The 1982 Animators' Strike was a ten-week labor dispute in Los Angeles, California. The key issue in the dispute concerned sending animation work overseas, particularly in Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea. Many of the main animation studios, including Hanna-Barbera, participated in the strike - which started 5 August 1982 and was settled 16 October 1982.
The strike may have been a contributing factor in the lack of new shows, particularly on ABC (reruns of SuperFriends and Scooby Doo Where Are You! aired as time fillers during the 1982/83 season); further new segments for programs in the 1982/83 season may have ceased production, thus prompting reruns; and also resulted in delays for the season premieres for shows on ABC, including The Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show, which viewers would have expected to launch 11 September 1982, but was delayed until 25 September 1982. Many newer segments were already produced by the time the strike started, but due to uncertainty of the length of the strike, some newer series delayed their debuts by a few weeks; however, production of latter segments of some series may also have been delayed, some of them not airing until as early as January 1983. One cartoon series, The Dukes, didn't premiere on CBS until 5 February 1983 - possibly as a result of delayed production due to the strike. NBC launched their new season of Saturday morning cartoons on time, on 18 September 1982 - implying that production was efficient due to many of the cartoon shows returning (The Gary Coleman Show was the only series to premiere on NBC that season, so there were probably delays in producing the latter episodes in the series, and that explains why the final episode aired 10 September 1983 was episode 12 of the series, plus NBC had a history of rerunning episodes out of order). Hanna-Barbera Australia produced roughly half of the newer segments on Smurfs during Season 2 - their animation work appeared much better and more consistent than what was produced in the United States, implying that cartoons produced overseas is cheaper than those produced in the United States. Hanna-Barbera Australia was never credited for their work on Smurfs. CBS aired reruns of Speed Buggy as a placeholder for several months before The Dukes was ready to launch.
The decision to outsource animation work overseas was likely done as a cost-cutting measure, which could imply that viewership for Saturday morning cartoons was in decline by the time the strike occurred.
After the Strike[]
The three major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, aired fewer and fewer Hanna-Barbera cartoons as the years progressed, and eventually, there would be an increase in new cartoon series produced by the French-American company DiC Entertainment and the now-defunct Canadian animation company Nelvana.