Wednesday, October 11, 2006
It's A Living
Ed Benedict has died.
For The Flintstones, the story of a "modern Stone Age family," Benedict not only designed the hapless cavemen Fred and Barney, but also their long-suffering wives, Wilma and Betty, and the show's clever array of Stone Age houses and gadgets, including the characters' foot-powered cars.
In other words, this guy was a legend. I'm ashamed for not knowing his name until now. Think about how much the Flintstones come up in conversation. I compared an old lady's sit-down walker to a "Flintstones car" just last week.
For The Flintstones, the story of a "modern Stone Age family," Benedict not only designed the hapless cavemen Fred and Barney, but also their long-suffering wives, Wilma and Betty, and the show's clever array of Stone Age houses and gadgets, including the characters' foot-powered cars.
In other words, this guy was a legend. I'm ashamed for not knowing his name until now. Think about how much the Flintstones come up in conversation. I compared an old lady's sit-down walker to a "Flintstones car" just last week.
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I never would have known this Jere...thank you. You know when that show started it was a PRIME TIME show on the network...8pm I think.
Yeah, I mean, it's thought of by kids as a "kids show," probably because it's a cartoon. But every American kid has that mind-blowing moment where they're told, "You know, this show was actually for adults."
It's just a regular sit-com, laugh track and all. That just happens to be animated.
I guess it's not mind-blowing any more, though, since there are all these adult/kid cartoon shows now.
It's just a regular sit-com, laugh track and all. That just happens to be animated.
I guess it's not mind-blowing any more, though, since there are all these adult/kid cartoon shows now.
Also, it's funny to see, along with The Jetsons, the 60s version of the future and the 60s version of the past. But it's weird, the past will always be "foot-powered cars" to all of us, whereas we get to see the future. I still don't have a Rosie the Robot, but I've got the internet. Terrible call, Jetsons writers!
Yep, Peter's right; it was on in prime time. What's interesting to me is that it actually debuted in 1960..I thought it came out a couple years after that. It was basically an animated, caveman version of the Honeymooners, but it was very clever and well written. My favorite part was always the celebrity cameos with a prehistoric twist on their names: Ann-Margrock, Cary Granite. The best was the baseball episode:
Casey Stonegel; Roger Marble, Mickey Mountain, Stoney Koufax, Leo Ferocious. Of course, back in the sixties, Koufax, Drysdale and Durocher were doing cameos on pretty much every sitcom.
Bug music..."she said yeah, yeah, yeah..."
Casey Stonegel; Roger Marble, Mickey Mountain, Stoney Koufax, Leo Ferocious. Of course, back in the sixties, Koufax, Drysdale and Durocher were doing cameos on pretty much every sitcom.
Bug music..."she said yeah, yeah, yeah..."
Started in '60, but that Beatles takeoff thing was from the '64-'65 season, I just found out. But yeah, weird that it started in pre-Beatles days, and went on to spoof a lot of mid-sixties stuff.
Great stuff Jere and AJM...I wonder, when it premiered in '60, a full 3 plus years before the mop-tops (Early Feb. '64, at least here in America), if it was in black and white for the first 2 or three seasons. That was the normal back then. Thanks guys.
Great stuff Jere and AJM...I wonder, when it premiered in '60, a full 3 plus years before the mop-tops (Early Feb. '64, at least here in America), if it was in black and white for the first 2 or three seasons. That was the normal back then. Thanks guys.
Peter, I don't know this for certain, but my guess would be that it was in color from the start, like most animation of the period; think back to the Looney Tunes of the '40's and '50's, and the other Hanna/Barbara stuff from the late '50's like Huckleberry Hound. Unlike live-action tv-shows, it probably wasn't much more expensive to produce animation in color back then, and no more technologically complex, so even though most people didn't have color sets until the mid-to-late '60's, they probably were thinking ahead and producing it in color.
Here we go:
"The show was broadcast in black-and-white for the first two seasons (1960-1962), although all materials (episodes, Winston cigarette commercials, and opening/closing sequences) were always produced in color (thus the color versions of the "Rise and Shine" opening/closing credits that now air)."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053502/alternateversions
That's pretty much along the lines of what I was thinking.
"The show was broadcast in black-and-white for the first two seasons (1960-1962), although all materials (episodes, Winston cigarette commercials, and opening/closing sequences) were always produced in color (thus the color versions of the "Rise and Shine" opening/closing credits that now air)."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053502/alternateversions
That's pretty much along the lines of what I was thinking.
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