a build upthere.
I hope I can live up to everything you've now promised.
What is actually your title? Well, my title at the company is
currently Vice Chairman, but I'dsay I created me TV Tunes.
Let's just say it that way. Greater me TV Tunes.
(02:01):
Oh and you know, I don't think there is any venue or platform
or content every every one of those things they say now where
you can find as much of the bestand also the lesser known.
But wow, that's a great show. How did I not know it?
Collection of animation anywhere.
(02:23):
Thank you. That's that was our goal.
That is our goal. It's an ongoing goal and process
and we kind of modeled it Greg after Me TV, the original
network, which is a place where almost 60 different shows appear
every week. It's not 3 or 4 shows that run
for 8 hours a day or whatever. That was by design to bring in
(02:45):
the widest audience possible. And it's the same thing with Me
TV Tunes. We've got everything from
classic anime to Warner Brotherscartoons to Hanna Barbera to,
you know, you're going to start to see, if you haven't already,
some really esoteric or not as well known shows that we think
people are going to like. There's always more and there's
always changes so that we keep it fresh.
(03:07):
Learned a long time ago there's certain, certain shows that you
got it on the air all the time, whether it's Andy Griffith on ME
TV or it's Bugs Bunny on ME TV tunes, and then you spice it up
with some different things. Yeah, and I've read this, you
know, Jerry Beck has mentioned this and of course he, he
appears once in a while on the Tune In With Me show.
And that's always kind of cool. And that's a great show.
(03:28):
And that was sort of paving the way to show that this was a
viable thing. And that's part of both Me TV
and ME TV Tunes. Before we begin our journey into
the new programming, let's bringup two very important things.
First of all, how do people access ME TV tunes and how will
they access it in the future? OK, good question.
(03:50):
I will answer for you. First of all, we are now on over
100 broadcast stations around the country, both full and low
power stations. Got some big markets, we've got
some small markets. And the best way to find out if
it's in your town is to go to metvtunes.com, click on where to
watch, put in your zip code and see where it's available.
(04:12):
It's available on Friendly and Philo, those streaming services
throughout the country. People will say why aren't you
here? Why aren't you there?
Why aren't you on YouTube, TV, Whatever.
Believe me, we're asking. We're pushing.
We want to get on there. It's hard, it's frustrating.
It would be helpful if people continue to ask their providers
(04:35):
to pick us up, because that doesmatter.
We're making it relatively easy for them to do it, and we're
making some progress. I think the audience for this
network has made their voices heard, and we've got some people
looking at us now. And it's all a process.
Nobody moves as fast as we do. We got this network on the air,
you know, with about six months of planning and work.
(04:58):
It takes longer than that to getsome of these big cable and
satellite companies to recognizewhat we're doing and to add it.
But there's more coming, and we are on Spectrum cable in New
York, in Los Angeles and Dallas,and we are now on cable in
Minneapolis on Comcast. And there's more coming.
But the bottom line is go to metvtunes.com, put in your zip
(05:21):
code and see where to watch it and get an antenna so you can
watch this network and a whole lot of other things for free.
Yeah, because essentially it is a free network.
It's just that on the services it's gotten a little more
complicated. We have the Spectrum Los Angeles
account. At first, Spectrum wasn't
letting you record the cartoons side place to call which folks
(05:41):
they want to hear if there's a problem.
And they were very responsive. And now everything is
recordable. And that's another thing too,
viewers who love a show. And I know we mentioned this on
the last one, but I want to emphasize it.
If you love a show, it's just like with I want to see this on
DVD, you know, with Warner Archive.
In that case, don't wait, eitherpreordered or get it right away
(06:04):
because that's what the numbers people look at.
And if they don't sell enough, then they say, oh, nobody wants
it. Sure, we want it, but we don't
understand that. And in your case, the
measurement of what the viewership is is watch it live
as rule one or up to three days is fine.
Yes. And then 7 is OK, right?
(06:26):
Yeah, watching live is obviouslybest in the 7 + 3.
The network is not nationally rated yet.
We're working with Nielsen on that.
But it helps to have people watching it even though the
network isn't rated because Nielsen will then know that
there are homes viewing this newchannel and it takes Nielsen
time to find them all too. So I don't want to go into too
much of what's going on with Nielsen, but their negotiations
(06:48):
there too. It's just if you can watch it
live, if you can request it by your service is great.
And if all else fails, get an antenna.
And an outdoor antenna is alwaysbest.
Just like when, you know, we grew up in the 70s, if some of
us were growing up in the 70s or80s, if you had an antenna
outside your house, you know, itwas all free and it all looks
beautiful. And you can do it again and have
(07:09):
a switch between your streaming services and your antenna and
you'll be all. When we were growing up, those
of us who were growing up in the60s, seventies, 80s, and we had
the UHF's which became the superstation, some of them
became the superstations to us. That's where most of our
favorite shows that were in on Saturday morning were, in my
(07:30):
case, Flying None, Bewitched, Jeannie Gilligan, I Love Lucy,
Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke. Most of the places you'd find
them were on the UHF channels. Well, they.
Were on the independence and then most the.
Independence, too, yeah. The whole strategy, because I
was an independent TV programmer, Greg, was you
heavily programmed to kids with cartoons and young skewing
(07:51):
sitcoms because kids were alwaysthe early adapters, although we
didn't have that term back then.And they would bring parents to
the sets, to those channels thattheir parents never heard of
because they had double digits. Unless you were in a market like
Peoria, IL where everything was always UHF.
It was like the kids found that Channel 47 on UHF where they had
all the cartoons and then the programming would transition to
(08:15):
more adult fare later in the daywith the hope that the channel
was left on or discovered by thekids and the parents would find
it. And along with that, success
with those shows, with the independence stations is, and
you probably had better access to it than I ever would have
having been there, is that they say kids only want to see other
(08:36):
kids, which is true to a point. You know, researchers say kids
only want to see other kids in TV shows and sitcoms and kids
only want to see new stuff. When we were watching Dick Van
Dyke and The Honeymooners and Lucy, those shows were several
generations back. And so the myth of kids won't
watch something old. No.
Kids will watch something good and something that appeals to
(08:58):
them. Yeah.
And to transition to what we're doing on ME TV Tunes and all,
it's not geared towards today's kids.
We have very few children watching and we know that from
what our numbers are like on ME TV with the animation and in
Chicago, ME TV Tunes is rated and I can see that they're
virtually no kids watching. It is a baby boomer and 2554
(09:21):
kind of a network, which is exactly what we wanted and how
we're pitching it to advertisers.
But I mean, my kids were raised on this stuff too.
The generation after passes it along and.
Yeah, there's that going on. It's just most kids today are on
YouTube and other apps and watching short little content.
And they, it's too bad. I mean, this network can help
(09:42):
bring people back to broadcast TV as parents and grandparents
introduce their kids to these shows.
And there's that joy of passing it down generation to
generation. So there is some of that, but
it's not a kids network. And as you know, many of these
cartoons like theatricals were not produced for kids.
And the Hanna Barbera stuff, while it was a lot of it was
(10:03):
kids, the Yogi Bears, the Huck Hounds, all of that were
produced for multi generational and the writing, as Jerry Beck
noted it. And when he was talking about
this network, there are jokes inthere and and scenes and stories
that went over your head when you were a kid, but now you get.
And that's why we're so glad to have all these Hanna Barbera
cartoons joining us. And it's taken a long time to
(10:25):
get them. People have wondered why isn't
Huckleberry Hound on yet or YogiBear?
It's because they're all being restored by Warner Brothers.
They've done an excellent job, but it takes time to get it
done. Speaking of Huckleberry Hound,
maybe we can step into the homeyyet large library of The House
of Hanna Barbera that's going topremiere this Sunday.
(10:45):
In prime time with a special. Right this special.
This Sunday from 8:00 to 11:00 is when we're going to do a
little sneak peek of it, but it's 11A to 1:00 PM Eastern and
Pacific Time, A2 hour block, andthat begins on Monday the 17th.
We've got another interesting thing.
Hey there, it's Yogi Bear. We're running.
That theatrical feature is a lead in from 6:00 to 8:00
(11:07):
Eastern and Pacific on this Sunday too.
And that's a fond memory of minefrom when I was a kid.
It was a big deal when that cameout.
Hey there, It's Yogi Bear was Hanna Barbera's first full
length theatrical movie. It is historically significant
because many of the Disney veterans and veterans from other
(11:28):
studios worked on it. They worked on many of the TV
cartoons as well. But for the feature, they needed
to bring in a lot of people. And it did really well too.
I mean, it was highly publicizedwith Kellogg's and everything.
They went for a much more lush style.
So you're going to see a beautiful Jellystone Park.
(11:48):
Not that the ones on the regularcartoon aren't, but they're more
of the TV, the UPA, the stylizedgorgeous too.
But these are lush. The animation is very fluid and
it has Doz Butler and Don Messick, Julie Bennett doing the
voices and wonderful songs by Oscar winning Ray Gilbert and
(12:10):
then the theme is written by David Gates of Bread.
Oh, really? I didn't know that.
That's great. Yeah, this was when he was.
He was one of those songwriters Columbia Screen Gems was using
at 1650 Broadway. That was all what the Monkeys
was, and that's why Making With the Magilla was released as a
single from Magilla Gorilla. So it's got a wonderful score.
(12:32):
It's really worth seeing again if you haven't seen it.
And seeing it for the first timewill kind of be a revelation.
And that's part of the new schedule, too, is that you're
going to be running the originalYogi Bear show.
Right, that one has been finished and restored and will
be part of our schedule along with the Mid Gilla Gorilla show.
The Huckleberry Hom full half hour show will probably not
(12:53):
premiere until the late spring, early summer.
It's still being worked on and the one everybody keeps asking
about is Quick Draw McGraw. There are still music issues
with that one that Warner's working on.
They know we want it. But the Auggie Doggie and Doggy
Daddy cartoons and the quick John McGraw and the third one
was it snooper and blabber? You know, that was the one.
(13:14):
I think we have some of those, but Auggie Doggie we don't have
yet, and so they'll always be some people after we put on 40
different Hanna Barbera, why don't you have this?
That's the old joke, you know, with the drowning kid in the
ocean and then the lifeguard saism, and then his grandmother
says when he went in the water, he had a.
Hat, right? Yeah.
Yeah. But believe me, we know we're
(13:36):
fans. We're trying to get it all done
and get it on. But we've got a pretty good list
of characters that are going to be in this House of Hanna
Barbera. I mean, we will have the
Huckleberry Hound shorts. You've got Secret Squirrel,
Loopy De Loop, Snaggle Puss, Winsome Witch, you know, it goes
on and on. Wally Gator, Hillbilly Bears,
Adam Ant, Hokey Wolf, Precious Pup, Magilla, of course, Peter
(14:00):
Ponomus, Yippie, Yippie a Booey,and a few other surprises.
And down the road we'll see if we can format in things like
Wacky Races, because those segments are longer than some of
these others. It's not as easy as you think to
just put on a compilation show like this.
There are all kinds of timing issues and scheduling issues.
We'll have a couple of differentformats that will rotate.
(14:21):
So every every day. It won't start with Yogi Bear.
You know, there'll be a mix up of stuff that's in there to keep
it fresh. You know, we've got hundreds of
cartoons, so it's going to be a lot of fun and they did a great
job. If you've seen the promo with
the graphics and all of that, you know our people love this
stuff and it's obvious when you watch the network.
So Huckleberry Hound cartoons will be part of it.
(14:42):
Will it be see because on video we only got really the 1st
season but there were more afterthat.
I believe so, yeah. I think we had more than the
first. Season that was the same with
Pixie and Dixie and Yogi Bear. We got a limited supply and
there are many, many more. So if you have the DVD, you
don't have them all. So it's worth it for so many
(15:04):
reasons. Huckleberry Hound, you know, you
mentioned the adult appeal. Huckleberry Hound is really not
as well remembered for the adultaudience that he had and how it
brought a sophistication to animation for television that
was revolutionary. Others took it and ran with it
and got even more snappy, more grown up, more multi level.
(15:27):
But it was first with Huckleberry Hound.
He had that droll, dry sense of humor.
Colleges had fraternities that made him the mascot.
He was the darling, just like Beanie and Cecil was, you know,
with Einstein watching and stuff.
So Huck really deserves this exposure and it's really cool.
(15:48):
Great. I'm, I'm learning things from
you I didn't know. And maybe you will know this
because I have a childhood memory, that the first
Huckleberry Hound show, which bythe way, in most markets ran at
6:00 or 6:30 or 7:00 at night because it was aimed at a
general audience and not just kids.
As you mentioned in the humor and the writing.
The first iteration of that showwas Yogi Bear, one of the three
(16:11):
cartoons they would show on that, and then they spun it out.
Yeah, Yogi got his own show. Yaki and Snagglepuss were part
of the 61 show, and then they replaced Yogi with Hokey Wolf in
61 I. Loving it and reliving that my
childhood like a lot of people have.
And I believe that Warner is restoring the Huckleberry Hound
(16:32):
show without Yogi in it. The ones post I don't know yet.
I haven't seen it, but we'll seeit.
I think they're going to deliverit to us in March or April and
then it'll take us a month or two to get it on the air.
In the meantime, on House of Hanna Barbera, we will get Pixie
and Dixie, yes, and we will get the original Yogi's.
Yes, the segments are all done. They're working on the bridges
(16:54):
and the opens and closes, I think.
And then you've got the trio of Touché Turtle, Wally, Gator, and
Lippy and Hardy. Yeah, Lippy the Lion got axed on
the Sunday night first show for time.
We don't have time but it will be in on Monday probably.
Those are their shortest cartoons because those were
created when local stations wanted something they could
place anywhere. Yeah.
(17:16):
And in hosted cartoon shows likewhat Tune In With Me is supposed
to be a tribute to, yeah, they were sold to stations around the
country to be segments of a bigger show.
And what to look for in those isthe brevity of them.
And yet they have to set up a situation so fast.
They have to give you a little bit of the characters.
Each one of these is just a fascinating thing.
(17:38):
Yaki Doodle, which was originally, I think Red Coffee.
It goes back to Tom and Jerry, and you're showing Tom and Jerry
so you can see little. That's the cool thing too, is
that you've got these great Tom and Jerry's, so you can see
where a lot of Hanna Barbera's style came from, a lot of their
great voice actors. And also on your schedule you've
(17:58):
got, besides Yogi Bear. Am I correct in that Wait till
Your Father Gets Home is going to become a nightly show?
Yeah, but right now at 11:00 Eastern, it'll be wait till your
father gets home. I'll be starting soon.
We've had the Flintstones in there for a little while.
We're going to put that show in on a nightly basis for a while.
Has that been a pleasant surprise because so many people
(18:20):
either didn't see it or are seeing it with new eyes now?
Yeah, we've gotten a lot of buzzabout it.
Again, I don't have a lot of ratings.
I just have Chicago ratings for it.
It does fine. The restoration that Warner did
was terrific and people are really enjoying the show and
seeing how it was the precursor to all the adult animation that
Vox did. Kind of a show before it's time.
(18:41):
You know, it was created for that prime time access rule
where the networks had to give back 63730 Eastern Pacific to
the stations and it was done in syndication for that I believe.
And it was like probably not positioned properly and.
No, no, it was. That's the way I feel about the
Ed Grimley cartoon that you showweekly.
(19:04):
Because it is really good and it's got all these SCTV people
in it and Count Floyd and, and it should have been on before
SNL or Sunday at 11:30 or in prime time.
They totally wasted it because Ihadn't seen it in a while.
It's really, really great. You know, again, you're giving
this opportunity to rediscover these shows.
(19:24):
Yes, you're right. You know, with SNL celebrating
50 years, you know he was a SNL character.
So too. I just wish that there were more
episode counts. I mean, one of the things, Greg,
that people wonder about is why we keep changing out the
schedule pretty frequently in some time periods.
And like, oh, Frankenstein Junior is off the air.
And, you know, it's because there's only 13 or 18 or 20 of
(19:48):
some of these shows. So we tend to run through them
once or twice, change them out, or in the case of something
like, you know, Michaela gorilla, we'll run through all
the Mcgilla gorillas maybe twice.
Then we'll go to Peter Ponamus and run them twice, and we'll go
back and forth. And it keeps things fresher.
And it allows us also in some cases to add more shows.
By saying, OK, we're going to rest dastardly and muttly now
(20:09):
because we're going to run Pac-Man or, you know, I'm just
picking something out of the blue.
So people need to understand we're in this again for the long
haul and we have to keep it fresh so we can't throw
everything on the air all at once.
We picked up the Ninja Turtles, which is a big deal for a big
portion of our audience, and so we're going to put that in.
Something's going to have to come off the air to get it in.
(20:30):
That's a good point too, is thatas somebody who was in the
independent stations with syndication, I remember as a kid
saying what happened to Gilliganor what happened to this or
that, that I called the station once, programming.
Then I said, why isn't this there?
He says it'll be back, don't worry, we're resting it.
Can you explain what resting means?
(20:52):
Well, what resting does is it rests the show.
It's like, first of all, you like to take things off the air
at times before it starts to fade.
You always want to leave them wanting more.
That's part of the strategy there.
It could also be that the station only has so many runs
telecast of the show in their contract and they want to save
them a lot of time. Stations would take things off
(21:13):
in the summer and put on something cheaper or not as
successful because the audience is smaller in the summer.
And then when they bring back a show, it's newer feeling, it's
fresher feeling. It's, oh, it's back.
I love this show and it gives some kind of a little twinkle to
something. There's less of that now than
there used to be going on because of the way shows are
(21:35):
sold now for broadcast. I show like Seinfeld has barter
in it everyday, has commercials from the distributor in it, and
they have to run. So you can't really take
Seinfeld off for the summer, hasto run continuously.
But we're more old school with, you know, the cartoons and
changing them out to keep them fresh.
And I can hear people screaming like, why don't you change more
(21:56):
on ME TV? And there is a reason that not
that much of the schedule changes on ME TV.
It's because it's working really, really well.
In this world of hundreds, maybethousands of choices that people
have. When something's working really
well, you don't want to disrupt the audience unless there's a
significant reason that you believe the change you're going
to make is going to materially change the ratings and make them
(22:19):
better and materially change them in an upward motion.
Also, because there's so many outlets for all these shows,
they're not so cheap. So any decision to acquire
another show and again, broadcasting is a business.
All of this is a business. We spend a lot of money on the
programming and we got to get more money in for the ads, a lot
more than what we spent for the programming to make this work
(22:40):
because you're getting it for free.
Have you attracted new advertisers now with all the
programming? Has Me TV tunes have been
successful in that way too. Well, again, because it isn't
rated, there's certain advertisers that won't buy you
until you're rated. And we couldn't be rated by
Nielsen until we had enough affiliates and enough
distribution. So that's coming, but I'll give
you an example. Burger King is on Me TV Tunes
(23:01):
now and people posted on Facebook.
I just saw Burger King on On Me TV Tunes and they started
talking about it. And of course, we're showing
that to Burger King and saying what other networks with what
other audiences are watching thecommercials and rooting so much
for success that when they saw Burger King on there instead of
just, you know, 100 pots and pans for $50, they're excited
(23:25):
about it. So we're going to, you know, a
lot of them, oh, we can't buy itbecause you're not rated and
it's cartoons, this, that, whatever.
It's like, no, we want to show you that this audience is there
to support this network and theywill buy your products and they
will notice your things if you put it on this network.
It's not going to be easy, but we're going to do it.
And I, we had one client, they were a direct response client,
(23:46):
you know, one where you make a phone call and the agency said
we're getting really good response from me TV tunes, but
we don't feel it's the appropriate programming for our
product. And I just wanted to, you know,
go, what do you mean? It's working, but it's not
appropriate for that is a buyer who thinks her product or his
(24:07):
product is the best thing going and that running it in Bugs
Bunny cartoons is beneath them. I so hear that my favorite is
the the little steppy machine that you go step step steppy
thing. Get a kick.
Out of that. Pays the bills.
Pays the bills. Yeah, you got it.
But I'll tell you, if you like any of the products you see,
(24:28):
please order them through the number that's on the screen.
That will help keep the network healthy.
That's true. That's true.
And if you don't want one, buy it as a gift.
There you go. Thank you.
Who doesn't need pots and pans, you know?
Yeah, go to Burger King and say you saw it on me TV too.
You know what? There are Whopper Wednesdays
where you can get a great deal on Whoppers and they're they're
(24:51):
grilled, not fried, and you get vegetables, more vegetables with
them. So I've always preferred Burger
King. No, that's great.
And they get it. So in general, though, you are
looking like this was also worthit.
I knew it. It's going great.
You must feel a sense of cautious pride.
Cautious optimism that we're going to get the distribution we
(25:12):
need, to get the advertisers we need and the audience we need to
make it a super duper home run. We know it's the most loyal,
loving, engaged fan base of any of our networks and that people
are rooting for us to be successful, that they're
spreading the word that they're going to metvtunes.com to find
(25:34):
out how to watch it and getting antennas or signing up for
friendly or some other way of watching this network.
And we appreciate everybody's loyalty to this, their patience,
their understanding, their support, their promotion, all
that other stuff. And you're one of the guys,
Greg, helping us big time. Thank you.
Oh, you're very, very welcome. And you know, we we kidded a
(25:55):
little bit about, you know, why don't you have this and why
don't you have that? But you know, those are the
loyal viewers. It's just like you have like my
mom, you know, she'd say, oh, this is wonderful, but what what
happened to that? You still love them and
appreciate that. And you want to provide all that
you possibly can and. And I look at all of them.
(26:16):
I see all the requests that comein and all that.
So just be careful when you poston social media because Neil's
watching. Well, I'm glad you're watching
and we're going to be watching and this is what we've wanted
for a really long time. I leave it on even if I'm doing
other things or I'm working. I love the ambiance of having
(26:39):
cartoons on daytime cartoons, nighttime ones and Saturday
morning. It's that sound.
It truly is a wonderful thing. And I really, really thank you
for all you're doing and you andthanks to Hanna Barbera 'cause
you know, they did stuff that stood the task of time.
And thank you so very much. And hopefully we'll get together
(27:01):
again. We can talk about the new stuff.
We will and we shall, and I thank you.
Thanks everybody for listening and until then, bye bye.
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hanna and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many
thanks for listening.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!