cartoons – Retroguy's Wonderland

The stone age family from Bedrock celebrated their 50th anniversary today and what’s really amazing about that is how well the cartoons created in the 60s hold up today. Unlike real life sit-coms from that era, the Flintstones seem to transcend time and generate new generations of fans with every passing year.

It first aired in 1960 and ran for six seasons. Many thought it was a rip off or homage to The Honeymooners which was the biggest television show at the time but the creators dismissed any similarities as merely coincidental……..uh huh. When it was eventually cancelled, a movie was made to parody or style the big film character of the day, James Bond. The movie “The Man Called Flintstone” is a classic and is far better than the real life movie version of the Flintstones that came out in 1994 starring John Goodman and Rosie O’Donnell.

Having said that, the real life movie versions did have two redeeming qualities – Haley Berry and loin clothes…………. nuff said.

The Flintstones was never meant to be a kids show, it was the first adult themed animated show that inspired many of today’s adult animated series, most notably the Simpsons and Family Guy. One of their first sponsors back in 1960 was Winston cigarettes so it’s pretty safe to say we’ve evolved a bit in terms of political correctness since the 60s when it comes to advertising. Having said that, our evolution hasn’t prevented us from coming up with stupid ideas like the Flintstones Nike High Tops. Yabba Dabba Do indeed.

It seems that many of the cartoons kids watch today are based on Japanese Anime which all seem to have a similar look to them. Often times you see faces locked in an expression with only the lips moving (never in sync with the audio) and many scenes seem to be repeated actions from episode to episode. A time honored recipe dating back to the early ’70s.

Battle of the Planets came out on U.S. television in 1978 as a repackaged version of the 1972 Japanese anime program Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (which translates into Science Ninja Team Gatchaman). Ninjas in space? Awesome.

Battle of the Planets was based on the story of five “remarkable” teenagers, Mark, Jason, Tiny, Princess and Keyop, known as G-Force (not to be confused with the hamster movie of the same name) who spent their days trying to protect Earth from the evil planet “Spectra” and other attacks from “beyond space”. Their mother ship, The Phoenix, was aptly named for it’s ability to transform into a fiery bird (a Phoenix to be precise) and basically become a bird shaped blow torch in space.

Remarkable Teen-Agers wearing numbers

Some of the elements from the original Japanese show were changed or removed for the American audience like profanity, excessive violence and the transgendered leader of the main villain Zoltar.

Zoltar – Looking fierce and Fab-u-lous

In the American version, the female portion of the script was rewritten as being Zoltar’s evil sister (obviously bad parenting at work here). Because of the popularity of Star Wars, the producers also added an R2D2 type robot, 7-Zark-7 and made the show based in space as opposed to the Japanese version which was land based and a bit darker and more violent.

7-Zark-7 at the controls of his DJ booth?

The show itself had some decent stories though many scenes were repeated from episode to episode like the shot of the kids lounging in between missions or their interactions with 7-Zark-7 but overall the show was pretty entertaining. When compared to the Japanese version, the Japanese version has a more consistent story line and theme as opposed to the American version which seems to have some elements forced together to work for the American audience. If you have nothing to compare it to though, you loved it and probably remember trying to run home after school in time to catch another episode of Battle of the Planets – even though you probably saw each episode about 50 times!

Category: cartoons

Flintstones – How much more retro can you get ?

Cartoon Flashback – Battle of the Planets