Following up on my previous video link: Even as an eight-year-old kid watching (and loving) The Flintstones when it debuted on Friday, 9/30/60, I was intrigued by ABC's decision to program it at 8:30 PM.
That evening, ABC prime time kicked off with a show called Matty's Funday Funnies which was sometimes called just Matty's Funnies. Either way, it was sponsored by Mattel Toys and initially ran old Paramount cartoons of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Herman & Katnip and others. That series debuted and aired on late Sunday ("Funday") afternoons commencing in October of 1959. The night The Flintstones debuted at 8:30, ABC added a Friday night edition of Matty's at 7:30.
Here's the closing of one episode. I'm not sure if this is from the Sunday or Friday version but it includes a promo for The Flintstones…
Now, given the way networks think on those rare occasions when they do, you'd figure that show would be a natural lead-in to Fred and Barney and their stone-age escapades but no. As I said, they were on at 8:30. So what filled the 8 PM time slot? What show did ABC decide would create a natural flow from Casper cartoons to Flintstones cartoons? Answer: Harrigan and Sons.
It was not a cartoon. It was a half-hour filmed situation comedy starring the old character actor Pat O'Brien as a well-seasoned lawyer and Roger Perry as his son and lightly-seasoned junior partner. To give you an idea how unlike its lead-in and lead-out it was, here's the opening of one episode…
And here are the end credits to the show. I vividly recall watching them each week as I waited for Fred and Barney to start…
Harrigan and Son didn't debut on 9/30, the same night Matty's Funnies and The Flintstones debuted. It didn't come on until 10/14. And once it did, it came between those two shows. Then The Flintstones was followed by 77 Sunset Strip, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor and then to close out the evening at 10:30, The Law and Mr. Jones, which starred James Whitmore and which was a lot like Harrigan and Son only more serious. So what you had there was, in order…
- Cartoon show about friendly ghosts and talking cats
- Situation comedy about a law firm
- Cartoon show about cavemen in the Stone Age
- Drama about detectives
- Drama about detectives
- Drama about a law firm
But now I hear you wondering what ran on ABC at 8 PM the night The Flintstones debuted? And what was there on the following Friday, October 7? My research was unable to answer this riddle which, I'll admit, intrigued me more than it should have. So I consulted with TV expert Stu Shostak and he consulted with TV expert Steve Beverly and they came up with the answer…
On September 30, the night The Flintstones premiered, its lead-in at 8 PM was an ABC News Special on the then-current presidential election. So the first 90 minutes of ABC's prime-time lineup that night had this natural flow…
- Cartoon show about friendly ghosts and talking cats
- News Special about Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy
- Cartoon show about cavemen in the Stone Age
And then on October 7, they pre-empted Matty's Funnies and that 90 minute block went like this…
- One hour live televised presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy
- Cartoon show about cavemen in the Stone Age
The odd placement of The Flintstones may have been because, as was then sometimes the case, a given sponsor had a long-term contract for a certain time slot. So the company that chose to sponsor The Flintstones or its ad agency controlled 8:30 PM on Friday nights on ABC and the show they wanted to sponsor had to go there. Or maybe ABC felt that the success of The Flintstones might have hinged on it attracting an adult audience and that was less likely with Buzzy the Crow cartoons as its lead-in. Or there might have been some other reason. We may never know.
But I do know that even when I was eight, I thought, "They have those shows in the wrong order." I also thought everyone on The Flintstones was more realistic than Richard Nixon.