Okay this video was MADE for me. I loved everything about this. Thanks for sharing some of the wackier stuff. Some backstory: I'm a college senior who watched so much Boomerang as a kid, I might as well have a doctorate in Hanna-Barbera history. And this is a solid crash course on The Flintstones and their wacky floating timeline. Believe it or not, The Flintstones might be the 5th most complicated Hanna-Barbera cartoon to fully dissect. As for the other four, it would be Huckleberry Hound, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, and all of all things, Yogi Bear. Trust me. I have spent too much of my life researching this. The 80s alone for this bear is astronomically baffling.
That's awesome. Your comment made my day. I agree, the Flintstones is super complicated, the deeper you go the weirder it gets. We had so much more we could've explored about the time travel stuff, but had to keep the focus on the backdoor pilot. Maybe someday we'll do a video about The Scooby-Doo Movies (which I would included on the complicated cartoon list) where the gang is hanging out with dead comedians like Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges. It's at once wildly complicated and super-simple.
@@ebartow66highlights The way I understand it is that Scooby Doo is not a living dog, he's a cartoon. He only exists as media. So he can engage with other media. There is no death, any moving image is a potential guest star on the Scooby Doo movies. What's also strange is that the living guest stars were and were not appearing as themselves. Like Dick Van Dyke would appear. And he's working as a security guard at a closed amusement park.Daphne would say "It's Dick Van Dyke!" So the guest star is Dick Van Dyke. But it's not Dick Van Dyke playing a security guard. That's one layer too many for the cartoon. So we have to accept that these famous celebrities somehow have day jobs that move the plot. Really complicated and super simple.
@@KevinGeeksOut Scooby-Doo has a ridiculously complex multiverse. There are layers to this Great Dane's chicanery. I theorize that there are about 9-12 different Scooby-Doo timelines. What makes it crazier is there's a crossover comic that includes the live-action versions as well as 13th Ghost and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo versions of Mystery Inc. It gets real weird real fast, Kevin. It's a slippery slope.
If Peter Lorre had a dollar for every cartoon character built around a Peter Lorre impression, he could have retired the richest actor in Hollywood! Another wonderful, impeccably researched video! Great stuff all around!
I hope Peter Lorre got a kick out of these cartoons. (I don't know what his retirement looked liked and I am afraid to find out.) When I was a kid there was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called SHIRT TALES, featuring a talking orangutan named Bogey. He talked just like Humphrey Bogart. It's amazing how many cartoon character are just "If (Iconic Male Celebrity) was a (cute animal)"
If you go back further to Warner Brothers cartoons from the 30s and 40s, there are all sorts of impressions of celebrities that didn't last past that era and you wouldn't even know were caricatures. I was in my forties when I found out the Russian dog from HARE RIBBIN (The Bugs Bunny short that takes place underwater) was meant to be comedian Bert Gordon and Red Riding Hood from RED RIDING RABBIT was an impersonation of Cass Daley.
Howard Morris was a very talented actor, writer, director of both animated shows and live-action TV and movies. He passed away in 2005. I read Joe Barbera's book, My Life in Toons. In it he states that he and Bill Hanna were never friends. They weren't enemies either but really just business partners who worked well together. Each had different skills that complemented each others.
Howard Morris is extremely talented. One of my favorite performances of his is voicing all the characters in the Academy Award winning animated short MUNRO, based on Jules Feiffer's storybook. I had no idea that Hanna and Barbera were just business partners. I only know the cartoons they made. (And that they co-hosted a VHS tape of Christmas sing-alongs.)
Howard Morris made a huge impression on me when he played "Professor Lillolman" (Professor Little Old Man) in HIGH ANXIETY. The character, I found out many years after-the-fact, was based on "Dr. Brulov" (Michael Chekhov) from the Alfred Hitchcock film SPELLBOUND. I looked up Morris' IMDB resume, and was stunned at how many shows I'd heard him do voice-acting on!
It is not unusual that those in business partnerships do not become friends, another example is WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan never really got on. IDK if G&S Operettas are ever performed in America, but their classics are well known in Britain.
@@michaelhaywood8262 Gilbert and Sullivan are well liked and admired here in America but really only by senior citizens. Young people today would not get them. Some famous "business" partners: Abbott and Costello started as friends but had a terrible falling out and never resolved that. Martin and Lewis despised each other after starting out as good friends. Hall and Oates, friends since college, are suing each other currently But, my favorites, Laurel and Hardy were best friends to the bitter end. After Hardy died Stan never worked again because he couldn't bear to not have his buddy by his side. That's nice. Stan Laurel had a small apartment (he was broke) after he retired as well as phone number that was listed in the phone book pages (remember phone books?) and he would gladly talk to any of his fans that called him. A class act.
Great video! But one correction: Michigan J. Frog's main song "Hello! Ma Baby", was in fact an 1899 Tin Pan Alley song, but the "Michigan Rag" he sang was specially written for the cartoon by Maltese and Chuck Jones.
@joeconcepts5552 It was either that or keep cloning The Flintstones (and I'm not talking about the spin-offs), which only had one successful iteration, The Jetsons. Hey, I've got an idea for your next video...
Hey, Abe! Thanks for including us (Green Jello) and our single "Anarchy in Bedrock!" Look for us on tour! And if we're not playing in your neighborhood, just book us!
Green Jello! You've made my day. In the live chat (when this video essay premiered) there was a lot of chatter about you guys and how people want a Blu-Ray of CEREAL KILLER. I also mentioned getting my photo with Sh!tman in L.A. back in the late '90s. (Outside the studio with the wall of character art.) Your cover of ANARCHY IN THE UK seriously is one of my favorite covers, the juxtaposition of the Sex Pistols and a cartoon is brilliant. But it's also an excellent cover. I will check out your tour dates, would love to see you live, in-person.
@@atomicabe There are at least DVD copies available, some members of the band sell them at live shows. BluRay, I'm not sure those exist, but could probably be mastered up. Anyway, we're in Florida through December (on weekends), I do believe! And Bill (our founder and leader) will be booking 2025 very soon!
I remembered there being two different creepy Flintstone neighbor families, but I didn't know there were even more variations! I didn't know the whole history and the backdoor pilot angle. There's lots of weird character inconsistencies in The Flintstones, like an origin story episode for Dino where he could talk, but after he'd already appeared in other episodes in his more familiar non-talking form. Wilma has multiple maiden names. Joe Rockhead looks and sounds different each time he appears. I just thought the same thing happened to the monster family.
Didn't Hanna Barbera also animate the '90s Addams Family series too? Which also starred John Astin! But, speaking of Flintstones spin-offs, you might want to look at The Blackstones, Another planned next door family for them!
Sometimes we all have to understand that trying to make a Spin-Off Movie, COmic Book, VIdeo Game and/or TV Series (depending on which Company in Hollywood owns the rights to which one) can be very tricky to pull off, no matter what the results are. But sometimes there is a type of Spin-Off that can turn out well.
Agreed. Same thing with remakes. The 1939 WIZARD OF OZ was the third adaptation. THE MALTESE FALCON (with Humphrey Bogart) was a remake. The '78 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is superb. And even though it was widely rejected when it came out, John Carpenter's THE THING is recognized as a classic.
A lot of gen X grew up watching the original Flintstones in Reruns. I never knew it was the first primetime adult cartoon in America.The Saturday morning spin offs we're not authentic generic but too kid friendly
I will never forgive WB for not giving us "Flintstones on the Rocks" in any modern or home media format, leaving us with ancient VHS rips from the TV airing.
0:31, Captain Caveman (and sometimes his Son, Cavey Jr.) also appeared in The Flintstone Comedy Hour and The Flintstone Kids. There was also the time Fred and Bareny appeared in Laff-a-Lympics as Guest Star Judges, Yogi Bear's All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper, Yogi's Space Race, Scooby-Doo Team-Up #7, Space Jam 2: A New Legacy, DC Meets Hanna-Barbera with Booster Gold & The Flintstones and were referemced in HBO Max''s Jellystone.
Yes, it's very funny that Captain Caveman had already starred in his own series, but was appearing on the Flintstones shows as a prequel -- before his was frozen. Also, we didn't have time to delve into it, but the Slag Brothers (the cavemen on 1969's WACKY RACES) are totally a pre-cursor to Captain Caveman.
@thefantasticretroreviewer3941 Fred himself also made a cameo in an episode of either Dexters Lab or Billy and Mandy(Sorry I can’t remember which one 😞) 😂
To be fair, I believe Fred and Barney only appeared once on Laff-a-Lympics: as judges in a sandcastle-building contest. But even as a child, my brother asked, “ How are Fred and Barney coexisting with the rest of the characters? They’re from the Stone Age.“
Yes, Fred and Barney were not competitors or members of the teams, you're right about that. They did, however, make multiple appearances, sometimes providing commentary or giving examples of how to succeed in a particular sporting event. (Which gave Fred a real Ralph Kramden moment to act like he's an excellent fisherman or pitcher or whatever the situation called for.) And it really is weird that they're existing in modern times with no explanation.
I still stand my belief that the characters in WACKY RACES were all proposals for series they wanted to do something with and since they were always taking from TV and movies (Flintstones=Honeymooners, Top Cat=Sgt. Bilko, etc.) this was their take on THE GREAT RACE. They were eventually able to tie a couple of their Wacky Races characters when there were two movies they could cash in on (Dastardly & Muttley=THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and Penelope Pitstop=THE PERILS OF PAULINE)
Another good example was Tom and Jerry. Sometimes they'd be enemies, running and chasing, and sometimes they'd be friends. Sometimes in a 30 min show you'd get 2 enemy/1 friendly cartoons (mix and match your own combo here) It was very inconsistent and you (the viewer) just learned to go with it.
not just a cameo, a full on episode dedicated to him, tho he was represented as just a regular stereotypical cartoon caveman and could only say "Yabba Dabba"
Jodie Foster was also Pugsley on Scooby-Doo, so not entirely a newcomer. Not sure on Wednesday though. Not sure what happened to John and Carolyn but I suspect Carolyn’s cancer diagnosis is what got Morticia recast and maybe John didn’t want to return without her. John would later voice Gomez for HB’s second cartoon iteration of The Addams Family in the early 90’s. EDIT: Side note, the clip of John Astin as the game show played as I finished this. 😂🤣😊
I wasn't sure if that was Jodie Foster in the Scooby-Doo movies. (Very hard to tell since Pugsley doesn't speak much in the episode.) She's credited on the Addams Family cartoon series.
@ I believe she’s credited with everyone but they just list the overall cast unless the source mixed it up and Pugsley is actually unknown, but initially I saw her credited somewhere.
Lennie Weinrib best known as the original voice of Scrappy Doo does Gomez voice and Janet Waldo best known as Judy Jetson as Morticia in the 73' series.
In my city there's a diner called 'The Bedrock Bistro', a Flintstone-themed breakfast restaurant. They play all the retro Flintstones episodes on screens positioned around the place, and the menu has all the food listed as Flintstone Era meals (ie Steak and Eggs is "Stegasaur Meat and Pterodactyl eggs"). Lol😊
One of the Frankenstones segments, entitled "A Rocks-Pox on You!" was written by prolific author/filmmaker/musician/paleontologist Donald F. Glut. I've spoken to him several times live, and he's quite a fascinating person.
One thing that the original had that none of the sequels had was a prime time network time slot. Every revival after that but until H-B merged with Turner was done for Saturday morning.
One of the things I've come to appreciate about revisiting GILLIGAN'S ISLAND is the running gag that they're not really missing much back home. Anytime we encounter something from the outside world, it's pretty trashy.
I would love to see an episode where you talk about the history of the Flintstones. Things such as: 1) When the theme song as we know it officially became a permanent fixture of the show and ALL the variations of the opening credits. 2) How there was a nationwide contest to name Pebbles 3) How the 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason, was the inspiration for The Flintstones; and how Jackie's agent talked him out of suing Hanna-Barbera for copyright infringement. 4) What the show's original name was.
This was fun to watch on Thanksgiving night. I probably watched a lot of these special when I was a kid and a teenager. Back in the day you did not have as much animation available so when a primetime animated special came on it was pretty much an event.
Ultimately I see a lot of what doesn’t work with this concept. I’m a huge fan of the Addams family and on the surface I think I can understand the appeal of the “gruesomes” concept but the main problem is trying too many different ideas. Some ideas make more sense than others but every single one of them is just strange in some way. Addams family has so many amazing characters and truthfully they have a good balance of personalities and storytelling. The Gruesomes suffer mostly from inconsistency. Good job on this retrospective. Looking forward to seeing more from your channel in the future.
Agreed -- the concept of a macabre family is enough of a premise. Don't also make them living in caveman times! Thanks for commenting and sharing the positive feedback.
I had completely forgotten about these until now. Seeing the clips really helped but at the time as a kid, I remember just thinking they were characters from Halloween or Halloween adjacent specials. Eventually they were in rerun times and/or actually around Halloween and you ceased to take them seriously.
Does anyone remember this? It was probably around 84-87 and it was a one off kind of after school special type of thing. Pebbles or bam bam has a friend named Stoney. He smokes either spliffs or regular cigarettes. Anyway he smokes all the time and at the end of the episode there’s a school marathon where the kids are running around the track with the baton. And when Stoney gets it and starts to run he starts coughing uncontrollably and basically makes his team lose the race or whatever. It was basically one of the anti smoking, anti drugs type of special, I think it played at night. I distinctly remember it but I was around 10 or younger so it’s kind of cloudy. Anyone else remember it?
YES! I just watched this. It's the Flinstone Kids' JUST SAY NO SPECIAL, from 1988, featuring appearances by Nancy Reagan (live-action) and Michael Jackstone (cartoon). Coincidentally, Stoney was voiced by Dana Hill, who appears in this video when we mention National Lampoon's EUROPEAN VACATION. She played Audrey.
Sorry, but no. "Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, known as "Howard and Emerson".
This was really fun. The Poltergeist bit had me in stitches. Really interesting how many bites at the apple they took they took trying to make an Addams family style sitcom.
Loved, loved, loved this video!!! I was always confused about the different iterations of the "weird monster family" across the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and this essay gave me a lot of clarity. (on a different note, it's so weird how Gendy Tartakovsky Mrs. Frankenstone looks at 22:30)
I remember the version with the spider. Here in Mexico we had many reruns of the originial classic series with the talent of legendary voice actor Jorge "El Tata" Arvizu! He was such a legend that he dubed Fred, Ernie, Fred´s Boss and half of the cast, also on the Jetsons and the whole Top Cat Crew by himself.
This was fantastic, Love your series covering backdoor pilots or spin off attempts from popular shows. The Flintstones is classic, though i started with the live action 90s movie as a kid. Then saw some of the original animated series through reruns on Cartoon Network.
Wow, I remember most of these characters. I think at some point they just lumped all these in with regular Flintstone reruns that I grew up watching in the 70s in the 80s.
I think the continuity discrepancies can be explained by the fact that these cartoons were made for kids. By the time the next cartoon came out, the previous generation had grown and was not expected to be watching anymore. Now there was a whole new audience to entertain.
One thing I'll never forget was an attempt at a spin-off that was based entirely around the Rubbles, but for some reason Barney was now a belligerent, foul mouthed alcoholic. It was only a few couple minute segments but it was so surreal seeing Barney depicted that way.
@atomicabe Good question. I feel if it was Fred it would make sense, but turning humble, funny Barney into a jackass is just so jarring. It's like someone wanted to make a more adult Flintstones and forgot which character was the angry blowhard.
No cartoon character, or live action for that matter has had his life so fully chronicled more than Fred Flintstone. I appreciate you making this video, I learned a lot about a subject I thought I mostly knew. But with it comes more questions: why did Bamm Bamm lose his strength? Why did Dino chase a mouse and not Baby Puss? A good reoccurring gag could have been anytime Fred orders someone out the house, Baby Puss throws them out.
These are excellent questions. It never occurred to me that Bamm-Bamm lost his strength. But there it is. Seems like a lot of the characters change when the plot requires it. Maybe these shows were considered disposable, so there didn't need to be continuity since who would still be talking about THE PEBBLES & BAMM-BAMM SHOW 50 years later. But here we are.
I think Baby Puss is its own can of worms, as iconic as the cat is for its role in the outro scenes of the original series his actual appearances in the show can be counted with a single hand and most of the time its existence isn't acknowledged at all.
I love the Flintstones it does something no other animated show does and that’s having characters age , we follow Fred and Wilma from newlyweds to grandparents through all the different shows
Not Flinstones related, but there was another Hanna-Babera monster themed cartoon. In 1990, there was a syndicated Hanna-Barbera series on weekday mornings, which was live action with some cartoon segments, called "Wake, Rattle, & Roll" (it was later reaired on the Disney channel as "Jump, Rattle, & Roll" since it didn't necessarily air in the morning). The main live action show was about a kid and his robot friend (with a VHS tape for a face, and a TV for a torso, who slightly resembled Johnny 5 from Short Circuit). But each episode they would show two cartoon shorts which were created specifically for this show. One of them was "Fender Bender 500" which was basically a then-new version of Wacky Races. The other one was called "Monster Tails"... That cartoon was about monsterish pets living in a castle in Transylvania. They are each themed after a classic monster and are meant to be the pets of those respective monsters (i.e. Catula is Dracula's cat), who are off in Hollywood making movies. While these were short cartoons made to be one segment out of a longer half-hour show, there were 30 episodes/shorts made, so it seems to be the closest thing to a monster-themed series that Hanna-Barbera ever made, rather than being guest/supporting characters within another cartoon. I'm not sure offhand how much this was specifically inspired by those previous attempts (other than brief clips on UA-cam, I really watched this since the early 90s), and offhand it seems like it would be the biggest departure or tangent, being animals instead of people/a family, but it still seems to fit within the larger overall theme of H-B trying to make some kind of monster themed show. Also, thank you for this video. For context, I was born in 1980 and I was 10 when Wake, Rattle, & Roll was on, which is why it is something that sticks in my mind and I figured I would mention it. But more on the point of me thanking you... Obviously many Hanna-Barbera cartoons from before I was born were rerun a lot when I was growing up and I saw a lot of them, and grew up with some that came out during my childhood and beyond. And I am generally aware that many of these shows had various incarnations, revivals, etc. over the years after the main initial shows ended. But since I didn't grow up when many of those originally aired and didn't experience it all as they happened, I didn't know about all of those Flintstones variations (some I knew about and have seen, but not all of them, at least not to my recollection). So it is cool getting that context.
Very nice of you to say @ronaldjackson567 -- thank you. We worked hard on this one and I'm glad it's resonating with people. I need to watch the rest of A MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE.
.. Maltese did not write 'that catchy song: "Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, known as "Howard and Emerson". Source: Wikipedia
Thank you. Yeah, the prime-time specials have some really fantastic animation. I don't have a strong vocabulary for the illustration style or shadow or fluidity, but you can tell they actually put more time and money into something like The Flintstones meet Rockula and Frankenstone.
Looks like the people at Hanna-Barbera were also ones who didn’t realize that Frankenstein was the name of the doctor, not the monster (the monster didn’t have a name).
I always felt like The Pebbles & Bamm Bamm Show was created to capitalize on the popularity of The Archies…..being geared toward an older audience that would remember both the original Flinstones run AND The Archies by having a similiar cast of characters(anywhere from cute to hot girls,jock guys,and the 1 nerdy kid) but also at the same time introducing new audiences to the show
Yes, Hanna-Barbera had so many cartoons with a gang of teens -- who are also a rock band on the side. The Archies influence was huge! (Also, we didn't get into it here -- but The Thing cartoon that played alongside The Flintstones had nearly identical supporting casts, including the rich guy jerk and the bumbling motorcycle gang.)
@ yes The Archie’s were DEFINITELY an influence for ALOT of shows…HELL probably even just a bit of CARTOON version of Josie & the Pussycats,with some Scooby Doo thrown in……also,.,,..I STILL have “thing rings do your thing!” boo going around in my head….only REAL OGs remember THAT show! 😁
Absolutely -- I wish we could find ways to work them into every one of our videos. Need to make a video essay that mentions pink halves of drainpipes and urban spacemen.
The Addams family are Vampira and Peter Lorre! Morticia predates Vampira (though she's inspired by Elizabeth Allan's Irena in 1935's MARK OF THE VAMPIRE), but Gomez as originally drawn was quite clearly inspired by Lorre- even if John Aston's performance more closely suggests Groucho Marx.
Harvey Korman, ofThe Carol Burnett show fame, was the voice of the Great Gazoo in the originaL Flintstones cartoon, as well as the dictabird creation in the Flinstones movie.
So, all of this was long before I was even born, but I do remember seeing the 2 Flintstones episodes with The Gruesomes. Think it was on Boomerang I saw them on when I was a little girl, and with how much I've always loved horror movies, those episodes I loved. Think I may have seen that Addams Family Meets Scooby episode too, but can't say that I'm familiar with any of these other ones. Kinda wish I could see that Flintstones with The Munsters like neighbors, that really sounds interesting. May have to check streaming if I could find it somewhere. But anyways, enjoyed this video. Thank you for this.
Thank you. We had to create an outline and then figure out what order to put each section. This video leaps around in time, like the Flintstones in that World's Fair Time Machine!
Yes, your joke is better. With a lot of Hanna-Barbera tiles and jokes and gags, it seems like it's "first thought = best thought". [I wonder if Hanna-Barbera inspired the exchange in the Simpsons. "Something along the lines of, say, Poochie. Only more proactive. Yeah! So, Poochie okay with everybody?"]
@@christianholmes9993 Yes he did. The reason he was turned into a second-rate Muttley in Laff-A-Lympics is because originally did want to use Muttley and Dick Dastardly, but those characters were co-owned by a company called Heatter-Quigley Productions, so they used Mumbly as a Muttley stand-in and created Dread Baron as a Dastardly stand-in.
Not quite. The Dalton Brothers are from the Quick Draw McGraw and Huckleberry Hound shows. Them along with Mumbly are the exceptions, while everyone else are original characters. The Creepleys are considered original characters, mostly because they're recolors of the Gruesomes and have different names. Think of the as Sonic the Hedgehog OCs you'd find on deviantART.
I wish Bill and Joe had never sold their studio to Taft Broadcasting. The later sale to Turner was to undo a lot of the damage Taft did to their reputation.
I learned so much from this o_o I also learned I watched WAY too many Flintstones than expected as I remember some of those spin offs and how they never left an impression on me, other than disappointment it wasnt as good as I remember the original show being.
When they put Rosie O'Donnell in the Flintstones there was no way I was watching that crap. BTW, The Flintstones were a rip off of The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason was asked why he didn't sue HB and he said, you want me to be the guy that killed Fred Flintstone?
Great work on this video. However, Michael Maltese didnt write the Michigan J. Frog song. "Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson. Its subject is a man who has a girlfriend he knows only through the telephone. At the time, telephones were relatively novel, present in fewer than 10% of U.S. households, and this was the first well-known song to refer to the device. Just FYI. Thanks for a interesting video.
There's something very satisfying about receiving a compliment from "BigGiantMonster" -- even more so when it's about a video concerning monsters. Thanks!
16:22 Such Nostalgia, this is why I always prefer cartoons from back in my days. Animated cartoons and movies are horrible now. And you will Never see Cartoons Crossover today.
Cartoon Network shows do some low-key cross-overs. They aren't tentpole events, but there are clever cameos that play like inside jokes for viewers of both shows. (i.e. Regular Show characters appearing on Adventure Time.)
I read somewhere that the pebbles and Bam Bam show that air in the early 70s had Sally Struthers using the voice of pebbles and I think Rob Reiner was the voice of Mr. Slade
3:36 you said that Michael Maltese wrote "that catchy song" but the song heard in the clip is not "The Michigan Rag", written by Milt Franklin, Michael Maltese & Chuck Jones but "Hello! Ma Baby" by Ida Emerson and Joseph E. Howard.
Bamm Bamm was originally called Fred Jr. in the pilot concept and would have been added later. Fred was supposed to be very strong as needed. A lot of early toys of Fred show him doing feats of strength of showing off his muscles. Fred Jr. was changed to Pebbles when Mattel explained that they'd sell thousands more girl dolls than boy dolls. Bamm Bamm was just a fun name that was added later.
I think at one point the second version of "The Flintstones Comedy Show"(with the Frankenstones) was renamed "Back to Bedrock" on the Boomerang Channel.
If there's one show with failed spin-offs you may want to check out, I'd recommend Baywatch. We've got: Baywatch Nights, the infamous flop. "Showdown at Malibu Beach High", which screams "backdoor pilot". "Search and Rescue", which was confirmed as a failed backdoor pilot for a spin-off that would lead to SAF3 years later. And "Baywatch Down Under", which was a backdoor pilot for Baywatch: Australia, but it ended up not happening due to the Australian government. Most just consider Baywatch: Hawaii a continuation with a new name rather than a spin-off.
Right -- that was another reason they gave the character a new voice. But it wasn't a Cassidy impersonator. Ted Cassidy had an amazing career. He's got a story credit on ROAR. He narrated the opening of THE INCREDIBLE HULK. He had a novelty song sung by Lurch. And as a radio announcer he was one of the first people to report on the death of John F. Kennedy.
@@atomicabeAlso was in an episode of Star Trek, which in of itself can be a whose who of guests. Also had a backdoor pilot at the end of its second season.
Right! I wonder if Ted Cassidy and Richard Kiel competed for some of the same roles. (Kiel was hired to play the Incredible Hulk in the pilot, but was quickly replaced. They used one shot of him.)
Jackie Gleason threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera because the basic plot of the show was a rip-off of his show The Honeymooners. Jackie's agent told him not to follow through with the lawsuit, but accept it as an honor that the legacy of your show lives on, even though it is animated. I even loved how they had guest appearances. The only two I can remember are Stoney Curtis (Tony Curtis, the father of Jamie Lee Curtis) and Elizabeth Montgomery who, in the episode, played her character Samantha Stevens, from the sitcom Bewitched. Then there were the Grusoms. The family was a parody of the Addams Family.
The insistence of Hannah Barbera of making the Frankenstones into a thing is the equivalent of that "Just it let it go, bruh. It's over 😂" backpack meme
It makes sense that Ted Cassidy reprised his role for the Addams Family cartoon. He was a pretty regular hand (or voice, rather) for Hanna-Barbera in the 70's before his too-early passing. Pretty much anytime they needed some growls or roars (especially when they made the Godzilla cartoon and Toho wouldn't let them use the official roar), he was their guy.
And because of that, two other characters spawned their own shows, The Schmoo and Capt. Caveman. There was The New Schmoo Adventures and Capt. Caveman and the Teen Angels, and later on the late 80s into early 90s, Cavey returned in the Flintstone Kids...with a son. And I'm also being reminded of the Sega CD version of Chuck Rock where they used Mel Blanc's "UNGA BUNGA" voice clip for the titular character.
The timeline is that Captain Caveman was a frozen caveman who teamed up with the Teen Angels. And the Bedrock shows were a prequel to that series. (And Laff-a-Lympics.) PLUS -- in Wacky Races, you've got the Slag Brothers, two cavemen who look a lot like Captain Caveman. My questions: who is Cavey's mother? Was "Unga Bunga" a refernce to the old dirty joke involving "Death or bunga bunga?" (Google it)
Don't forget the DC Comics' version of The Flintstones! I know I recently loved reading it, but I wish for an adaptation rather than a proposed reboot from Seth MacFarlane or Elizabeth Banks.
It’s kind of folly expecting continuity in media created in a time that had no concept of streaming, binging, syndicating reruns, Blu-rays, etc. In fact the creators had no concept that adults would care enough to watch any of this stuff. The common thought was that kids watched this stuff, out grew it and so it could be recycled for the next generation of kids who hadn’t seen the previous iterations. Still, content is content and I watched this so I guess I’m contributing to the problem 😂
@@atomicabe I just re-watched that movie, now that you mention it, I can see the similarities between Dastardley and the character played by Jack Lemmon. It's also no coincidence that Marvin Kaplan, the voice of Top Cat, was also in it.
I loved the Flintstones, but one of my childhood recurring nightmares was falling into a bottomless pit, which I think was in one of these final season episodes. That concept still makes me a little queasy (I'm 50).
27:30 OMG I had no idea these existed! I clicked on this video thinking _"What spin-offs? That Scooby rip-off with Pebbles, Bam-Bam and Dino? And The Flintstone Kids? I think that was it."_ I didn't know it was another Scooby situation of "Let's make the same show three dozen times"!
AS for the changes and mixing and matching of the Addams Family and Munsters, well that was a big part of the HB cartoons. They changed characters, character looks/ motives to the point where you the watcher was: "Hmmm, OK, wonder what this is today? Everything was a "spun off/take off of something else. The Flintstones themselves were an animated vers. of The Honeymooners. That's why it worked. The Honeymooners was over, but people missed it and someone in HB drew out the Flintstones. (VERY general conjecture here) Also, I think the real shows (Addams, Munsters etc.) let them because imitation was sincerest form of flattery and....FREE advertising. for their own shows.
Okay this video was MADE for me. I loved everything about this. Thanks for sharing some of the wackier stuff.
Some backstory: I'm a college senior who watched so much Boomerang as a kid, I might as well have a doctorate in Hanna-Barbera history. And this is a solid crash course on The Flintstones and their wacky floating timeline. Believe it or not, The Flintstones might be the 5th most complicated Hanna-Barbera cartoon to fully dissect.
As for the other four, it would be Huckleberry Hound, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, and all of all things, Yogi Bear.
Trust me. I have spent too much of my life researching this. The 80s alone for this bear is astronomically baffling.
That's awesome. Your comment made my day. I agree, the Flintstones is super complicated, the deeper you go the weirder it gets. We had so much more we could've explored about the time travel stuff, but had to keep the focus on the backdoor pilot. Maybe someday we'll do a video about The Scooby-Doo Movies (which I would included on the complicated cartoon list) where the gang is hanging out with dead comedians like Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges. It's at once wildly complicated and super-simple.
@@KevinGeeksOutI would love a deep dive into the Scooby Doo cartoons with the dead celebs. That always fascinated me.
@@ebartow66highlights The way I understand it is that Scooby Doo is not a living dog, he's a cartoon. He only exists as media. So he can engage with other media. There is no death, any moving image is a potential guest star on the Scooby Doo movies. What's also strange is that the living guest stars were and were not appearing as themselves. Like Dick Van Dyke would appear. And he's working as a security guard at a closed amusement park.Daphne would say "It's Dick Van Dyke!" So the guest star is Dick Van Dyke. But it's not Dick Van Dyke playing a security guard. That's one layer too many for the cartoon. So we have to accept that these famous celebrities somehow have day jobs that move the plot. Really complicated and super simple.
@@KevinGeeksOut Scooby-Doo has a ridiculously complex multiverse. There are layers to this Great Dane's chicanery.
I theorize that there are about 9-12 different Scooby-Doo timelines. What makes it crazier is there's a crossover comic that includes the live-action versions as well as 13th Ghost and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo versions of Mystery Inc.
It gets real weird real fast, Kevin. It's a slippery slope.
@@KevinGeeksOutso many layers…Inception has nothing on the Mystery Machine crew.
I find it funny that the Flintstones had two sets of creepy neighbors, but they didn't name them the Tombstones.
Probably we can get past the sensors, they censored oddly weird stuff back then
Ha! I had the same thought with "The Gravestones" --- "the Tombstones" is even better!
@@atomicabe Could also have made them "the Headstones."
These existed
@@atomicabe aw pebbles is so cute
Even as a little kid I can remember thinking that The Gruesomes were Adams Family rip offs.
Great video, thanks!
Thank you. Glad to see that even kids could tell what was up. I wonder what Charles Addams made of the Gruesomes.
If Peter Lorre had a dollar for every cartoon character built around a Peter Lorre impression, he could have retired the richest actor in Hollywood!
Another wonderful, impeccably researched video! Great stuff all around!
I hope Peter Lorre got a kick out of these cartoons. (I don't know what his retirement looked liked and I am afraid to find out.) When I was a kid there was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called SHIRT TALES, featuring a talking orangutan named Bogey. He talked just like Humphrey Bogart. It's amazing how many cartoon character are just "If (Iconic Male Celebrity) was a (cute animal)"
If you go back further to Warner Brothers cartoons from the 30s and 40s, there are all sorts of impressions of celebrities that didn't last past that era and you wouldn't even know were caricatures. I was in my forties when I found out the Russian dog from HARE RIBBIN (The Bugs Bunny short that takes place underwater) was meant to be comedian Bert Gordon and Red Riding Hood from RED RIDING RABBIT was an impersonation of Cass Daley.
Yes, that would be a great video -- all the cartoon characters based on real people (or personas and personalities.)
G1 Cosmos from Transformers was a Lorre impression, which I'm wondering if that was just done because Cosmos was a UFO, and UFOs are spooky?
Isn't it basically non existent now in current cartoons 😢@@TheMagicwhistle
Howard Morris was a very talented actor, writer, director of both animated shows and live-action TV and movies. He passed away in 2005.
I read Joe Barbera's book, My Life in Toons. In it he states that he and Bill Hanna were never friends. They weren't enemies either but really just business partners who worked well together. Each had different skills that complemented each others.
Howard Morris is extremely talented. One of my favorite performances of his is voicing all the characters in the Academy Award winning animated short MUNRO, based on Jules Feiffer's storybook.
I had no idea that Hanna and Barbera were just business partners. I only know the cartoons they made. (And that they co-hosted a VHS tape of Christmas sing-alongs.)
Howard Morris made a huge impression on me when he played "Professor Lillolman" (Professor Little Old Man) in HIGH ANXIETY. The character, I found out many years after-the-fact, was based on "Dr. Brulov" (Michael Chekhov) from the Alfred Hitchcock film SPELLBOUND. I looked up Morris' IMDB resume, and was stunned at how many shows I'd heard him do voice-acting on!
Morris as Ernest T Bass was absolutely AWESOME 😂😂😂❤❤❤
It is not unusual that those in business partnerships do not become friends, another example is WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan never really got on. IDK if G&S Operettas are ever performed in America, but their classics are well known in Britain.
@@michaelhaywood8262 Gilbert and Sullivan are well liked and admired here in America but really only by senior citizens. Young people today would not get them.
Some famous "business" partners:
Abbott and Costello started as friends but had a terrible falling out and never resolved that.
Martin and Lewis despised each other after starting out as good friends.
Hall and Oates, friends since college, are suing each other currently
But, my favorites, Laurel and Hardy were best friends to the bitter end. After Hardy died Stan never worked again because he couldn't bear to not have his buddy by his side. That's nice. Stan Laurel had a small apartment (he was broke) after he retired as well as phone number that was listed in the phone book pages (remember phone books?) and he would gladly talk to any of his fans that called him. A class act.
Great video! But one correction: Michigan J. Frog's main song "Hello! Ma Baby", was in fact an 1899 Tin Pan Alley song, but the "Michigan Rag" he sang was specially written for the cartoon by Maltese and Chuck Jones.
Yes, you are correct. Thanks for that. I may need to pin this comment to the top of the comments section.
I am legitimately impressed with how much of any of this I was previously aware of.
It's crazy that they tried to make this concept work so many times and failed every time
The sentient sheet of LSD that kept pitching this idea must have been kept in the same break-room freezer for decades…
@@johnkimball9716 Your comment made me laugh hard!
Not every concept can survive the Scooby-Doo treatment.
Yep, and their long list of attempts were stretched across Saturday mornings for like 30 years.
@joeconcepts5552 It was either that or keep cloning The Flintstones (and I'm not talking about the spin-offs), which only had one successful iteration, The Jetsons. Hey, I've got an idea for your next video...
Hey, Abe! Thanks for including us (Green Jello) and our single "Anarchy in Bedrock!" Look for us on tour! And if we're not playing in your neighborhood, just book us!
Green Jello! You've made my day. In the live chat (when this video essay premiered) there was a lot of chatter about you guys and how people want a Blu-Ray of CEREAL KILLER. I also mentioned getting my photo with Sh!tman in L.A. back in the late '90s. (Outside the studio with the wall of character art.) Your cover of ANARCHY IN THE UK seriously is one of my favorite covers, the juxtaposition of the Sex Pistols and a cartoon is brilliant. But it's also an excellent cover. I will check out your tour dates, would love to see you live, in-person.
@@atomicabe There are at least DVD copies available, some members of the band sell them at live shows. BluRay, I'm not sure those exist, but could probably be mastered up. Anyway, we're in Florida through December (on weekends), I do believe! And Bill (our founder and leader) will be booking 2025 very soon!
omg Green Jello!
You guys occupy a special place in the soundtrack to my teens 😂
@@tim_is_random It was the soundtrack to my teens, too; Cereal Killer released when I was 14 LOL I joined the band 10 years ago as a touring member :)
I remembered there being two different creepy Flintstone neighbor families, but I didn't know there were even more variations! I didn't know the whole history and the backdoor pilot angle.
There's lots of weird character inconsistencies in The Flintstones, like an origin story episode for Dino where he could talk, but after he'd already appeared in other episodes in his more familiar non-talking form. Wilma has multiple maiden names. Joe Rockhead looks and sounds different each time he appears. I just thought the same thing happened to the monster family.
John Astin is still with us (at the time of this comment) at 94! Total legend.
John Astin is great. A son of Baltimore, so it was personally meaningful for him to get to play Edgar Allan Poe on stage.
Don't bloody jinx it
I loved him as Dr. Gangreen in Return of the Killer Tomatoes!
Didn't Hanna Barbera also animate the '90s Addams Family series too? Which also starred John Astin!
But, speaking of Flintstones spin-offs, you might want to look at The Blackstones, Another planned next door family for them!
I'm Half Expecting WBD to make a Gruesome Show on Max that's Totally NOT a Wednesday Knockoff.
Guru Larry, I haven’t seen you in forever.
Hello you!
@@TDM1138 Alas, ive been ill :(
@@Larry I’m sorry to hear that, I hope you get better soon dude!
Sometimes we all have to understand that trying to make a Spin-Off Movie, COmic Book, VIdeo Game and/or TV Series (depending on which Company in Hollywood owns the rights to which one) can be very tricky to pull off, no matter what the results are.
But sometimes there is a type of Spin-Off that can turn out well.
Agreed. Same thing with remakes. The 1939 WIZARD OF OZ was the third adaptation. THE MALTESE FALCON (with Humphrey Bogart) was a remake. The '78 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is superb. And even though it was widely rejected when it came out, John Carpenter's THE THING is recognized as a classic.
@KevinGeeksOut Those are good examples
@BigChanges2025yessir What about The Flintstone Kids?
@BigChanges2025yessir Whatever floats your 🚤 boat
A lot of gen X grew up watching the original Flintstones in Reruns. I never knew it was the first primetime adult cartoon in America.The Saturday morning spin offs we're not authentic generic but too kid friendly
I will never forgive WB for not giving us "Flintstones on the Rocks" in any modern or home media format, leaving us with ancient VHS rips from the TV airing.
The Grusomes = We got Addams Family at Home.
exactly!
0:31, Captain Caveman (and sometimes his Son, Cavey Jr.) also appeared in The Flintstone Comedy Hour and The Flintstone Kids.
There was also the time Fred and Bareny appeared in Laff-a-Lympics as Guest Star Judges, Yogi Bear's All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper, Yogi's Space Race, Scooby-Doo Team-Up #7, Space Jam 2: A New Legacy, DC Meets Hanna-Barbera with Booster Gold & The Flintstones and were referemced in HBO Max''s Jellystone.
Yes, it's very funny that Captain Caveman had already starred in his own series, but was appearing on the Flintstones shows as a prequel -- before his was frozen. Also, we didn't have time to delve into it, but the Slag Brothers (the cavemen on 1969's WACKY RACES) are totally a pre-cursor to Captain Caveman.
@@KevinGeeksOut We all gotta learn something
@thefantasticretroreviewer3941 Fred himself also made a cameo in an episode of either Dexters Lab or Billy and Mandy(Sorry I can’t remember which one 😞) 😂
@AdamAddictL 1. I think its more of a Guest Star role.
2. Hopefully you will remember
To be fair, I believe Fred and Barney only appeared once on Laff-a-Lympics: as judges in a sandcastle-building contest. But even as a child, my brother asked, “ How are Fred and Barney coexisting with the rest of the characters? They’re from the Stone Age.“
Yes, Fred and Barney were not competitors or members of the teams, you're right about that. They did, however, make multiple appearances, sometimes providing commentary or giving examples of how to succeed in a particular sporting event. (Which gave Fred a real Ralph Kramden moment to act like he's an excellent fisherman or pitcher or whatever the situation called for.) And it really is weird that they're existing in modern times with no explanation.
I think Mildew Wolf made reference to the fact that Fred and Barney were mysteriously there from the stone age.
Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory used his time machine to transport them to modern times lol
I still stand my belief that the characters in WACKY RACES were all proposals for series they wanted to do something with and since they were always taking from TV and movies (Flintstones=Honeymooners, Top Cat=Sgt. Bilko, etc.) this was their take on THE GREAT RACE. They were eventually able to tie a couple of their Wacky Races characters when there were two movies they could cash in on (Dastardly & Muttley=THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and Penelope Pitstop=THE PERILS OF PAULINE)
Yes to all of this. Also: the Slag Brothers were basically a blueprint for Captain Caveman.
Another good example was Tom and Jerry. Sometimes they'd be enemies, running and chasing, and sometimes they'd be friends. Sometimes in a 30 min show you'd get 2 enemy/1 friendly cartoons (mix and match your own combo here) It was very inconsistent and you (the viewer) just learned to go with it.
Fred Flintstone made a cameo in an episode of Billy and Mandy, didn't he?
not just a cameo, a full on episode dedicated to him, tho he was represented as just a regular stereotypical cartoon caveman and could only say "Yabba Dabba"
He was a rampaging nutso caveman!!!
He also said his name
Jodie Foster was also Pugsley on Scooby-Doo, so not entirely a newcomer. Not sure on Wednesday though. Not sure what happened to John and Carolyn but I suspect Carolyn’s cancer diagnosis is what got Morticia recast and maybe John didn’t want to return without her. John would later voice Gomez for HB’s second cartoon iteration of The Addams Family in the early 90’s.
EDIT: Side note, the clip of John Astin as the game show played as I finished this. 😂🤣😊
I wasn't sure if that was Jodie Foster in the Scooby-Doo movies. (Very hard to tell since Pugsley doesn't speak much in the episode.) She's credited on the Addams Family cartoon series.
@ I believe she’s credited with everyone but they just list the overall cast unless the source mixed it up and Pugsley is actually unknown, but initially I saw her credited somewhere.
@@tigerlord9302 Cool. Thanks. I wasn't sure.
@ Yeah the credits of Scooby-Doo list everyone who was on it, including Mark Hamill long before Star Wars and Joker. 🤯
Lennie Weinrib best known as the original voice of Scrappy Doo does Gomez voice and Janet Waldo best known as Judy Jetson as Morticia in the 73' series.
Poor Arnold the paper boy, he’s the only Flinstone character that was never reused.
I'm glad Don Messick kept working.
In my city there's a diner called 'The Bedrock Bistro', a Flintstone-themed breakfast restaurant. They play all the retro Flintstones episodes on screens positioned around the place, and the menu has all the food listed as Flintstone Era meals (ie Steak and Eggs is "Stegasaur Meat and Pterodactyl eggs"). Lol😊
That's amazing. By me there's a Yogi Bear campground, but it's not nearly as deluxe as the diner!
comfy
Do they have a "Bronto Burger" too?
One of the Frankenstones segments, entitled "A Rocks-Pox on You!" was written by prolific author/filmmaker/musician/paleontologist Donald F. Glut. I've spoken to him several times live, and he's quite a fascinating person.
One thing that the original had that none of the sequels had was a prime time network time slot. Every revival after that but until H-B merged with Turner was done for Saturday morning.
The producers and writers HATED contemporary pop music; funny how no one’s ever pointed out that the Gruesomes are obviously Sonny and Cher.
One of the things I've come to appreciate about revisiting GILLIGAN'S ISLAND is the running gag that they're not really missing much back home. Anytime we encounter something from the outside world, it's pretty trashy.
I would love to see an episode where you talk about the history of the Flintstones. Things such as:
1) When the theme song as we know it officially became a permanent fixture of the show and ALL the variations of the opening credits.
2) How there was a nationwide contest to name Pebbles
3) How the 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason, was the inspiration for The Flintstones; and how Jackie's agent talked him out of suing Hanna-Barbera for copyright infringement.
4) What the show's original name was.
my favorite was the flinstones crossover with The Sopanos on Harvey Birdman Attoney at Law where Fred was portrayed as a mob boss.
yes, so much funny stuff in HARVEY BIRDMAN ATTORNEY AT LAW.
"You're dead to me, can opener!"
This was fun to watch on Thanksgiving night. I probably watched a lot of these special when I was a kid and a teenager. Back in the day you did not have as much animation available so when a primetime animated special came on it was pretty much an event.
Ultimately I see a lot of what doesn’t work with this concept. I’m a huge fan of the Addams family and on the surface I think I can understand the appeal of the “gruesomes” concept but the main problem is trying too many different ideas. Some ideas make more sense than others but every single one of them is just strange in some way. Addams family has so many amazing characters and truthfully they have a good balance of personalities and storytelling. The Gruesomes suffer mostly from inconsistency. Good job on this retrospective. Looking forward to seeing more from your channel in the future.
Agreed -- the concept of a macabre family is enough of a premise. Don't also make them living in caveman times! Thanks for commenting and sharing the positive feedback.
I had completely forgotten about these until now. Seeing the clips really helped but at the time as a kid, I remember just thinking they were characters from Halloween or Halloween adjacent specials. Eventually they were in rerun times and/or actually around Halloween and you ceased to take them seriously.
Does anyone remember this? It was probably around 84-87 and it was a one off kind of after school special type of thing. Pebbles or bam bam has a friend named Stoney. He smokes either spliffs or regular cigarettes. Anyway he smokes all the time and at the end of the episode there’s a school marathon where the kids are running around the track with the baton. And when Stoney gets it and starts to run he starts coughing uncontrollably and basically makes his team lose the race or whatever. It was basically one of the anti smoking, anti drugs type of special, I think it played at night. I distinctly remember it but I was around 10 or younger so it’s kind of cloudy. Anyone else remember it?
YES! I just watched this. It's the Flinstone Kids' JUST SAY NO SPECIAL, from 1988, featuring appearances by Nancy Reagan (live-action) and Michael Jackstone (cartoon). Coincidentally, Stoney was voiced by Dana Hill, who appears in this video when we mention National Lampoon's EUROPEAN VACATION. She played Audrey.
Awesome, thanks. I knew I remembered it, childhood memory
Sorry, but no. "Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, known as "Howard and Emerson".
You can even find cylinder recordings of it online.
This was really fun. The Poltergeist bit had me in stitches. Really interesting how many bites at the apple they took they took trying to make an Addams family style sitcom.
Thank you. The Poltergeist mash-up took some work, but it was worth it. Shout to to Matt Glasson's editing magic.
There's a lots of spin-offs the Flintstones had in store that I didn't know about, thanks for sharing 👍🏿
Absolutely. Thanks for the kind words.
@atomicabe you're welcome 😊
Loved, loved, loved this video!!! I was always confused about the different iterations of the "weird monster family" across the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and this essay gave me a lot of clarity.
(on a different note, it's so weird how Gendy Tartakovsky Mrs. Frankenstone looks at 22:30)
Thank you, that is wonderful to hear. And yes, Hidea Frankenstone does look rather Gendy Tartakovsky, doesn't she?
I didn’t realize Paul Rubens played their son. Thank you for this awesome informative video
Yes, once you hear it, it's unmistakable. (He also voiced Moonrock on some of the Comedy Show interstitials.)
I remember the version with the spider. Here in Mexico we had many reruns of the originial classic series with the talent of legendary voice actor Jorge "El Tata" Arvizu! He was such a legend that he dubed Fred, Ernie, Fred´s Boss and half of the cast, also on the Jetsons and the whole Top Cat Crew by himself.
He must've been great. That's quite a range. And TOP CAT was pretty big internationally, right?
@@atomicabe Indeed, in our case it was because he gave the characters new personalities.
THANK YOU for making this video, I had vague memories of various monsters moving in next to the Flintstones, lol
Thanks for watching! Ha, The Flintstones live in a very strange universe.
This was incredibly interesting and wildly entertaining. Thank you so much!
That's great to hear. We had a lot of fun making this and it's nice to see people connecting with it.
Thanks to everyone who attended the premiere! Subscribe to Atomic Abe for more episodes of Behind the Backdoor Pilot.
Facts of life had several
Awesome video. I’m not a huge fan of The Flintstones, but the presentation here was fantastic.
Thanks very much. That's good to hear.
This was fantastic, Love your series covering backdoor pilots or spin off attempts from popular shows.
The Flintstones is classic, though i started with the live action 90s movie as a kid. Then saw some of the original animated series through reruns on Cartoon Network.
Thank you, glad you liked it. We've covered a lot of backdoor pilots, but this is our first animated one. More to come!
Thanks for explaining all this. It was confusing that there were like 50 different sets of monster families in the Flintstones universe
Wow, I remember most of these characters. I think at some point they just lumped all these in with regular Flintstone reruns that I grew up watching in the 70s in the 80s.
I think the continuity discrepancies can be explained by the fact that these cartoons were made for kids. By the time the next cartoon came out, the previous generation had grown and was not expected to be watching anymore. Now there was a whole new audience to entertain.
Wow! That was marvelous!
One thing I'll never forget was an attempt at a spin-off that was based entirely around the Rubbles, but for some reason Barney was now a belligerent, foul mouthed alcoholic. It was only a few couple minute segments but it was so surreal seeing Barney depicted that way.
Yeah, I didn't care for those shorts. Who was it made for? Like, who is the audience?
@atomicabe Good question. I feel if it was Fred it would make sense, but turning humble, funny Barney into a jackass is just so jarring. It's like someone wanted to make a more adult Flintstones and forgot which character was the angry blowhard.
No cartoon character, or live action for that matter has had his life so fully chronicled more than Fred Flintstone. I appreciate you making this video, I learned a lot about a subject I thought I mostly knew. But with it comes more questions: why did Bamm Bamm lose his strength? Why did Dino chase a mouse and not Baby Puss? A good reoccurring gag could have been anytime Fred orders someone out the house, Baby Puss throws them out.
These are excellent questions. It never occurred to me that Bamm-Bamm lost his strength. But there it is. Seems like a lot of the characters change when the plot requires it. Maybe these shows were considered disposable, so there didn't need to be continuity since who would still be talking about THE PEBBLES & BAMM-BAMM SHOW 50 years later. But here we are.
I think Baby Puss is its own can of worms, as iconic as the cat is for its role in the outro scenes of the original series his actual appearances in the show can be counted with a single hand and most of the time its existence isn't acknowledged at all.
Your prologues are so good!
That's the first time someone has complimented the prologues. But that feedback really means a lot to me, thank you kindly!
Something many people don't understand is that in the wake of every roaring success is a string of abject, often humiliating failures.
Yes, I became very aware of this after the success of PULP FICTION.
I love the Flintstones it does something no other animated show does and that’s having characters age , we follow Fred and Wilma from newlyweds to grandparents through all the different shows
The only time current-day animated sitcoms do that is for flash forward episodes that always end back at the present day.
This video is so specific but exactly in my wheelhouse; thank you.
You're very welcome. And yes, your handle suggests that you'd dig the creepy stuff.
@@atomicabe He posts pictures of his cat named "Goblin" elsewhere on the internet.
Not Flinstones related, but there was another Hanna-Babera monster themed cartoon.
In 1990, there was a syndicated Hanna-Barbera series on weekday mornings, which was live action with some cartoon segments, called "Wake, Rattle, & Roll" (it was later reaired on the Disney channel as "Jump, Rattle, & Roll" since it didn't necessarily air in the morning). The main live action show was about a kid and his robot friend (with a VHS tape for a face, and a TV for a torso, who slightly resembled Johnny 5 from Short Circuit). But each episode they would show two cartoon shorts which were created specifically for this show. One of them was "Fender Bender 500" which was basically a then-new version of Wacky Races. The other one was called "Monster Tails"...
That cartoon was about monsterish pets living in a castle in Transylvania. They are each themed after a classic monster and are meant to be the pets of those respective monsters (i.e. Catula is Dracula's cat), who are off in Hollywood making movies. While these were short cartoons made to be one segment out of a longer half-hour show, there were 30 episodes/shorts made, so it seems to be the closest thing to a monster-themed series that Hanna-Barbera ever made, rather than being guest/supporting characters within another cartoon.
I'm not sure offhand how much this was specifically inspired by those previous attempts (other than brief clips on UA-cam, I really watched this since the early 90s), and offhand it seems like it would be the biggest departure or tangent, being animals instead of people/a family, but it still seems to fit within the larger overall theme of H-B trying to make some kind of monster themed show.
Also, thank you for this video. For context, I was born in 1980 and I was 10 when Wake, Rattle, & Roll was on, which is why it is something that sticks in my mind and I figured I would mention it. But more on the point of me thanking you...
Obviously many Hanna-Barbera cartoons from before I was born were rerun a lot when I was growing up and I saw a lot of them, and grew up with some that came out during my childhood and beyond. And I am generally aware that many of these shows had various incarnations, revivals, etc. over the years after the main initial shows ended. But since I didn't grow up when many of those originally aired and didn't experience it all as they happened, I didn't know about all of those Flintstones variations (some I knew about and have seen, but not all of them, at least not to my recollection). So it is cool getting that context.
This is one of your best...❤. And A Man Call Flintstones is one of my favorite movies of all time 😊
Very nice of you to say @ronaldjackson567 -- thank you. We worked hard on this one and I'm glad it's resonating with people. I need to watch the rest of A MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE.
The characters finally all got personalities and eyes. Can't believe the son would bark like a seal at one point 🤣
In NEW NEIGHBORS Frank Frankenstone has these blood-red eyes. That was definitely a detail that needed to be revised.
@@atomicabe lol Yeah it usually becomes a problem when you meet your neighbours and you see their red, stoner eyes. I'm one to talk
.. Maltese did not write 'that catchy song:
"Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, known as "Howard and Emerson".
Source: Wikipedia
What a brilliant video, gripping. I actually love The Flintstones meet Rockula and Frankenstone :)
Thank you. Yeah, the prime-time specials have some really fantastic animation. I don't have a strong vocabulary for the illustration style or shadow or fluidity, but you can tell they actually put more time and money into something like The Flintstones meet Rockula and Frankenstone.
Looks like the people at Hanna-Barbera were also ones who didn’t realize that Frankenstein was the name of the doctor, not the monster (the monster didn’t have a name).
Where were you supposed to get a copy of the Boris Karloff version before it came out on home video?
@ Huh?
The Gruesomes/Creeplys look like Sonny and Cher
I always felt like The Pebbles & Bamm Bamm Show was created to capitalize on the popularity of The Archies…..being geared toward an older audience that would remember both the original Flinstones run AND The Archies by having a similiar cast of characters(anywhere from cute to hot girls,jock guys,and the 1 nerdy kid) but also at the same time introducing new audiences to the show
Yes, Hanna-Barbera had so many cartoons with a gang of teens -- who are also a rock band on the side. The Archies influence was huge! (Also, we didn't get into it here -- but The Thing cartoon that played alongside The Flintstones had nearly identical supporting casts, including the rich guy jerk and the bumbling motorcycle gang.)
@ yes The Archie’s were DEFINITELY an influence for ALOT of shows…HELL probably even just a bit of CARTOON version of Josie & the Pussycats,with some Scooby Doo thrown in……also,.,,..I STILL have “thing rings do your thing!” boo going around in my head….only REAL OGs remember THAT show! 😁
The time travel episode was actually neat, always remember liking that one
Thanks for using the Bonzos in the video!
Absolutely -- I wish we could find ways to work them into every one of our videos. Need to make a video essay that mentions pink halves of drainpipes and urban spacemen.
The Addams family are Vampira and Peter Lorre! Morticia predates Vampira (though she's inspired by Elizabeth Allan's Irena in 1935's MARK OF THE VAMPIRE), but Gomez as originally drawn was quite clearly inspired by Lorre- even if John Aston's performance more closely suggests Groucho Marx.
I remember the series with a grown-up Pebbles and Bam-Bam which was shown here in Britain in the early 1970s [so probably somewhat earlier in America]
Harvey Korman, ofThe Carol Burnett show fame, was the voice of the Great Gazoo in the originaL Flintstones cartoon, as well as the dictabird creation in the Flinstones movie.
So, all of this was long before I was even born, but I do remember seeing the 2 Flintstones episodes with The Gruesomes. Think it was on Boomerang I saw them on when I was a little girl, and with how much I've always loved horror movies, those episodes I loved. Think I may have seen that Addams Family Meets Scooby episode too, but can't say that I'm familiar with any of these other ones. Kinda wish I could see that Flintstones with The Munsters like neighbors, that really sounds interesting. May have to check streaming if I could find it somewhere. But anyways, enjoyed this video. Thank you for this.
Internet Archive has them. Search for THE FLINTSTONES COMEDY SHOW and FRANKENSTONES.
Wow, job well done! I now know about this I ever wanted to know! How were you able to keep it all organized?
Thank you. We had to create an outline and then figure out what order to put each section. This video leaps around in time, like the Flintstones in that World's Fair Time Machine!
‘John Cenastone’ should’ve be named ‘John Cement’
Yes, your joke is better. With a lot of Hanna-Barbera tiles and jokes and gags, it seems like it's "first thought = best thought". [I wonder if Hanna-Barbera inspired the exchange in the Simpsons. "Something along the lines of, say, Poochie. Only more proactive. Yeah! So, Poochie okay with everybody?"]
@ poochie was definitely inspired by HB.
I love how lazy it is. It's effort was on par with the rest of the special
Fun fact: With the exception of the Gruesomes, all of the Really Rottens are original to Laff-A-Lympics.
Didn't Mumbly have a show where he was a detective before he was turned into a second rate Muttley?
@@christianholmes9993 Yes he did. The reason he was turned into a second-rate Muttley in Laff-A-Lympics is because originally did want to use Muttley and Dick Dastardly, but those characters were co-owned by a company called Heatter-Quigley Productions, so they used Mumbly as a Muttley stand-in and created Dread Baron as a Dastardly stand-in.
Not quite. The Dalton Brothers are from the Quick Draw McGraw and Huckleberry Hound shows. Them along with Mumbly are the exceptions, while everyone else are original characters. The Creepleys are considered original characters, mostly because they're recolors of the Gruesomes and have different names. Think of the as Sonic the Hedgehog OCs you'd find on deviantART.
They just couldn't capture what made the original series great. These were watered down for Saturday morning.
I wish Bill and Joe had never sold their studio to Taft Broadcasting. The later sale to Turner was to undo a lot of the damage Taft did to their reputation.
The Flintstones comic released by DC is one of the greatest comic runs I’ve ever read. Please, read it if you haven’t
Thanks for the recommendation. What did you like about the Flintstones comics? What made it so good?
I learned so much from this o_o I also learned I watched WAY too many Flintstones than expected as I remember some of those spin offs and how they never left an impression on me, other than disappointment it wasnt as good as I remember the original show being.
When they put Rosie O'Donnell in the Flintstones there was no way I was watching that crap. BTW, The Flintstones were a rip off of The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason was asked why he didn't sue HB and he said, you want me to be the guy that killed Fred Flintstone?
Outside of the adventures of pebbles and Bam Bam, and the man called Flintstone, every single spinoff stunk
Great work on this video. However, Michael Maltese didnt write the Michigan J. Frog song. "Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and
Ida Emerson. Its subject is a man who has a girlfriend he knows only through the telephone.
At the time, telephones were relatively novel, present in fewer than 10% of U.S. households, and this was the first well-known song to refer to the device. Just FYI. Thanks for a interesting video.
Snooper and Blabber were some of my favorite characters!
Quiet, you booby Blab!
Well done!
Thanks for watching!
There's something very satisfying about receiving a compliment from "BigGiantMonster" -- even more so when it's about a video concerning monsters. Thanks!
16:22 Such Nostalgia, this is why I always prefer cartoons from back in my days. Animated cartoons and movies are horrible now. And you will Never see Cartoons Crossover today.
Cartoon Network shows do some low-key cross-overs. They aren't tentpole events, but there are clever cameos that play like inside jokes for viewers of both shows. (i.e. Regular Show characters appearing on Adventure Time.)
...
I read somewhere that the pebbles and Bam Bam show that air in the early 70s had Sally Struthers using the voice of pebbles and I think Rob Reiner was the voice of Mr. Slade
Yes, Sally Struthers was the voice of teenage Pebbles. But Rob Reiner, to the best of the my knowledge, wasn't involved with the series.
3:36 you said that Michael Maltese wrote "that catchy song" but the song heard in the clip is not "The Michigan Rag", written by Milt Franklin, Michael Maltese & Chuck Jones but "Hello! Ma Baby" by Ida Emerson and Joseph E. Howard.
Yup. We made an error.
Bamm Bamm was originally called Fred Jr. in the pilot concept and would have been added later. Fred was supposed to be very strong as needed. A lot of early toys of Fred show him doing feats of strength of showing off his muscles. Fred Jr. was changed to Pebbles when Mattel explained that they'd sell thousands more girl dolls than boy dolls. Bamm Bamm was just a fun name that was added later.
I had no idea. The doll sales makes sense.
I think at one point the second version of "The Flintstones Comedy Show"(with the Frankenstones) was renamed "Back to Bedrock" on the Boomerang Channel.
If there's one show with failed spin-offs you may want to check out, I'd recommend Baywatch. We've got:
Baywatch Nights, the infamous flop.
"Showdown at Malibu Beach High", which screams "backdoor pilot".
"Search and Rescue", which was confirmed as a failed backdoor pilot for a spin-off that would lead to SAF3 years later.
And "Baywatch Down Under", which was a backdoor pilot for Baywatch: Australia, but it ended up not happening due to the Australian government.
Most just consider Baywatch: Hawaii a continuation with a new name rather than a spin-off.
frankenstone was also Ted Cassidy's final role before his death
Right -- that was another reason they gave the character a new voice. But it wasn't a Cassidy impersonator.
Ted Cassidy had an amazing career. He's got a story credit on ROAR. He narrated the opening of THE INCREDIBLE HULK. He had a novelty song sung by Lurch. And as a radio announcer he was one of the first people to report on the death of John F. Kennedy.
@@atomicabeAlso was in an episode of Star Trek, which in of itself can be a whose who of guests. Also had a backdoor pilot at the end of its second season.
Right! I wonder if Ted Cassidy and Richard Kiel competed for some of the same roles. (Kiel was hired to play the Incredible Hulk in the pilot, but was quickly replaced. They used one shot of him.)
He also does the voice of another Frankenstein character Jr.
19:06 All these years later, I still recall her next line. "Please, Gomez. Trieste now, tryst later."
What a memory! I'm impressed.
@@atomicabeSomehow, at the age of five, that line stuck with me. You know how kids pick up on stuff they're not supposed to.
Jackie Gleason threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera because the basic plot of the show was a rip-off of his show The Honeymooners. Jackie's agent told him not to follow through with the lawsuit, but accept it as an honor that the legacy of your show lives on, even though it is animated.
I even loved how they had guest appearances. The only two I can remember are Stoney Curtis (Tony Curtis, the father of Jamie Lee Curtis) and Elizabeth Montgomery who, in the episode, played her character Samantha Stevens, from the sitcom Bewitched. Then there were the Grusoms. The family was a parody of the Addams Family.
The insistence of Hannah Barbera of making the Frankenstones into a thing is the equivalent of that "Just it let it go, bruh. It's over 😂" backpack meme
It makes sense that Ted Cassidy reprised his role for the Addams Family cartoon. He was a pretty regular hand (or voice, rather) for Hanna-Barbera in the 70's before his too-early passing. Pretty much anytime they needed some growls or roars (especially when they made the Godzilla cartoon and Toho wouldn't let them use the official roar), he was their guy.
We’re all connected baby!
And because of that, two other characters spawned their own shows, The Schmoo and Capt. Caveman. There was The New Schmoo Adventures and Capt. Caveman and the Teen Angels, and later on the late 80s into early 90s, Cavey returned in the Flintstone Kids...with a son. And I'm also being reminded of the Sega CD version of Chuck Rock where they used Mel Blanc's "UNGA BUNGA" voice clip for the titular character.
The timeline is that Captain Caveman was a frozen caveman who teamed up with the Teen Angels. And the Bedrock shows were a prequel to that series. (And Laff-a-Lympics.) PLUS -- in Wacky Races, you've got the Slag Brothers, two cavemen who look a lot like Captain Caveman. My questions: who is Cavey's mother? Was "Unga Bunga" a refernce to the old dirty joke involving "Death or bunga bunga?" (Google it)
Don't forget the DC Comics' version of The Flintstones! I know I recently loved reading it, but I wish for an adaptation rather than a proposed reboot from Seth MacFarlane or Elizabeth Banks.
same
Oh man I have the flu and this is exactly what I was hoping to watch. Awesome video as always.
Thanks so much. Feel better!
It’s kind of folly expecting continuity in media created in a time that had no concept of streaming, binging, syndicating reruns, Blu-rays, etc. In fact the creators had no concept that adults would care enough to watch any of this stuff. The common thought was that kids watched this stuff, out grew it and so it could be recycled for the next generation of kids who hadn’t seen the previous iterations. Still, content is content and I watched this so I guess I’m contributing to the problem 😂
I always thought that the Wacky Race was a take on the movie "The Great Race"
Yes, you're right about The Great Race.
@@atomicabe I just re-watched that movie, now that you mention it, I can see the similarities between Dastardley and the character played by Jack Lemmon. It's also no coincidence that Marvin Kaplan, the voice of Top Cat, was also in it.
I loved the Flintstones, but one of my childhood recurring nightmares was falling into a bottomless pit, which I think was in one of these final season episodes. That concept still makes me a little queasy (I'm 50).
What a ghastly nightmare! I hope you don't have it any more.
27:30 OMG I had no idea these existed! I clicked on this video thinking _"What spin-offs? That Scooby rip-off with Pebbles, Bam-Bam and Dino? And The Flintstone Kids? I think that was it."_ I didn't know it was another Scooby situation of "Let's make the same show three dozen times"!
Yes, Scooby and Fred have had a lot of shows.
There was also an episode of A Pup Named Scooby Doo that had characters I think were also supposed to be like the evil scientists.
AS for the changes and mixing and matching of the Addams Family and Munsters, well that was a big part of the HB cartoons. They changed characters, character looks/ motives to the point where you the watcher was: "Hmmm, OK, wonder what this is today? Everything was a "spun off/take off of something else. The Flintstones themselves were an animated vers. of The Honeymooners. That's why it worked. The Honeymooners was over, but people missed it and someone in HB drew out the Flintstones. (VERY general conjecture here) Also, I think the real shows (Addams, Munsters etc.) let them because imitation was sincerest form of flattery and....FREE advertising. for their own shows.
And so many of their characters were basically created by just having them talk like older actors and comedians.