Parents on Hanna-Barbera cartoons

Parents were a sensitive subject matter rarely featured on Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Many cartoon series were not allowed to depict anything that even remotely implied a sexual act during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly on cartoons designed for younger viewers (not restricted to Saturday mornings). As a result, Hanna-Barbera was unable to introduce young characters as offspring of parents, so as a result of this, they used younger characters as nieces and nephews of the adults.  This practice was also used by other animation studios such as Ruby-Spears and DiC Entertainment. Parents were allowed to be depicted in Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, since that series was designed for adults.
However, there were a few exceptions, such as Where's Huddles? and The Roman Holidays. Another example was Richie Rich, whose parents - father, Richard Rich, Sr., and mother, Regina Rich - did appear in the Richie Rich cartoon series, but were rarely seen together in the presence of Richie.  Many segments had Richie with only one of his parents.  The parents of Reggie Van Dough, Gloria Glad, and Freckles Friendly were never seen nor mentioned at any time; however, Mayda Munny mentioned her "daddy" in "Mayda and the Monster".
In The Little Rascals cartoon series, in the episode "The Case of the Puzzled Pals", Spanky takes a message from his mother.  Also, in "Tiny Terror", Butch's mother was mentioned, and briefly heard off-screen calling out to Butch about looking after his infant brother Spike.
On The New Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show, in the episode "No Thanks, Masked Manx", Daphne Blake's parents, Nedley and Elizabeth Blake, appeared, but by that point in all of the Scooby-Doo series, Daphne was likely a young adult (possibly college age).
In Pac-Man, the title character and his wife have a son named Pac-Baby.
In Popeye and Son, Popeye and Olive Oyl have a son, Junior, who bears no resemblance to his father, implying that he may have been adopted instead of Olive going through pregnancy. Bluto and his wife also have a son, Tank.
Category:The Funtastic Index