The Flintstones: 1st Animated Series on Prime Time Schedule

Thea Alodia Tugade

PUBMAT | Anthony Beronque

DID YOU KNOW?

On this day, 61 years ago, the first episode of the stone age television cartoon was broadcast. “Yaba, Daba, Dooo!” exclaims the narrator. The Flintstones was the first animated show to air during prime time. For three decades, it was the most commercially successful network animated series.

The Flintstones is an animated sitcom created by Hanna-Barbera Productions located in the United States. Its series follows the actions of the titular family in a romanticized Stone Age Period setting.

From September 30, 1960 until April 1, 1966, it was shown on ABC Channel. The juxtaposition of modern everyday worries in a Stone Age setting has helped maintain its popularity. As a result, the show is set in a satirical depiction of the Stone Age, but with added characteristics and technologies that resemble suburban America in the mid-twentieth century. Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures coexisted with cavemen, saber-toothed cats, and woolly mammoths in the film.

Christopher P. Lehman, an animation historian, believes that the series' humor stems in part from its inventive use of anachronisms. The most important is the transplantation of a “modern” 20th century society into archaic periods. It is based on the development of suburban sprawl in the first two decades of the postwar period.

Their society, as seen in the series, includes modern home appliances, yet they still work with animals. They have automobiles, which are composed of wood and rock structures and are powered by petrol.

The idea of this series started after Hanna-Barbera produced ‘The Huckleberry Hound Show’ and ‘The Quick Draw McGraw Show’. These programs were successful, but they did not have the same broad appeal as their previous theatrical cartoon series ‘Tom and Jerry’, which pleased both children and adults who attended them. Hanna-product Barber’s was termed “kids only” since children did not require parental supervision to watch television. Barbera and Hanna intended to reintroduce animated situation comedy to the mature audience.

Following the show’s discontinuation in the year 1966, a movie was made based on it. The musical espionage caper ‘The Man Called Flintstone”, mocked James Bond and other secret operatives. Columbia Pictures premiered the film in theaters on August 3, 1966. Warner Home Video released it on DVD in Canada in March 2005 and the United States in December 2008.

References:

https://www.ThisDayTrivia.com/trivia/september-30?f=The-Flintstones#The-Flintstones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flintstones