1,240 characters? In one picture? Wowsers!
This has been an EPIC project, drawing over 1,240 characters from 238 shows which is (nearly) EVERY Hannah Barbera cartoon from the years 1957 to 2000!
(Above) : Ruff and Reddy (1957)
Here’s a teaser, before i explain the story about this project and then I’ll show you some (or all?) of the characters which feature in the finished piece, which I’ll show you a slightly web-sized version of it. Excited? Read on!
As you may have guessed, this is only a small portion of a much bigger finished artwork, but it shows the determination and amount of work that went into the finished piece. But what was the purpose? What started it all and how did i get to the finished artwork?
The Beginnings…From nothing…. to Spongebob, through to Hanna Barbera….
From the end of August 2025, after a year aaway from any art, or drawing, I picked up my Stylus again. I didn’t have any inspiration at the time, mainly due to depression and a lack of drive, but with a tiny spark inside that gave me the need. I just randomly picked a cartoon character, which happened to be Spongebob squarepants, he turned out fine, so I did Patrick, then Sandy, and before I knew it, I’d drawn Mr. Krabs, Gary, Squidward and Plankton, so I finished it off with a fresh new background and a signature and behold! My drawing mojo had almost returned! Huzzah! I did Bob’s Burgers next, as I love that cartoon, but my one regret was that I didn’t do ‘whole’ characters (as at this point I was just doodling), but rectified that for the next 22 of the 24 pics you see above.
I posted these on Facebook as I completed each one during September and October of 2025 and received a lot of nice comments, some which were increasing requests for Hanna Barbera cartoons, which, it seems, have a place in everyone’s hearts and memories across the world. Let’s be honest, if you don’t know any of Hanna Barbera’s characters, what planet are you living on?
Some followers requested Scooby Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Yogi Bear, Hong Kong Phooey and many other well-known characters, some requested characters I hadn’t heard of, like Clue Club, Thundarr the barbarian, Shazzan and more. Then I started drawing, firstly with my personal favourites, with no idea of a specific end point. After I’d drawn 20 or 30 characters, I compiled them into one piece, to showcase what I’d accomplished and received further requests, including someone suggesting I should draw EVERY character.
I laughed at this at first, I mean, EVERY character? There must be thousands? Plus, sidekicks and counterparts? Villians too? It seemed like an impossible and epic idea, but you can’t draw JUST scooby Doo, without Shaggy, Fred, Velma and Daphne? Then what about Scrappy Doo? Ricochet Rabbit without Droop-a-long? TouchΓ© Turtle without Dum-Dum?
No, I HAD to set some boundaries, I’d add adversaries or villians if they were important, I’d double, triple or (in some cases quadruple) some characters that appeared in different productions, for example Dino from the flintstones, possibly my favourite of all time (as Dino is my nickname), featured in The Flintstones, Pebbles and Bamm Bamm, Dino and the Cavemouse, Flintstones Kids and in his own show in ‘What A Cartoon’ in the 90s, so he pops up a few times or Yogi Bear, (Yogi Bear, Yo Yogi, Yogi’s Space Race and Laffalympics, which sees several characters repeated, but wearing ‘team vests’. Below are some examples of duplicates:
However, I decided to draw the line at and not draw rare characters, shows that didn’t make it to TV, like unsuccessful pilots, or real-life shows (apart from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I cartoon-ised the 3 human characters.
The Big List
I’m a big fan of everything Hanna Barbera, but I’m no expert, not by a long shot. So, hurrah for the internet, I referred mainly to the following list at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_produced_by_Hanna-Barbera , but also cross-referenced with https://www.imdb.com/list/ls083613842/ then, much later referred to this list of the cartoons that featured in ‘What a Cartoon’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Cartoon!
I logged every show in a Microsoft Excel file, in which I was able to keep a count of all the shows, which folder I’d saved each character PNG in and how many characters I’d drawn per show, with a total of all characters drawn. I also added a column tto add each year that each show was originally released, which I used to sort all the shows into date order once I’d finished.. Below is a small screengrab of the first 20-or-so of the list of 238;
Anyhoo, it was immense fun (sometimes stressful) to draw all the 1241 characters, which I might add to Pinterest at some point in the future, but for now it’s marvellous as a cartoon fan to see all the characters together in one piece!
I’ve had several requests to buy a copy of the finished piece, but to be honest, I don’t know how without breaking some copyright laws. I love Hanna Barbera and do NOT want to upset them, they own all the characters, the copyright to the characters so selling posters would surely break copyright laws. I know it’s just ‘fan-art’ but I don’t know the laws involved. So, unless someone from Hanna Barbera contacts me, It’ll just go up on my wall at home once it’s printed and I can continue to enjoy it for years to come.
It was designed to be A0 or A1 in size when printed, but here is a smaller, web-sized, watermarked picture of the finished piece, I hope you enjoy it!
Dean Perry aka pickledpizza 