As the first stirrings of environmental responsibility were making themselves known in the 1970s, Hanna-Barbera got on the bandwagon with Sealab 2020, an animated series about an underwater laboratory staffed by caring scientists.

The Sealab was home to hundreds of people, including families and pets. The research facility was tasked with guarding the ocean and the creatures living in it from every manner of danger, natural or man-made.

The leader of the scientific contingent was Dr. Paul Williams, commanding the crew of oceanauts which included Hal, Ed and dishy Gail (voiced by the equal dishy Ann Jillian). Some residents of Sealab weren't scientists at all, like Captain Murphy and his two children, Bobby and Sally, who were rescued by the oceanauts when their ship capsized.

The series was short-lived and only 13 of the 16 episodes aired on NBC. The show got a second chance on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, which re-edited and re-dubbed the Sealab 2020 footage into Sealab 2021, a tongue-in-cheek re-imagining of the original program.