TS: The Flintstones vs. The Jetsons

the basic premise of both shows it pretty interesting: the idea that the white, suburban american family is a permanent fixture in history

it's been a long time since I've seen either of these so it's hard for me to say. My vague inclination is that The Flintstones has better gags but The Jetsons is more rewarding in its surrealness & has a superior title sequence.

Jetsons had cooler architecture

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mid-21st-century-modern-that-jetsons-architecture-2494820/?no-ist

I remember not liking George Jetson as a child, though, he seemed very uptight and tetchy, Fred was more agreeable

I remember not liking George Jetson as a child, though, he seemed very uptight and tetchy, Fred was more agreeable

― i hope heaven is full of music and girls like ennya (soref), Sunday, February 8, 2015 10:08 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This may be some of my issue with the Jetsons too

George O'Hanlon (who did George Jetson's voice) is funny in the Joe McDoakes shorts, he is kind of irascible in those as well, but more goofy and childlike as well

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1255742879_1.jpg

They both bored me to death as a kid, but the Jetsons has a way better sense of style... the architecture, the titles, and at least half-heartedly aping UPA's style to try and milk a cool look out of the cheap animation. It's not great to look at for more than a few minutes, but their dinky little spaceships (and the sounds they make) are kinda neat. The Flintstones is just dull and ugly, and god, the laugh track coming in every time it's revealed that some postwar convenience is performed by a dinosaur doing something....barf.

^^^ otm

Even though I can do a pretty good Barney Rubble laugh, I'm voting Jetsons.

The Jetsons originally was just one season of shows whereas The Flintstones continued producing new shows for six years, enabling the producers to keep it reflective of pop culture trends, as they brought out characters like "Ann-Margrock" and had fake Beatle-y groups etc. The Jetsons were permanently stuck in a 1962 conception of the future, perhaps the most fanciful part of which is that our society will still have a middle-class industrial base (making cogs and sprockets..).

However, I always preferred the progressive, aesthetic fantasy of The Jetsons. As a kid I knew enough about prehistory to see The Flintstones' premise as tacky and false; perhaps if I watched it today the humor would register more, because as an adult you accept TV comedies as essentially parodies and your sense of camp is more developed.

Another thing the makes The Jetsons intriguing is that their world is so incomplete - everything happens up in the sky.. what's down below? Are there any oceans? Where is this place? The mystery of all that adds to the fantasy.

I think that sense of the unknown in the Jetsons was one of those things that gave me the heebie-jeebies as a kid, in other (non-cartoon) media as an adult I can go for not knowing everything and having to piece it together myself, but in this context....

Yes, and The Flintstones laugh track is way over the top! It kind of makes the show unsettling to have on your TV.

Jetsons wasn't great tv or anything but it was fun watching as a kid. Flintstones = the Honeymooners domesticated for kids, plus demerit for appearing in cigarette commercials.

plus the Flintstones never had the Jet Screamer episode.

re: the 1962 vision of the future, that's what I love about it now. ie the episode "Elroy's Mob", where it's explained that instead of report cards, they get "report tapes", which are just cassette tapes, that George bought a new sound system to listen to so he could hear Elroy's marks "in stereo"!

the laugh track coming in every time it's revealed that some postwar convenience is performed by a dinosaur doing something

I will never not love this, fwiw

I don't know if I even realized the Jetsons did more eps in the 80s. Not sure if I ever saw these, as looking through the ep list on Wikipedia the 60s eps jump off the page and I have no recollection of any of the summaries of the 80s ones.

I did see the stupid movie tho.

Elroy was a lil bitch iirc

I also contend that Teddy-2s sick rejection of Elroy's elevator shot was clearly goaltending

they made more than twice as many episodes in the 80s as they did in the 60s!
I may have only seen the 80s episodes looking at wiki, I definitely remember Orbitty being there most of the time

when I was a kid I watched them all in the morning on this local channel that showed them and I think they must have specifically targeted the 60s eps. it would explain why I got episode fatigue seeing the same ones over and over.

did anybody watch the Flintstones Kids?

Don't remember the Jetsons ever been shown in the UK, might have in different regions though.

(What I'm saying is I've never seen the Jetsons)

imagine the Flintstones with robots instead of dinosaurs, everything being shiny, and the people having pointier noses

I have never seen anything Flintstones related that I love as much as this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJwp_-3V2GM

That's an '80s update of the Jet Screamer episode - the original is better

I like when George Jetson bitches about his job -- pushing a button. "You won't believe how many times I had to press it today -- two!"

eep opp ork ah ah - and that means snort some coke

Looking at George Jetson happily playing the space-drums at the start of the original "Eep-Opp-Ork-Ah-Ah," and noting that he's clearly terrible but the technology makes it not matter, made me think that Jetsons is maybe the closest thing to a TV show of Brave New World. It's this seemingly labor-free future, where all anybody can spend time on is choosing from an abundance of gleeful but pointless distractions and vacations. Also everybody's white.

As a kid I knew enough about prehistory to see The Flintstones' premise as tacky and false;

lololololol

Also everybody's white.

I guess you missed the controversial Fritz Lang directed episode....

It's this seemingly labor-free future, where all anybody can spend time on is choosing from an abundance of gleeful but pointless distractions and vacations.

that's kinda the great thing, though, that they're a capitalist society that has they've increased automation to the point where humans aren't really needed for base labor anymore, yet they still give people like George WPA-esque jobs so they can pay the bills.

Surprised Rand Paul hasn't retroactively criticized the show as a "nanny state nightmare" and lamenting more of the Jetsonians aren't starting their own businesses or forming their own boards of opthamology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxSLqfTIsoU

The Flintstone had good gag writers. The Jetsons had, well, nothing besides architecture and sprockets.

^this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZvHiiWFbBU

Flintstones fans conveniently forgetting the awfulness of late episodes, the horrible little flying space man, bathetic background music with Fred or Barney moping, suicidal. What was that.

wasn't the little spaceman, voiced by Harvey Korman, I believe, the bridge to teh Jetsons?

Maybe not. He definitely was a Cousin Oliver type addition, though.

Harvey Korman as a queeny space alien named Gazoo was awesome and you know it. Several of their best episodes, including the one where Gazoo turns Barney into a woman to be Fred's date.

I think my favorite Flintstones episodes is still the one about a new neighbor modeled after Alfred Hitchcock ("Alvin Brickrock") whom Fred suspects of murdering his wife.

I like the one where "Stony Curtis" goes incognito and then they laugh at him when he tries to reveal his real identity.

Gazoo started good and turned into Scrappy Doo level annoyance.

Or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXCiS2FpmIc

The Incredibles short bald boss pretty obviously coming from both these shows.

[Incredibles an irritating Harrison Bergeron (1961!) nostalgia trip all around.]

The Kurt Vonnegut story?
(xp)

But especially:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIo-hIYPklU

Did the Jetson's have futuristically named versions of actors, musicians and film directors, sometimes voiced by the actual artist? I think not, but my memory may be failing me.

Yes. "Harrison Bergeron" was a favorite addition to junior high school/high school reading anthologies for decades. Guess why.

I like the one where "Stony Curtis" goes incognito and then they laugh at him when he tries to reveal his real identity.

― Beats By Doré (James Redd and the Blecchs

Rock Quarry actually. Stony Curtis was later (he played Wilma's slave boy or something).

Just came to correct that, thanks.

Guess why.
Because it struck a nerve with misunderstood kids and the schoolmarms what educated them, just like "Flowers For Algernon"?

One thing added to my Rock Quarry/Stony Curtis confusion was that Rock Quarry's undercover name was Gus Schultz and Tony Curtis's real name was Bernard Schwartz. I know, it is a slim connection, never mind, carry on, as you were, nothing to see here.

Much, much more of a Flintstones fan as a kid, but for all I know, The Jetsons was actually the better show. I'd have to look at them again.

had jack to do with "Flowers for Algernon", which also had jack to do with misunderstood kids.

Harrison Bergeron was a cold war satire on the whole "making everybody equally mediocre" trope, which was only happening in Ayn Rand's mind anyway and was particularly annoying reintroduced in the early 2000s when it seriously had nothing to do with anything going on in our culture. The superheroes are forced to be normal citizens because of our penchant for mediocrity etc. Yeah sure.

Okay, I take it back, not misunderstood kids, gifted and talented kids.

DO U SEE?

alien named Gazoo
Wasn't he more properly known as "The Great Gazoo"?

I DO!

Anyway there's a missing story to be told, how the main satire we were assigned to read 70s-80s was Animal Farm or Harrison Bergeron, pretty revealing and I haven't seen anybody look into it as one of them cultural signifiers, you'd think Barry Goldwater had been picking the readings there

What did George Jetson say when he got off work?

do u think there is an unseen impoverished ground-dwelling underclass in the Jetsons universe?

Jetsons ep of Harvey Birdman > Flintstones ep of Harvey Birdman

The ground does make a couple appearances fwiw

When the Flintstones visited the Jetsons, how is it that the Flintstones didn't completely freak out at what the future was like? They should've spent the entire episode screeching in awe.

Ha, that reminds me of at least one episode of Star Trek: TOS

Paleofuture blog has great episode recaps of every jetsons ep iirc

The Flintstone had good gag writers. The Jetsons had, well, nothing besides architecture and sprockets.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, February 8, 2015 10:05 AM (12 hours ago)

surprised by all the jetsons love itt. good idea & look, lousy show. flintstones had its ups and downs, but the characters & writing were much better than anything the jetsons ever managed. jet screamer episode excepted, of course.

TS: Ann-Margrock vs. Gina Lollajupiter

The Jetsons had the better colouring-in book.

I think so.

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/50-years-of-the-jetsons-why-the-show-still-matters-512621126

What I don't get is, when the Flintstones visited the Jetsons, how did they not spend the whole episode screeching in bewilderment at this insane future world? How do you go back to starting the car with your feet and playing a record with a bird after that?

Steampunk.

y didn't they just run w/out having 2 carry the wooden car frame doe

Flintstones fans conveniently forgetting the awfulness of late episodes, the horrible little flying space man, bathetic background music with Fred or Barney moping, suicidal. What was that.

― Vic Perry, Sunday, February 8, 2015 6:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Creepypasta?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E3UrA-LJw

jetsons is classic just for giving us all a completely unreasonable idea of what the world would be like in "the future." (except for "moving sidewalks," which turned out to be pretty underwhelming when we got them.) late 50s/early 60s portrayals of the future are the best.

flintstones is classic mainly for reminding me of the honeymooners (the best show ever).

y didn't they just run w/out having 2 carry the wooden car frame doe

Wasn't it just Fred who ran? The others got to sit.

I watched Flintstones as a kid when it was on after school in the 80s. I remember all of a sudden realising I hated it - the stupid storylines and how unfunny was. I always liked the opening and closing songs though.

I never watched enough Jetsons to know it well, just felt like more of the same stupid shit as Flinstones.

The Simpsons parodied The Flintstones opening and it was hilarious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuWiTiduomM

Family Guy parodied The Jetsons opening and turned it into a domestic violence joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3aqPv9eE-c

Advantage: Flintstones

in fairness, family guy can ruin pretty much anything

do u think there is an unseen impoverished ground-dwelling underclass in the Jetsons universe?

There might be something to this, because in the "Flying Suit" episode Mr. Cogswell tosses the suit out of his office window and it lands on a bum who's walking on the terrain below

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

No love for The Nowstons? With their hilarious early 60s appliances?

Harvey Korman as a queeny space alien named Gazoo was awesome and you know it.
Missed opportunity to use his catchphrase, Dum Dum.

Pleeeeaazzze don't shout.

Always thought it was really weird the live laugh tracks over this animated show. When I was a kid I kept picturing them showing this to an audience and taping their reactions.

The Simpsons parodied The Flintstones opening and it was hilarious:

Family Guy parodied The Jetsons opening and turned it into a domestic violence joke:

Advantage: Flintstones

dogg you know the Simpsons theme song is entirely indebted to the Jetsons theme right?

The Flintstones are animated shitstains whose legacy is promoting lung cancer by endorsing Winston cigarettes and Type 1 juvenile diabetes by endorsing Fruity Pebbles cereal

The best part about The Nowstons was the way the short boss resembled Nixon. Always called Ned Nowston "Nevil" too. When Cindy Nowston would use a "toaster" and the laugh track would go crazy.

that Jetsons theme sounds nowt like The Simpsons!

lol @ me actually googling the Nowstons

matt groening's "flavors tape" that inspired the "simpsons" theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uPsC4ittAg

http://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/books/article87452842.html