Thursday, September 30, 2010

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.

6 comments:

  1. Kcosmo's neighbor7:35 PM

    And I'm sure we all remember that whenever they were driving (with their little animated feet running beneath the car), they drove by the same scenery...over and over and over.

    It was truly a classic.

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  2. I loved The Flintstones, but it always bugged me that Fred didn't just climb through a window when Dino locked him out of the house. (For the record, I had a similar issue with The Smurfs - they totally could have fit through the bars on those cages Gargamel locked them in but instead they'd just sit there and whine.)

    And... I really hope this comment doesn't post a bunch of times. No idea what that keeps happening - I promise I'm only hitting "post" once.

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  3. Adam C.10:18 PM

    Not to mention, a gay old time.

    Wilma.

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  4. Charles Carmicheal1:11 AM

    Yabba Dabba Do!

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  5. Jim Bell9:51 AM

    I love me some Flintstones.  Much cooler than those Jetsons.  But isn't there an episode where they meet up, or maybe that was a feature length film.

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  6. Adam C.4:10 PM

    Also, I think you mean "Stony Curtis (<span>alav ha-shalom)." As I understand it, his real Bedrock name was Bernard Quartz.</span>

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