by Rachel Newstead

Abandoned blogs annoy me–if they’re good blogs, it saddens me. So much potential wasted, be it from lack of interest, lack of focus, the demands of real life, or all three.

And I’m annoyed especially at myself, for having been one of the worst offenders. For all of the above reasons, in addition to simple exhaustion from trying to keep up a steady flow of posts. Many good bloggers don’t post daily, or even weekly, but I was damned and determined to. And of course, given what I do (lengthy reviews with as much inside information as I can cull from sources I can find) it’s simply impossible.

I’m sorry to say simple ego also played a part.

Back in 2010, I posted a Freeze Frame Friday entry detailing a sequence from “Service With A Guile” that I assumed to be by Jim Tyer. “Assumed”, as it turns out, is very much the operative word here: shortly thereafter, I happened upon Bob Jaques’ “Popeye Animators” blog. Specifically, this post in which he takes wannabe historians like me to task for spreading misinformation about cartoons, in particular attributing scenes to animators which they did not do.

I had no desire to contribute to the problem, so I sent off an e-mail to Mr. Jacques to try to confirm that the sequence I posted was indeed by Tyer. To my mortification, it wasn’t.

I was indeed one of those spreading information, and about Tyer, no less, an animator I can usually easily spot (let’s face it, Stevie Wonder could spot Tyer’s work). Therefore, my credibility was zero–or so I felt. Never mind that it was just one mistake. I had blown something simple, a mistake I knew better than to make. So in trying to earn the respect of my fellow animation enthusiasts (a hard thing to do when you’re a girl trying to get into the boys’ club) I was back to square one.

Now, I don’t blame Mr. Jacques. He simply corrected a bit of misinformation, for which I’m grateful. But my pride had been wounded.

My original plan was to lay low for a few weeks, so I could regroup, dust myself off, and pick up where I left off, with a renewed pledge to be more careful about what I said in future. But weeks turned into months, which turned into “maybe someday I’ll start again.” And all because of one thing, something which has lurked in the background of my life since I was ten years old–depression.

It’s not a subject I particularly enjoy talking about, as I open myself to judgmental comments from others, who feel I’m merely a “whiner” and need to “snap out of it already.” But depression is persistent, and it’s a lifelong battle–not something you can “snap out of” (any more than you can “snap out of” a severe flu). You can blunt it with drugs, you can stuff it down under a faux cheery demeanor and fake smiles, you can relegate it to the background. But you can’t–I repeat, can’t–cure it.

And when you have it, it’s all you can do to get the basic tasks of daily life accomplished. Doing anything creative is too much to hope for.

Right now I’m in a remission of sorts, following a bout which began about eight months ago, one complicated by the loss of my mother to cancer in March. It has made writing all the more difficult, as my sounding board has gone. Mom and I exchanged frequent letters via e-mail, particularly in the last three years of her life. She had a wickedly barbed sense of humor, and you had to be on your toes to spar with her verbally. In writing to her, I challenged myself to be as funny as I could, writing about my misadventures in northern Wisconsin. I could vent, I could laugh, I could cry, and know I would get reassuring words back.

Now those words have been silenced, and my creative energies have to be directed elsewhere. And I could think of no better place to which I can direct them than this blog.

You see, when I gave this blog up, I noticed an odd thing happening. People kept coming, and at a rate faster than when the blog was active.

Now, I will be the first to admit I’m no Jerry Beck, or Mark Kausler, or Mark Evanier. There are other blogs that do what I do, and do it far better, such as the fascinating, informative Yowp Yowp and Tralfaz blogs. I am just a middle-aged, disabled fangirl in front of a computer terminal in a tiny living room in Wisconsin. But this blog has something people like, and I won’t question it.

I cannot guarantee I’ll post every day, or even every week. I have no long-range plans for the future of this blog, but I have a few ideas I’d like to put to you readers. Please respond if there is something among them you wish to see here, and by all means, give me suggestions of your own.

Freeze Frame Friday will be gone, as it was one of the causes of this blog being abandoned. The feature required that I identify who did each scene, and that’s not something one can leave to educated guesses, as my debacle showed.

I want to do “theme” days, perhaps a “Flintstones” Friday, in which I review one of the 166 episodes, as well as the movies and specials that came after. I intend to do the same with shows such as “The Jetsons” (especially the “classic 24″ from ’62-63).

I’d like to add a separate Essays page, in which I write in depth about about an animator, director, or series, along the lines of the “Before He Was Tex” essay posted here. Fortunately, WordPress makes that rather easy.

My original intent in starting this blog was to go beyond the subject of animated cartoons, and I hope to do that in months to come, talking about comic books, comic strips, and live-action TV shows.

As to the Facebook page, I have no plans as yet. My hope is to do video podcasts in which I review an individual cartoon. As I do not have the quality of video equipment I feel I need, however, that might have to wait.

Beyond that, I have only one other thing to say to the blogosphere, and my fellow geeks out there.

I’m still here.

Houston, we have a domain.

Because we wish to attract more traffic–and because the old URL was so devilishly hard to type–the Test Pattern has moved to a pricier neighborhood, so to speak. As of midnight last night, the address is http://digthiscrazytestpattern.com. Fortunately, those of you who have our old address bookmarked (if there are any out there) will still be able to use it–you’ll be rerouted here.

You may already have noticed the blog has a different look. This is a new WordPress template called “ChaoticSoul”, and not only is it sleeker than the one we were using, it’s the only new template that didn’t require us to put our “Cecil as test pattern” header up all over again.

We’re planning a few more “tweaks” as finances permit–like the ability to embed our own video and audio–but for now, make yourself comfortable in the new surroundings.

by Rachel Newstead

If I have one flaw, it’s this: one little comment is often enough to send me into a depressive tailspin.

I didn’t react well to Bob Jaques’ recent comments on my recent Freeze Frame Friday post. Though I know, intellectually, that he was only trying to be helpful, I became so self-conscious over the last week or so that it has become difficult, if not impossible, to write anything without second-guessing myself. Consequently, I haven’t been around much lately.

Fortunately, the bout was temporary and my confidence has returned. It has not, however, returned quickly enough to do a Freeze Frame Friday this week. That feature will, however, return on April 9, with a look at a cartoon that is perhaps Hugh Harman’s single finest work, The Field Mouse. There’ll also be a bit of a surprise. What that will be, I’d rather not say–you’ll have to, as they used to say on TV, tune in next week.

I can, however, give you an idea of what’s in store over the next few days:

• Buddy has to be the “Rodney Dangerfield” of cartoon characters, but is that reputation deserved? You’ll find out what I think tomorrow when I talk about the last–and possibly the best–Buddy cartoon, Buddy The Gee Man.
• As you might have already guessed, I love early television as much as I do cartoons, and have a little piece for your consideration about the man who invented the home video recorder–in 1928.
• If you ever needed proof that Pinto Colvig was as much an actor as a voice man, you need look no further than the 1942 Ding Dog Daddy, which I’m going to review.

The time I’ve spent away hasn’t been entirely unproductive–in addition to enjoying some unseasonably warm spring weather for Wisconsin, I’ve been haunting Stu Shostak’s Shokus Internet Radio site. I have to tell you, this is one of the net’s little undiscovered treasures, especially Shostak’s own Stu’s Show. This week our friend Mr. Shostak has as his guest the king of oddball radio, Dr. Demento–a man who introduced me to the novelty records of a fellow named Benny Bell.  It’s been airing since Wednesday, but repeats will run for the next few days.  I strongly urge you to catch Stu and The Demented One tomorrow at 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time. You were warned….

Our weak-headed hero, Jack Headstrong. It's obvious where Jay Ward and company got the idea for the Bull winkle "Wossamotta U" segment. Image ©VCI Entertainment

Good news for fans of Jay Ward and Fractured Flickers: this morning I received permission from VCI Entertainment to post an entire sequence from the Fractured Flickers series. This segment, “Cornell Goes Wilde” is one of many I recorded with my trusty cassette recorder in those bygone years of the ’70s. It’s the story of Jack Headstrong, star football player for downtrodden Scrooge University (and all-around lunkhead) and his passion for…drop kicks, something he loves far more than he loves his fianceé, Rosa Picardy. Will Jack keep the team from going down in total humiliation during the big game? Will Rosa learn to love drop kicks? Since this is a Jay Ward program, you can probably guess the answer to those questions….

Lady Gaga, from her "Paparazzi" video

by Kevin Wollenweber

Well, I’ve actually spent all day, today, listening to Shokus Internet Radio and their new lineup, beginning with what is called The DJ And Hip-Hop Show With Lisa Shostak. Lisa Dorothy Shostak is the daughter of the internet station’s main programmer, Stuart Shostak, and she plays the big tween hits, from Lady Gaga to Snoop Dogg to the Jonas Brothers to…well, even a classic Beatles song gets thrown in the mix, but I smile to myself and think that this is Daddy prodding his daughter to give her audience that history lesson.  As much as I enjoyed hearing “Here Comes the Sun” and have hailed the new Beatles remasters even on this weblog, George Harrison’s fun little tune really felt out of place amid the louder, bass-heavy beats of hits by the other younger acts here.  As I listened, the music fan in me took over, and, although my crude equipment probably did not allow me to send good copies, I ended up rushing around trying to find certain music that I thought Lisa should hear and even include on her show.
For instance, I chose a rare track from the second disk of the limited edition, expansion of Lady gaga’s one and only album, now dubbed The Fame Monster.

Yes, I bought this big selling album after hearing a review of it on WFUV, on a program that hails from Chicago Public Radio, called Sound Opinions, and the critics who host the show were giving Miss Gaga points for her sense of music history.  They went on about how she wears her influences on her sleeve, and they were serious about it, despite the fact that the track they played sounded to me like dance club Madonna.  Their review was so positive that, on impulse, I ordered the limited edition on Amazon and carefully listened to each song on both disks.

Her main influences mostly have nothing to do with my generation, but she lists John Lennon and David Bowie among them.  I was shaking my head through the first disk, even though I was somewhat enjoying the mix and the way she uses disco.  Then I put on the second disk, the one that was boasting all these rare mixes and rare tracks.  One of those rare tracks stood right out and, I felt, was so good, I started cranking the volume to really get a full listen to it.

The song is called “Brown Eyes”.  The song sounds as if it were recorded during the same time that Bowie’s classic concept album, Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars was released.  It even sounds as if Mick Ronson could be heard on guitar, even though that is an impossibility.

You can see where this is leading, can’t you?  Once I heard Lisa play her favorite disco track from the Fame album, I immediately dashed off an email note to Lisa Dorothy, slipping in the afore-mentioned rare Lady Gaga track, and running off at the fingers about how much it sounds like something released instead in the mid-1970’s.  To further prove my point, I sent Miss Shostak, who I think is all of 15 years old by the way, two more emails, one attaching John Lennon’s song, “Mind Games” (which was a great segue out of that other track) and another note attaching David Bowie’s “Oh You Pretty Things”, the song that “Brown Eyes” was most reminding me of.

David Bowie, from "Life On Mars" (1973)

I suppose I should have just sent the Shostak’s a physical CD of the three tracks together, but it is my hope that the attachments I sent can be opened and that all connected to the show totally understand that this is a good way to show that all kinds of pop is somehow linked to what came before.  It is how we all learned about music.

When I was a teen, I had FM radio, I was learning, in 1969, about the “psychedelic” progressive music of the age, and FM radio was a grand and twisted teacher.  It hailed the new revolution loudly and arrogantly, but it also never let us forget that there were pop idols before those that we loved so much.

If folks listened to Jonathan Schwartz, they enjoyed show tunes somewhere in the mix and how then modern stage productions were changing the way we all looked at the world, as much as electric wizardry on pivotal albums like Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland.  I heard little known talents like Lee Michaels (before that one shot wonder hit of his that got overplayed on that AM radio dial) and the Nice with Keith Emerson, keyboard pyrotechnics that drew me in like a magnet.  I sat by that radio the day it was announced that this self-titled new double album by the Beatles was about to be released, and I actually recorded tracks as they were being slowly revealed to the world, loving every minute of all that new music and how it related to the old.

Schwartz and “the night bird”, Alisson Steele never let us forget that there were beautiful arrangements by Nelson Riddle and others not to be forgotten.  Certainly, even some of the artists themselves never let us forget it as was the case when Harry Nilsson released his incredible A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night, the third in a trilogy of albums by the singer/songwriter that showed his own eclectic tastes.  Pop music was flexing its muscles only because the music world showed its fear of change and really didn’t want that change to be seen often on the airwaves in all its glory without some whitewashing.

So that is what I aimed to do with the kind of music I was hearing as the playlist of this 15-year-old girl.  I smile to think that some of the artists, as much as they want recognition for being iconoclasts, do acknowledge what came before without animosity or any kind of hostility.

I don’t always know where Lady Gaga is coming from, but I smile to think that, somewhere along the line, she listened, too, as a child to the often shunned “classic rock” and pulled out the icons that spoke to her the loudest, and she couldn’t just ignore them, even if the media chooses to toss their old albums in the bean racks or play “just the hits”.

Music isn’t about hits and marketing, although I know that record stores and online retailers need to categorize and know where to stick a specific album.  Music is always so wide-reaching though, and I’m so glad I grew up when we had DJ’s that did what I call existential radio–stream-of-consciousness playlists of their own making that have nothing to do with genres or hipness or generation.

My delights in the art of music have no real focus as a result.  I guess that is the reason why I never strove to become a DJ.  I saw radio going so far the other way.  It is all so segregated now, and commercial formats don’t allow for very creative forces to perk up our ears like those late night DJ’s of my youth.  Even satellite radio, which has no real censorship shackling its creative forces, seems to format its shows. There was something for a while called Sirius Disorder, headed by DJ Meg Griffin and Vin Scelsa, but it has, as I’ve been told, disappeared from the dial.

I hope that isn’t true, because I still listen to Vin on WFUV and that station could use Meg to help also kick up some dust.  Stream-of-consciousness radio is an art that is getting lost in the ether, and I sure hope that radio gains back its diversity someday, but that sort of diversity doesn’t really sell to the marketplace, because it can’t categorize it.  Calling it “alternative” just allows for playlists of bands who began their careers in the 1990’s, and that is not, to me, what the term means at all!

I enjoyed DJ’s who came on and pulled us into their world.  Those who didn’t want to hear that world would tune out, but most of us were with the DJ every step of the way, even if it meant a positive and constructive political rant once in a while, dragging in the best musical reference points, the kind of musical references that did not insult the artist in question, because the artists soon were listening to the shows as well and would come on and do radio with the DJ.

You really felt good about it all.  You laughed and cried with these people and we and they lived through the changing world that we didn’t often understand.  How many kids today can say that they have that world?

Hey, I hope that Britney Spears has heard Richard Thompson cover her song, “Oops I did it Again”, along with the pop group, Travis, covering the same song; and I’d like to even think in the back of my mind that Lisa Shostak, of her own accord, picked that wonderful old George Harrison song out of that box of Beatles remasters to add to her playlist on this most recent edition of her DJ and Hip Hop Show wakeup call.

I know I try not to rail to loudly against the pop of today.  I still recall my parents railing against my listening habits which they could not stop after a while, even when the language got coarse and the guitars got louder and the subject matter got more and more subversively sophisticated.  Statements had to be made, and we had to kick off the shackles for a while before we came back to realize that such animal rebellions had been going on since the dawn of the jazz age.

I’ve listened to the big band jazz in the short films made by Warner Brothers, and I marveled at the amazing versatility of the artists, and I thought of how audiences enjoyed the live performances and even cheered on the players as if they were instead watching their favorite sports events.  Passing fads leave some wonderfully wild melodies behind, and I can only hope that the current crop of talent finds out about all that history and gravitates to it.

I have no focus.  I don’t sit back and claim that my generation was the only one that knew it all and tried to change things for the better.  Life, itself, goes on and forgets where it has been, but if people can learn and appreciate the vastness of artistic talent of all corners that came before, I don’t think any of it was all in vain.

I watched what I could of the Oscar Awards telecast (we Cablevision subscribers lost part of it because of a dispute between our cable TV provider and ABC/Disney who wanted more money to carry the feed), hoping that best picture would go to an animated movie this year.  I wondered what life would be like when the art of animation finally is considered the grown-up and can finally hold its hand-drawn or computer-generated head up high and go on to create sophisticated product that is as iconoclastic as those old radio stations were to me in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, before the demographics marketers took over.

As usual, though, I was frustrated, and all or most animation is still relegated to Disney-related product.  We know that, on a childlike level, animation can make us feel a grand array of emotions; so why can’t we imagine an animated film that challenges us further?  From what I’ve been told, animation is this embarrassing relative that comes by and suggests projects to studio heads that never get made, because the cartoons, after all, should go babysit the kids and keep them smiling and learning their alphabets and numbers and good manners, whatever those are anymore, right?  Now, I love what cartoons were when I was growing up, and I’m not about to disown them because all the studios in Hollywood would rather see all film stock on the classic toons burn in a funeral pyre.

I’d like to see us learn something even from some of the most insensitive material, because the animation style and camera technique or special effect of certain films is worth viewing again and again.  Frank Tashlin, after all, was also a live action director, and he brought some of that cartoonishness to his work with live actors.  Again, though, history is forgotten and nothing is really learned entirely from what has occurred or has been put to film or tape.

I enjoyed all the Warner Brothers box sets around a specific period in film history, because we not only got the film, fully restored, but we also got the short subjects and commentaries that acted as vivid history lesson.  Were there instances of reinvention?  Sure there were, but sometimes, those reinventions were not entirely off the mark.  I’d seen films like The Mayor of Hell, a film starring Jimmy Cagney as a man who tried to clean up the corrupt administration in a boys’ reform school.  The film also starred, in a cameo role, Alan Clayton Hoskins, also known as Farina in the Our Gang comedies of the period, as one of the kids, and his performance is riveting.

James Cagney and Madge Evans in MAYOR OF HELL (1933). Image from the "Movie Classics" blog (http://movieclassics.wordpress.com).

I never knew this incredible film was made, and, thankfully, this film is now given to us with its original finale intact, even though, as it is noted, the film prints shown in theaters around the world were edited because some felt it was too graphic and dangerous to an already turbulent world in and out of our prison system.  The film is now available as part of one of the sets in the WARNERS GANGSTERS series, but it is so much more than that.  It is that instance that tells us that far more interesting films were being made at a time that some would think was just filled with fluff and escapism.  For each person who ran from the truth, there were those who insisted that the truth be told, no matter what the reaction.  That still exists in Hollywood today to a certain extent, but there are always little battles of words as to which truths are told and which should be kept in hiding as if embarrassments.

Animation is an art form that can tell stories that, perhaps, could not be told with live actors.  That freedom alone would be challenging to any young filmmaker, or so we would think, and I really hope that we see the day when animation can take that step forward.  We need artists with a vision so strong that it could actually effect that many more people.

Attempts have been made in the category of short subject, but these are never part of the mainstream movie-going experience and that is a real shame.  I know I can do without a CGI Yogi Bear movie or the latest incarnation of Tom and Jerry.  I like the old cartoons and, well, why not release those fully restored and with all the commentaries that show that they are classic bits of art that we will never forget?  Take what we’ve learned from the comedy in these films and mock it or use it in creative ways.  Whatever animation has allowed us to feel toward a two-dimensional character can be used to exaggerate or emphasize an emotion in future cartoons or even live action movies.  Kids and adults like to be challenged.  Gray matter is waiting to be filled, and the students of today should not be allowed to forget what has come before.

Both Fred and a poor schlub of a prowler underestimate Wilma’s mastery of the art of self-defense in “The Prowler”

by Rachel Newstead

The Prowler

Episode P-3

Original Airdate:  Dec. 30, 1960

Writer: Joe Barbera

In short:  Fred poses as a prowler to scare Wilma, but doesn’t count on a real one showing up…

Having already utilized the “dueling neighbors” and “battle of the sexes” plots, it’s perhaps inevitable that today’s episode, “The Prowler,” would make use of the next item in the Stock Sitcom Situations Handbook, the “wounded male pride” plot.

That’s not a criticism–every sitcom works its way through these, sooner or later. The good ones burn them off quickly and get them out of the way before moving on to more original material. The great ones take these stock situations and still make a brilliant episode. “The Prowler”‘s use of this particular standard situation reinforces this series’ position as one of the great ones.

“The Prowler” very nearly subverts the standard plot structure it’s placed in. Fred objects to Wilma’s taking up judo to defend herself not so much because he’s the man of the house (or cave), but because he’s too darned cheap to pay for the lessons. Pride matters to him, but not as much as money.

The male characters in this sort of plotline often sulk for days before something happens either to convince them they really are big strong he-men after all, or (more common these days) show them they don’t have to be.

Not Fred–he’s too full of misplaced confidence (and too stubborn) to go the “sulking” route. He takes a unique approach by posing as a prowler himself, to prove first that Wilma really needs him, and second (and most importantly, to Fred) that they don’t need the expense of lessons. But as we’ll soon see, the best-laid plans of Fred Flintstone often turn catastrophic.

THE CARTOON

The scene opens on an exterior shot of the Flintstone home, as we hear  Fred making his usual “shower noises.” Wilma calls him to breakfast, and we get a cute gag involving Fred’s “shaver”–a clamshell with a bee inside. (Forget the potential danger of stings for a moment–just what does he do if no bees fly outside his window that morning? Not that it matters–his permanent five-o’clock shadow couldn’t get much heavier anyway).

As Fred sits down to his breakfast of “soft boiled three-and-a-half-hour dodo egg”, he’s interrupted by some rather strange crashing and bumping noises coming from Barney’s place.  When Barney comes over, he explains the noises are coming from Betty–and her judo instructor, Mr. Rockimoto.

It seems a prowler is on the prowl, according to the local paper; when Fred asks Barney about the judo lessons, we get one of the better exchanges in this episode:

BARNEY: A woman’s gotta know how to protect herself…

FRED: Well, what about you?

BARNEY: Oh, she’ll protect me, too…

Ba-dah-boom. These are the jokes, folks….

Fred naturally thinks this is hilarious (that Betty’s “protecting” Barney, not the one-liner)–until Barney accidentally lets slip that Wilma, too, is taking lessons:

WILMA (to Fred): What’s wrong with wanting to protect myself?

FRED: What about me?

WILMA: Oh, I’ll protect you, too….

Bah-dah-boom again. Remember what I said in my last review about repetition making a joke funnier if timed right? Well, this is what I mean.

Fred’s also not particularly thrilled when Barney starts making the same sort

Attention, young animators: this is how to make limited animation funny, in this sequence of Fred blowing his top (as usual) in “The Prowler”

of wisecracks Fred made just a moment before, and lets his feelings be known with a vase thrown near Barney’s head.

Wilma calls Betty to say the lessons are off. Betty tells her to come anyway, as the first lesson is already paid for, and the good Professor (a typical bucktoothed Oriental stereotype) does not give refunds. Once Wilma arrives, Betty suggests she can make do with just one lesson. Until, that is, Wilma gets thrown halfway across the room by Rockimoto. Joined by Betty a moment later (I’m a bit tickled by her “save me a seat, I’ll be back in a minute” remark, as well as Wilma’s “One thing about judo–you take a polite beating.” I suspect Mr. Barbera had a little help from Mr. Foster and Mr. Maltese on those lines).

Cut to Fred and Barney a few days later, driving home from work. According to the paper, Barney says, the prowler’s still at large. Fred can’t resist ribbing Barney a little more about Betty taking lessons; Barney happens to mention she’s on her fifth one.

Next comes what I consider the highlight sequence in the episode, which I’ve tried to illustrate here in the best way possible. Fred launches into a tirade about Barney’s allowing Betty to take judo lessons, on the grounds it’ll cost him money. There’s just something about the way the eyes are drawn and the way the mouth moves (it flaps up and down like a Muppet) that’s truly funny here, on the bit of dialogue that starts, “You heard me tell Wilma–no judo lessons! That’s final, clear and once and for all, no judo lessons, no judo lessons!” Sometimes limited animation has its good points–if his mouth movements had been fully animated here, it wouldn’t have been as funny.

“No judo lessons…no judo lessons!”…Nothing quite says “loudmouth” quite like this series of drawings, which despite their simplicity show that FUNNY personality animation is possible even when the animation is limited

The wide-mouthed, flapping-up-and-down motion is pure Fred.

Congratulations on that sequence likely go to Carlo Vinci, the credited animator on this episode; I suspect it’s Vinci mainly because Fred is animated in a similar manner in certain scenes of “Hollyrock, Here I Come,” also from the first season (another in which Vinci gets credit).

UPDATE 9/3/12: My friend good friend and fellow Flintstones fan Howard Fein has the scoop on who actually animated these sequences in his comments at the bottom of this post.–Rachel

One can see it immediately when Fred’s rehearsing his role as “The Frogmouth” with Wilma–there, and in “The Prowler,” he’s quite the literal “frogmouth.” Pity that after those two episodes, he’s never drawn quite that way again.

Meanwhile, back to Betty and Wilma: Betty is teaching Wilma Mr. Rockimoto’s lessons as she goes, since cheapskate Fred will have none of it. Betty demonstrates a hold by grabbing ahold of Wilma’s sleeve; her insistence that there are pillows for Wilma to land on aren’t very reassuring (especially since Wilma “misses” them by a few inches).

When it’s Wilma’s turn to throw Betty, we come to perhaps the second-funniest sequence in the episode, starting with Betty’s line:

BETTY: Now, I’m a prowler! I’ve picked the lock on this door! You hear it–your heart’s pounding with excitement. You see the prowler’s hand reaching (cont. after pictures):inside…reaching…reaching…reaching! What do you do?

WILMA: I scream for Fred…

BETTY: Oh, no, that won’t do you any good–Fred’s under the bed! What else do you do?

WILMA:  I faint–that’s what else…

“Hello, Fred–why steal it? Why not borrow it as usual?” Fred’s reaction to Barney’s wisecrack would fall flat in the hands of a lesser animator, but is perfect here…

This particular exchange is notable because hiding under the bed is precisely what Fred thinks Wilma will do later on (which is correct up to a point, but I don’t want to reveal too much right now). The cap-off to this particular scene comes when Betty poses as a prowler so Wilma can use Lesson #5–but Wilma instead accidentally throws Fred, who just happens to come in at that moment.  The ruse, it seems, is blown.

Proof the animation could be above-average even in these early years…

Cut to a couple of days later, and Fred’s in a foul mood as he’s mowing the lawn (big surprise there), and berates Barney for “thinking” too loud, and in particular, thinking about the judo lesson issue. Barney retorts with “Well, at least I don’t have to hide under the bed!” (Another instance of the funny use of a repeated bit of dialogue).

To prove to Barney just who will be under the bed, Fred proposes to dress up

The puzzled prowler can’t quite make heads or tails of things as he sees Fred sneak by…

as a prowler himself; if he fails to frighten Wilma or Betty, he’ll pay for the lessons himself. Noteworthy is Fred’s expression after he asks Barney what Betty will do when she sees the “prowler”: it takes real ability to deliver laughs in a single frame.

Come nighttime. Fred, feigning his usual buzz-saw snoring, sneaks out of the house on all fours; once outside, he dons his prowler disguise and heads toward the Rubbles. Little does he know, however, that the real prowler just happens to be behind a nearby rock–and he’s more than a bit confused by Fred’s presence (honor among thieves, and all that).

The IMDB, the Big Cartoon Database, and TV.com credit a “Mark Rosenbloom”

The staging may be a bit off-center, but Fred’s stunned expression is still unbelievably funny

as the voice of the real prowler, which is something of a curiosity. It sounds for all the world to me like Alan Reed doing a “dumb” voice (he would, occasionally, do incidental voices in certain episodes, but quit when it became clear he still sounded too much like Fred). As this Mark Rosenbloom is only credited with this role and no other, I’m tempted to think it might actually be a pseudonym for Reed himself. (If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please let me know in the comments).

As confused as the prowler is by the presence of another prowler in his territory, he’s even more confused by Fred’s rehearsal and scary “prowler faces”, asking “What is this, amateur night?” He’s further amazed by Fred’s attempting to go through the door. He decides to head over to Fred’s house first before the “other prowler” gets to it.

Fred yells to Barney to help Fred inside; as Barney pulls, the prowler, remarks, “Gee–I never got that kind of cooperation!”

Right about this point we come to what I’ve come to call the “Barney Rubble voice anomaly”: just as Barney pulls Fred inside and sends him flying across the room, out another window and into a flowerpot, Mel Blanc switches to his “later Barney” voice, rather than his “early Barney” voice.

Blanc always claimed that he changed his Barney voice after Daws Butler filled in for him for five episodes (to allow Blanc time to recuperate from his January 1961 auto accident.) Blanc changed it, supposedly, to bring it more in line with what Butler had been doing, thereby making it less nasal–and a bit more Art Carney-ish–than he originally wanted it to be. But here, as early as the third episode in production, we hear the so-called “post-accident Barney voice” when Barney says the line, “Hold on, Fred–I’ll have you out in a jiffy!” and a moment later, when he grabs a croquet mallet to knock Fred loose: “I think a number five mallet will do the trick!”

It couldn’t have been that he did pickups later, when one considers when this episode was recorded (about nine months before his accident).

I consulted both Jerry Beck and, if memory serves, Mark Kausler about this long ago, and both agreed that Blanc’s voice does indeed change in certain early episodes. It’s likely that he was experimenting with the alternative voice very early on, and Hanna-Barbera, with too tight a budget and schedule to do many retakes, kept it in. It’s equally possible that he slipped into that voice accidentally in certain scenes, liked the way it sounded, and decided to do it that way permanently later on. As no one who was there is alive to tell us, we probably will never know for sure.

But back to Fred and Barney, who are still trying to pull this charade off–with not much success thus far. Barney’s mallet whack not only knocks Fred out of the flower pot, but through the wickets and into a tree. A further problem arises, however, when Barney discovers he’s locked himself out, and can’t let Fred in through the door. After failing to accomplish the old “alley-oop” handhold (fat Fred just drives poor Barney into the ground like a tent stake) they decide to use a ladder.

Rather noisily, both fall through the window inside–fortunately, Betty’s a heavy sleeper. At least, until Barney nudges her and tells her a prowler is in the room.

Fred goes into his “scary faces” routine, and Betty screams, but Fred didn’t quite figure on what would happen next. She grabs his arm, and with a “Ah-sitake-ha!” throws him back and forth a few times, finally hurling him out the window. All the while yelling “Help, Barney, help!”, no less.

Fred, having had enough, decides to beat a hasty retreat. Meanwhile, let’s check in on the real prowler, who still happens to be at Fred’s place.

Fred tries to sneak back into his house, hoping that Wilma won’t hear him come in. He doesn’t know, however, that the real prowler happens to be watching him: “Talk about nerve–two houses in one night!” he says as he watched Fred tiptoe in. The prowler confronts Fred, quickly throwing him out.

Deciding to call the police over at Barney’s, Fred scrambles through Barney’s window again. Big mistake, as Betty grabs him, and with another “Ah-sitake-ha!”, he finds himself hurled around again. Of course, this time we only hear her reaction rather than see her–we can’t use too much animation, after all. I rather like the remark coming from Fred at this point, who says what we’re all thinking after Betty yells for the police: “She needs the police??”

Shortly thereafter, Barney explains it’s actually Fred masquerading as a prowler; Betty decides to call Wilma and warn her about her “big fat practical joker”. But when she calls, who should happen to be ransacking the bedroom but the real prowler, who actually answers the phone and hands it to Wilma! Wilma screams (earning a confused “Shee! Dames! from the prowler) but thinks it’s Fred (naturally) when Betty informs her of Fred’s little scheme. Remember this for later…

Meanwhile, the real Fred (are you following all this?) hears Wilma’s screams and goes running toward the house. Unfortunately, he still has his prowler get-up on, and is greeted by a phony scream and even phonier spiel from Wilma: “It-is-the-prowler! Luckily-I-have-had-judo-lessons–which my chintzy husband didn’t want to pay for!” Her kick sends him backward into the real prowler’s bag, prompting the prowler to remark: “Hey buster, haven’t we

Wilma’s about to unleash judo lesson #3 on poor Fred…

met before?”

The real prowler’s getting tired of Fred fast, and decides to pitch him out the nearest window. This time, Fred wisely chooses to stay where he is. Now, just the real prowler’s left in the house–but Wilma thinks it’s still Fred. (Don’t you just love these escalating sitcom misunderstandings?)

A prowler’s got to learn how to protect himself from an episode like this…

She decides to give the real prowler–who she thinks is Fred–lesson number five, but we don’t get to see the actual thrashing. We just hear it from outside the window, as we see Fred’s incredulous reaction. One final throw from Wilma sends the real prowler right through the wall, and on top of Fred. (Stronger than we thought, that Wilma).

The prowler, atop the debris, remarks “Lady, you been takin’ judo lessons!” to which Fred rises from underneath the pile and adds, “That’s for sure!” When Wilma realizes she’d just fought the real prowler, she screams again, prompting the confused prowler to tell Fred, “It’s all yours, bud–I’m cuttin’ outta here!”

When Barney and Betty come over to inspect the wreckage, Fred tells them a real prowler showed up–and true to form, she screamed and went under the bed. Fred mocks Wilma by saying, “Did the big bad prowler scare you?” but his smugness doesn’t last long. The real prowler returns to collect his loot, which sends Betty, Barney, and Fred cowering under the bed with Wilma. The prowler can only remark to the audience, “Boy, this is a for-real nuthouse–that’s for sure!” (In my concluding thoughts, I’ll discuss the use of that phrase in this episode,  and why it contributes so much to the humor).

In the tag at the end, everybody’s signed up for lessons–including Fred and Barney. As Barney says, “A guy’s gotta learn to protect himself–from his wife!” There’s a couple of funny bits at the end, politically incorrect though they are: as Rockimoto explains the various levels they can advance through for “just a few measly dollar” (“gold medal, diamond medal, et-a-cet-er-a, et-a-cet-er-a) we get Fred’s whispered wisecrack, “What does ‘et-a-cet-er-a, et-a-cet-er-a,’ mean in Japanese–sucker??” (I’m ashamed to admit my brothers and I used to imitate Rockimoto when we used to watch this episode).

But we’re not quite to the end yet–seems there’s another customer: the prowler, who asks, “How’s business? Pretty good?” Rockimoto gets the rather funny closing line,” You not just-a whistling Dixie!” Iris out.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

“The Prowler” is so polished, so “right”, so typically “Flintstones”, it at times can be hard–very hard, indeed–to believe it was only the third episode produced. It “belongs” in a later time, we think to ourselves; all the elements are there. The characters are starting to look as we know them to look, act as we know them to act. The roughness and harshness that plagued the “The Swimming Pool” and “The Flintstone Flyer” are gone; when Wilma unleashed her fury on Fred in “The Flintstone Flyer”, it seemed painful. Now, when she does something even more brutal, it seems funny. It’s a “cartoonier”, more slapstick kind of mayhem–she appears to have an impossible amount of strength, as she drives the unfortunate prowler, whom she’s mistaken for Fred, through a stone wall. It’s all the funnier for being accidental–no threatening Fred with a bowling ball to the skull here.

The writers by this point have found their groove as well–this really is a rather complex story for a cartoon, as misunderstanding piles upon misunderstanding, calamity upon calamity. It’s also more verbally sophisticated than anything we’ve seen so far: they’re starting to play with words now, getting laughs out of innocuous utterances. They take one little phrase–”that’s for sure”–and treat it as if it in itself were a running gag; it’s spoken by Wilma at the beginning, by Fred once, by Barney once, by the prowler once, and  it’s practically Professor Rockimoto’s catchphrase. If, that is, a one-shot character can be said to have a catchphrase.

You might have noticed I have made very little mention up to now of the very politically incorrect Professor Rockimoto, and I haven’t for good reason. He matters so little, his un-P.C. nature can be easily overlooked. He’s merely the catalyst of the story–the “McGuffin”, if you will. He serves his function when necessary, and is quickly gone; he also, despite the stereotypical nature of his character, is kind of a funny little guy, particularly when he delivers the closing line at the end. (Mel Blanc’s delivery contributes much to what appeal the character has, certianly).

Finally, “The Prowler” has that elusive quality, that intangible something that marks a great episode–repeatability. It makes people want to see it again, and so imprints itself on people’s minds, it stays with them for years, even decades. The 2001 made-for TV revival on Cartoon Network, Flintstones On The Rocks, not only paid tribute to Ed Benedict’s drawing style in the “look” of the characters and backgrounds, but gave a little wink and a nod to this episode when Wilma at one point attacks a pursuer with a “Ah-sitake-HA!”

If the word “classic” is defined as “enduring through time”, then “The Prowler” more than meets that definition.

That’s for sure.

(Edited for clarity, 3/2/10)

(Picture added, 3/2/10)

In keeping with this blog’s current Flintstones theme, why not take a smoke break while waiting for the next review in my series to come up? Or at least watch this commercial, if you’re skittish about lung cancer:

I have to be honest. I’m a bit bewildered that so many people today find it so strange to see Fred Flintstone pitching Winstons. The over-the-top outrage and sarcasm I see in the comments every time something like this gets posted to YouTube are growing a bit tiresome.

As someone who grew up in that era (the 1960s, not the Stone Age, smart guys) a cartoon caveman selling cigarettes seemed no more unusual to me than a cartoon tuna selling Starkist (and believe me, the implications of the latter seem far darker to me).

I guess the notion prevalent today that these commercials were some sort of evil plot to hypnotize the kiddies into lighting up is the most confusing thing of all to me; the people who think that, I’m guessing, are those that consider anything animated to be strictly for children. Anyone who’s ever seen a Tex Avery cartoon would surely know otherwise.

The only truly strange thing about this commercial to me, really, is that the pack of Winstons isn’t “Flintstone-ized”; the artists could have, to use a TV term, “goofed it up” a little to make it more Stone Age-like.  It just doesn’t seem as though it belongs in the same “universe” as the Flintstones.

And now that I think about it, doesn’t the pack  appear huge in relation to Fred and his druggist?  I guess they made ‘em a lot bigger back in Fred’s time….

An image from the "Flagstones" pilot. But is that pilot the ONLY one?

by Rachel Newstead

It’s amazing what one can learn on the internet sometimes.  Case in point:

When doing research for my upcoming review of “The Swimming Pool”, I couldn’t help but think back to a mystery I encountered when researching the episode “The Hot Piano” two years ago. You might call it The Mystery Of The Missing Pilot.

In a routine Google search I ran across this page, a site called DVDVerdict.com. In its review of The Flintstones: The Complete First Season, it states:

After a moderate success with the Ruff N’ Ready [sic] Show, the duo was ready to try their hand at a prime time series. They made a deal with ABC; all they needed was a program. In 1959, a Belgian animation unit (that would later make the cult classic Pinocchio in Outer Space) tried their hand with a half-hour pilot titled The Flagstones. Hanna and Barbera did not like the end product, so a new approach was taken with the next pilot.

Wait a minute. Belgium? Next pilot??

You can understand my confusion, I’m sure. The reviewer says that Hanna-Barbera actually intended to outsource The Flintstones (or The Flagstones, as it was still known at the time) to a foreign studio, which flies in the face of everything I’ve ever read, or heard, about the origins of the show.

I unfortunately don’t have a copy of Joe Barbera’s autobiography in front of me, but I seem to recall he said he first talked to potential sponsors early in 1960, then made the well known three-minute minute-and-a-half pilot in house sometime in the spring of that year.  Something like this wouldn’t appear to fit the timeline.

Yet there was supposedly a half hour pilot done as early as 1959 by this Belgian outfit, at about the time–as far as I knew–the very first concept sketches were being done? Curiouser and curiouser.

I remember asking Mark Kausler about this, and he wondered, as I did, why H-B would go through the trouble of outsourcing when it would have been easier to do it in-house, even with their busy production schedule at the time. Therefore,  I simply dismissed the story as a flight of fancy on the part of the review’s author, and that was that.

A more recent find, however, punched a huge hole in my air of smugness. This morning I ran across an old post on Cartoon Brew which essentially says the same thing as DVDVerdict–that a Flintstones pilot, made in Belgium by a company called Belvision, existed. The word of Jerry Beck is hard to dispute.

Now that there’s confirmation it exists, the next obvious question would be “Where is it?” I for one would jump at the chance to see this studio’s take on the characters. Judging from what little I’ve seen of Belvision’s  style in Pinocchio in Outer Space, their version would have been very different from what we’ve come to know. Not bad, necessarily, but certainly different.

This pilot is likely to be an interesting curiosity, at least. Though in all honesty, I’m rather glad things turned out as they ultimately did.

Jerry, should you come around this way, please give me some more details about this if you can.  Though screen grabs would be even better.

by Rachel Newstead

I think the first words I ever remember hearing must have been “Yabba Dabba Doo.”

In 1964, my granddaddy bought a brand new Zenith color television set at a time when a color TV cost about the same as a good used car, and had controls which resembled nothing less than the flight deck of a 747. Which were touchy enough that pink skin and green grass could easily become green skin and pink grass if one breathed a little too hard.

The colors came at you with retina-blasting mercilessness: they were bright, they were garish–and absolutely perfect for cartoons. And thanks to my granddaddy, I saw a lot of them, including a show called The Flintstones.

Granddaddy loved Fred Flintstone, probably because there was  more than a little bit of Fred in him–bombastic and blustery, with a childlike playfulness he tried to hide. But when Fred was on screen, that playfulness came out in full force.

He delighted in bellowing “Yabba Dabba Doo”, much to my consternation. I’d usually cover my ears whenever he did, making surreptitious glances at him during the program to see if he’d do it again. And he always would.

Despite this early childhood trauma, those years instilled a love for the program that lasts to this day. How, after all, can you not love what you literally grew up with? Fred in a sense was both big brother and surrogate father to me. Consequently, I stayed with my Stone Age “relative” through every conceivable incarnation–including the better-left-forgotten Saturday-morning years. Yes, even through such abominations as Fred and Barney Meet The Schmoo.

But nothing quite satisfied my Flintstone fix as much as those episodes of the very first season. As you probably know if you read my scene-by-scene analysis of episode 18, “The Hot Piano” (and judging from the blog stats, quite a few of you have) there’s just something about those early episodes that set them apart from the ones that came later. The characters may have been cruder–in appearance and manner–but the dialogue, backgrounds and model sheets had a certain ” snap” that first season or two that gradually, almost imperceptibly faded as the years wore on.

My original intention, when I finished with the Avery piece, was to resume my reviews of the Larry Doyle Looney Tunes.  After seeing just how popular the “Hot Piano” post has been, however, I thought otherwise. You, the readers have spoken, and you want The Flintstones–so The Flintstones you shall have.

What I intend to do is go through each of the first-season episodes, one by one, over the next few weeks, giving them the same in-depth treatment I gave “The Hot Piano”–and I’ll continue until I’m told to shut up.

The Freeze Frame Friday feature will continue as scheduled–perhaps I’ll find a Flintstone-related frame or two to talk about as a way of launching this series of reviews. I think Granddaddy would have liked that.

by Rachel Newstead

As some of you may have noticed in the second part of my recent essay about Tex Avery’s early years at Lantz, I love the cartoon She Done Him Right, especially the signature number of the cartoon, “Minnie The Moocher’s Wedding Day.” I first fell in love with that number in Hugh Harman’s Swing Wedding, but the hot blues rendition in She Done Him Right is far superior. I had to know the identity of that voice, and in an effort to find out, I wrote to the webmaster of the Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia.  Well, it seems I not only have him stumped, but the people to whom he forwarded my letter: neither Jerry Beck, Mark Kausler, nor even Keith Scott had any idea.

Since I seem to have done the near-impossible and stumped the animation historians, I thought it best to appeal to the music historians. Lantz likely used a popular artist of the day, as Fleischer was inclined to do. My knowledge of the artists of that period is sadly limited, however, so I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can give me at least an educated guess.

To whom does this voice belong?