The Flintstones vs. The Jetsons
The Flintstones had a huge influence on me as a child.
Well, actually that’s a lie, but I really wanted an impressive opening to
this, my very first column. Wasn’t worth it really, was it?
However, I do distinctly remember the times when The Flintstones was the
program I watched before going to beddy-byes at that terribly late time of
7pm (so, just last year, I’d surmise). Now, looking back on this program,
I haven’t a clue why I liked it so much. It’s not the humour – what little
there is of this tends to be of the “I know I’m a Brontosaurus, but THIS
is ridiculous!” fare. It’s not the plots either, being a series that can
devote an entire episode on one central premise each week, be it Fred
getting a swimming pool, or Barney singing in a bath for a Barbershop
Quartet. I suppose the thing it has going for it is its’ cosiness. With
it’s occasional relationship wobbles between the main character and his
wife, it’s a bit like a Prehistoric “Ever Decreasing Circles” (with both
shows starring characters living in the past). And I’m sure you’d agree
that “Ever Decreasing Circles” would have been that bit more entertaining
if each episode had ending with Richard Briers hammering on a door
shouting “Ann!”
The makers didn’t care about “scientific accuracy”. Who cares that the
dinosaurs had long gone the way of Adric before cavemen had come onto the
scene? It’s charm lies in that characters will turn on a radio made of
hollow stone, and inside is a small bird squawking the news.
And it had Betty Rubble. Who was hot. No question about it.
After this show became a winner, the makers wondered what else they could
do with it, aside from making some direct-to-TV films (or, in the case of
later times, direct-to-VHS films). The answer? Do a show exactly the same,
but stick it into an opposite timeframe. And so we got The Jetsons.
Whilst I also always enjoyed this as a child, the Jetson family were never
as entertaining as their prehistoric counterparts. I reckon it’s far more
childish, for a start. Yes, I know it was for kids, but The Flintstones
did have a few more adult themes. Not many kid shows now have a marriage
that always seems to be on the verge of collapsing, with frequent
mentionings of the dreaded mother-in-law. And there were quite often a few
morals about the values of friendship and family ties etc. The Jetsons
were just one family, who apparently had no friends besides some old bloke
who lived in a different floor of the apartment with a walking filing
cabinet, and the deepest the moral complexity got was “Don’t get fired
from your job, or things get tricky.” Whereas Fred Flintstone always
proclaimed Barney to be his best mate, George Jetson’s equivalent was
supposedly a computer he talked to at work. So whilst Fred was a man of
the world, George was a bit of a loner.
Another problem is that, whilst The Flintstones revelled in it’s giving
modern day concepts a prehistoric twist (be it radio’s, newspapers made of
stone held together by ring-binds, and of course the foot-powered car),
The Jetsons never took advantage of it’s futuristic setting, simply
considering jet-packs, robots and hologram television as matters of
course.
Despite the apparent dumbing down of the issues and plots of the program,
The Jetsons still had lots of similarities with its predecessor. The main
character was always terrified by his boss, be it Mr. Slate at the gravel
pit for Fred, or the vaguely Hitleresque Mr. Spaceley at Spaceley’s
Sprockets for George. And both shows had a loveable pet, and each episode
ended with them getting the better of their human master.
And then came the obligatory teaming together of the two groups, in the
imaginatively titled film “The Jetsons meet The Flintstones”, in which,
well, the Jetsons met the Flintstones. Watching the film today (as I did
recently, for want of something silly to watch with a friend), it’s awful.
When I saw it as a child, it was great, with the best cartoon characters
having a knees-up! It had humour, adventure, intrigue, and pathos! Well, I
wouldn’t have known the majority of those words as a kid, but bear with
me. Children were admittedly the target audience. However, the best thing
about childrens programs is that, once you’ve grown up, you can sit back
and laugh at how rubbish they are!
It’s astonishing that the film doesn’t play its trump card, the meeting of
the two families, until well into a third of the running time. Until then,
we get Fred and Barney faffing about during a poker game (strange that
such things as illegal gambling were par for the course in 1980’s
children’s programming), with Fred putting on an atrocious
Kentucky/Californian/Texan/Cockney accent whilst wearing a Stetson twice
the size of Barney Rubble. Barney meanwhile dresses up as a woman,
teaching kids that transvestism was OK (though the Carry On crew had been
telling us this for years). Fred loses all the money he was going to use
to take a holiday for the families, and gets fired for attending the poker
game when Slate finds out that the strange Texan Fred-soundalike is
actually Fred. So everyone goes camping. As you do.
Whilst the Flintstones and the Rubbles have about 15 minutes of backstory
giving them a credible excuse for them to be in the middle of nowhere so
that they can meet the Jetsons, in the future the Jetson kid just makes a
time machine for a science project and sends his family back in time. Ho
hum.
The two groups eventually meet, and they scream when they see each other,
both rushing to hide behind rocks and trees. Cue much hilarity with
dialogue like “They have two heads!” when Barney observes both George and
Jane looking out from behind a tree. After about 5 minutes of lots of
goggly-eyed mayhem, they actually talk to each other, with Fred’s “Yabba-dabba,”
catchphrase out-classing George’s pathetic “Ooba-dooba,” by miles. The
Flintstones are astounded by the Jetsons technology, including a jetpack,
some gravity-defying boots, and a handbag. The time machine then goes
wonky for some season, thereby giving the Jetsons an excuse to stay around
for a while.
George helps out Fred at a works outing or something, in which Mr. Slate
(Fred’s boss) is competing in races and games against the boss of an
opposing firm, a big fat bloke in a twee cap with a dodgy name like Gary
Granite. George ensures Mr. Slate wins about 4 different games, but
Granite wins the last one. Granite wins the cup. Huh? I must have missed
the announcement that said “This is the final round, which ensures
victory, making the previous rounds entirely pointless.” Mr. Slate gets
annoyed and fires Fred again, even though Fred lost his job about 30
minutes ago.
Thinking that the concept of people from the future trying to cope with
the rigours of the past isn’t quite enough, the writers decide to shoehorn
a romance subplot, which ends up being as subtle as the Leela/Andred one
from “The Invasion of Time” (where Sontarans fail to invade time). Judy
Jetson falls in love with a rock singer after being in 3 minutes of his
company, showing that all girls are fickle, presumably. Actually, the
female characters are all rather badly handled (no jokes, please), with
Jane Jetson standing around being practical, Judy acting like a fawning
imbecile, Wilma moaning about everything and making “witty” quips along
the lines of “That rock is as hard as your head,” and Betty is just hot.
I lost interest around this point in the film, and only gave attention
back when the Jetson kid fixes the time machine just in time for the
Flintstones and the Rubbles to be transported forward in time instead of
the Jetsons. Sigh.
It’s at this point that you realise the film has way too many characters
and plot-threads hanging around. Whilst I like a cartoon with ambition,
this has:
• Fred becoming a mascot at George’s firm whilst Barney becomes a mascot
for the opposing Cogswell Cogs
• A traitor in the midst as someone at Sprockets is giving information to
Cogswell
• Two computers in a tedious romance
• A robot dog with a camera in it’s head running about
• George becoming vice-president at Fred’s old firm and becoming a
millionaire
• A continuation of the competition between Mr. Slate and Gary Granite
• Jane buying out some shops
• Judy in her tedious romance with the rock star
• An old bloke trying to fix the time machine (which once again goes
faulty) so that the Jetsons can be transported back from the past
• The Jetsons robot maid, Rosy, stuck in the medieval period, after the
old bloke fixes the machine and sends Rosy back in time
• A different old bloke getting crushed to death by some newspapers on the
Flintstones doorstep
• A fascist midget smashing up the Jetsons’ apartment
It’s all true! And all this goes on during the same half hour! It’s
completely mad! As a result, each scene lasts approximately half a minute
as the writers try to encompass everything into a coherent plot – it’s
like The Five Doctors on speed.
Eventually, the Jetsons are brought back from the past to the future, and
the Flintstones car, bizarrely transported as well, is mass-marketed at
Spaceley’s Sprockets, with millions of people apparently buying them. How
a land-based car could possibly be of any use in a world in which the
cities are several hundred miles in the air is frankly beyond me, but all
the characters look suitably impressed.
In a touching scene, Judy cries because she’s had to leave the rock star
bloke in the past. However, an exact physical double turns up in the
future, and Judy is suddenly OK again. The stupid bint.
Suddenly, the Jetson kid says that the time machine has gone bust again,
meaning that the Flintstones are stuck in the future with them! GASP!
Fred: You mean, we’re stuck here, forever?
Barney: If we live that long…
This bit is accompanied by some grave music, and a fade-to-black where an
advert would be placed for TV transmission. I took Barney’s rather morbid
joke to mean that somehow they were all going to die soon when I was a
kid, and regarded it as the dramatic highpoint of the film. But now it
just seems crowbarred into the story for a suitable cliffhanger moment, as
a few seconds later the Flintstones are transported back in time
regardless due to some residual time energy from the time machine having
infected their car. Or something. And so everyone’s happy. You think all
this is complicated? I haven’t even bothered to mention the outcome of all
the traitor subterfuge, computer romance and robot dog gubbins.
It’s mad. It’s stupid. It’s also bloody enjoyable, especially if you’ve
got some mates over.
So, in the final analysis, the Flintstones are better.
And, after all that rambling, what have we learnt?
Um…
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