Entertainment Weekly story here
I am very sure that many people will think that this will be an abject failure and I am sure that there will be a lot of backlash towards this…but I think it’ll be ok.
If there is one thing Seth has it’s a knowledge of the history of animation, and particularly the Flintstones. I think he will do a good job of it and not make it too much like his other shows (really dirty/pop culture-y)
Thoughts?
He’s just not that funny, and obviously has no real ideas of his own. I put him in the same category as Tim Burton now.
Before the Fox era, he worked for Hanna-Barbara and wrote for Johnny Bravo and Dexter’s Lab.
He could make it work.
The Flintstones was basically a Honeymooners ripoff, nothing original there, so he may do fine.
Yeah but between the commercials where Fred and Barney were lightin’ up the doobs and Wilma and Betty were so dissatisfied with their “Sisters of Sappho” meeting that they started cross dressing to watch the men folk engage in non-sexual man-bonding the whole thing went down hill anyway. And let’s not forget Betty’s counterfeiting operation.
Yeah, I have a question.
Why?
I mean, not “Why are you rebooting the Flintstones, Seth MacFarlaine?” but “Why is anyone rebooting the Flintstones, universe?”
The Flintstones took a not-all-that-funny premise, rode it to death, reanimated it as a zombie, and rode that 'til it rotted to pieces.
Hanna Barbera is fond of this pattern, I know, but really, where are you going to take it from here? Be true to the source material and make it a transparent ripoff of Two and a Half Men? Make something like that “not funny, but at least it’s vaguely like Ren and Stimpy, which was funny when it was a novelty!” Yogi Bear reboot? Go the ‘conventional cartoon’ route, like all of Cartoon Networks old shows, most of which did not do well? Make it a regular sitcom, just animated, and hope the market’s so starved for them it catches on? Or make it like his other shows and deal with the wave of misdirected, nostalgia-fueled outrage?
–
You are better than this. Not because I think you’re great, but because ANYONE is better than this.
I’m suspicious, but MacFarlane does love the classics, so I have some hope.
I see from IMDB that the actors who voiced Mr. Slate and Wilma’s mother are still with us and working.
I don’t really know, care about or like the Flintstones in particular, although I don’t dislike them, but I do know that Seth McFarlane seems to have blown his wad. Years ago. When Family Guy first came out, I thought it was hilarious, but eventually it started to become very, very annoying. The cutaways started completely dominating the show and it got way too bogged down with “random” gags (I despise “random” humor ala Napoleon Dynamite.) Stewie started to become much more annoying and less cool. And then American Dad came out. And I was astonished at how horrible it was. Really a vile, wretched, idiotic show.
So, no I don’t think McFarlane’s take on the Flintstones is going to be any good.
I don’t know how to feel about this, myself.
For one, the Flintstones are high camp that worked in the context of its era, and I just don’t see how it could be made fresh without turning into self-parody.
On the other hand, MacFarlane seems to have a strong respect for the source material and I doubt he’d turn it into “Family Guy with cavemen”. (Can anyone think of some good rock-related parody names for Conway Twitty?)
I guess i’ll have to wait and see once some test animations or previews start coming out.
“Stoneway Gritty” (not that I think he’d pull that).
And I’m in the “Why, universe, why?” camp. The live movies were bad enough.
While I like most of what Seth has ever done (that I’ve seen) I must admit I don’t think rebooting this series will go well.
Oh and here is Seth’s take on The Flintstones so far(obviously satirical). He did a few more Flintstones related scenes but I cannot find them at an acceptable quality.
I’m not a fan of any of his work but I’m actually interested in how this turns out. I liked the Flintstones as a kid and I wouldn’t mind seeing his take on it - if I don’t enjoy it I can just ignore it.
Nice and slow, that’s the way to do it, nice and slow.
I’ll give it a shot.
I never understood the ire towards the Flintstones. It wasn’t the best show in the world, but it was no worse than most of the other mindless children’s entertainment of the era. Plus, the idea of Stone-punk is just inherently interesting, and I would love to see it applied to all the things that have changed since then.
I don’t think it was a children’s show.
After the amazing My Little Pony reboot I’m prepared to give it a shot.
The Flintstones was actually targeted at adults, and the show aired at night during prime time. And I say that sans ire – Flintstones was awesome.
It really wasn’t. It was an animated prime-time sitcom, just like the Simpsons and Family Guy and Cleveland and American Dad (wow…MacFarlane has a near-monopoly on the concept in the modern era, doesn’t he?). The reason so many people think it was a children’s show is that it aired on Saturday morning with actual children’s cartoons for several generations. But it’s really not in the same class as Scooby-Doo or Jabberjaw or Captain Caveman.
The original Flintstones was a prime-time animation show, directed at adults as much as children, as the animated Fred Flintstone ads for cigarettes show.
It’s not right to call it simply a “Honeymooners rip-off” – although there’s not a scintilla of doubt that the characters were pretty much taken from that show (they even wanted Mel Blanc to imitate Art Carney when he voiced Barney, but he refused), but the bulk of the humor and all of the sight gags were the “Modern Era being played with Stone Age Counterparts” type, which is a direct ripoff of the now virtually forgotten Fleischer brothers Stone Age cartoons:
This stuff worked in the 40s and in the early 1960s. I have a hard time seeing it work today. In principle, anything can be a springboard for comedy, but a lot of this vein has been mined out. It might work if you have really witty wtriting (not merely hip and cynical), a la Bullwinkle, or the re-lauched several years ago of Duck Dodgers. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.