SOMEDAY, MAYBE, FRED WILL WIN THE FIGHT: Fifty years ago tonight at 8:30pm (up against Route 66 and The Westerner), The Flintstones aired for the first time on ABC. As many of you know, it was the first primetime animated sitcom and ... I mean, where do you even begin? I can't imagine there's an episode I didn't see as a kid (babysitter Ann-Margrock! the Weirdly Gruesomes!), but what I really remember about the show was just about how it was the intro to the half-hour sitcom format for kids -- "no matter what, it all gets resolved by the end," puns, laugh track, pratfalls, always amusing.
No, I didn't get at the time who "Stony Curtis" (RIP) or "Gary Granite" were, how much of it was based on The Honeymooners, or how cheap the animation was -- and I still don't understand what the hell they had to do with vitamins. I just know that I was a kid, and when I came home from school The Flintstones were on, and it was great. Happy birthday.
