OK, this had to go up.

After a lot of hue and cry from animation fans all over the world, the architecturally distinctive and historically significant Hanna Barbera Animation complex on Cahuenga Blvd.in Hollywood will be saved from demolition and a fate as another satellite parking lot for Universal Studios and CityWalk.

The complex was built in 1963, the year of my birth. All the while growing up, I could point to those buildings while zipping by them on the Hollywood Freeway and say "Look, mommy, there's where The Flintstones live!" As a kid, I really did think that The Flintstones, The Jetsons and The Banana Splits all had digs in that building.

I never got to see the insides of the place, even after I joined the staff of Toon Magazine in 1996. An article in the LA Times (Evil brain-sucking registration required) speaks of how Joe Barbera used to double as a tour guide for visiting dignitaries, and would point out the sophistication of the building's architecture and interior design, as spiffy as anything The Jetsons would see in their world.

The main building will remain an office building. The current tenants of the small, Ted Turner-era addition to the site, Generation Entertainment, will be allowed to stay. The middle building will become a branch of the LA Fitness health club chain. And a fourth building will be added to the complex, a "luxury apartment building."

Here's a picture. I think this is of the building which will be turned into a health club.