The latest cartoon culling from HBO Max took three seasons of The Flinstones off the streaming service, among other classics. As of Dec. 31, Seasons 4 through 6 of The Flinstones are no longer available to stream – 78 episodes in total. However, the first three seasons of this classic cartoon are still available.
HBO Max has been canceling animated projects left and right – some surprisingly close to completion – for about half a year now. The streaming service has also dropped many projects from its catalog, claiming that this is a cost-saving measure to avoid paying royalties to the casts and crew of those shows. However, the recent departure of older, classic animated shows has fans more perplexed than ever. According to a report by Variety, the end-of-year purge included three seasons of The Flinstones and a staggering 15 seasons of the old Looney Tunes shorts.
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The details of this particular drop are slowly coming to light. HBO Max reportedly licensed Looney Tunes and The Flinstones from Warner Bros. in an “intra-company deal,” despite the fact that they are all under the same parent company. When those licensing deals expired at the end of 2022, it was still up to HBO Max whether or not to renew them. However favorable the terms may have been, it seems the streamer was so desperate to save money that it decided these iconic characters weren’t worth it.
An unconfirmed report on Twitter previously claimed that these classic cartoons were only removed temporarily for system maintenance, but that appears to be incorrect. An anonymous source familiar with HBO Max told reporters from Variety that these shows were removed due to licensing and will not be added back to the catalog anytime soon.
The many shocking cuts at HBO Max in the last year can be chalked up to different reasons, while all of them can be generally attributed to WarnerMedia’s merger with Discovery Inc., forming the new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. Last month, the company reported that it would be writing off about $3.5 billion in content impairment and development. That means canceling productions and ending licensing deals has become more lucrative than they expected producing or hosting that content to be, in many cases.
These changes are also rapidly pushing HBO Max towards even greater changes. Later this year, Warner Bros. Discovery intends to combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into one big streaming platform. For fans of animation, superheroes and other content left by the wayside, the price has already been too high.
