What do we have for you today? Why, it's The Flintstones from 1994. Back when I worked for Hanna-Barbera, someone was always talking about taking the cartoon show and doing a live-action version of it. I always thought and often said "It would never work" and eventually, they spent a lot of money to make this and prove me right…
Amazingly, it did well enough to warrant a sequel so here we have The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas from 2000. What some people won't do to prove me right…
This post ran on this blog on October 18, 2007. Nothing has changed about it except that it's now been 63 years since the article I'm writing about was written…
Here is an old article about Hanna-Barbera…
Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera old M.G.M. cartoonists have made five T.V. cartoon shows. Which have all hit the ratings. It started with HUCKLEBERRY HOUND show with HUCK, JINKS AND "THE MEECES" AND YOGI BEAR AND BOO BOO. Later QUICK DRAW McGRAW with Baba Looey, Snooper and Blabber, and Augie and Daddy Doggie. Yogi Bear got his own show then with 2 old characters, SNAGGLEPUSS and IDDY BIDDY BUDDY (NOW CALLED YAKKY DOODLE DUCK) Hokey Wolf and Ding-a-Ling COPIED AND REPLACED YOGI. Jinks and Pixie & Dixie copied M.G.M.'S Tom and Jerry (they look alike). Then the world's first adult cartoon show, FLINTSTONES (NOW IN THE MAKING, TOP CAT, ANOTHER ADULT CARTOON SHOW) El Kabong (QUICK DRAW McGRAW AS ZORRO BUT HE USES A GUITAR INSTEAD OF A SWORD.) Snooper and Blabber was the first detective cartoons. Augie Doggie was a copy of "Wendy and Breezy" (WALTER LANTZ) It is said that WALT DISNEY is jealous.
Hey, that's not a bad little article. The phrasing is awkward in places but the author knows his cartoons.
So…who wrote this article? I did. Why are some of the sentences so odd? Maybe because I was nine years old at the time.
It's amazing. Here it is, 47 years later and I still write articles about Hanna-Barbera and my writing hasn't improved that much. (I still use too many parenthetical phrases.) (Yes, I do.) (I really do.)
I have oodles of things I have to do today so to make you feel you didn't waste your time clicking your way to my blog, here are the ten openings — and I think there's a closing or two in here as well — to cartoon shows I enjoyed watching when I was a kid. We're not talking about enjoying the show itself, although I usually did. But here are my ten fave openings, starting with Number Ten: Mighty Mouse Playhouse (1955)…
The next show was originally sponsored by Ideal Toys and they had sponsor plugs in it and worked the word "ideal" into the lyrics. That word remained but they cut out the other sponsorship points in this version of Number Nine: The Magilla Gorilla Show (1964)…
And then we swing — on a vine, no less — to the vocal stylings of musician Stan Worth (with yells by Bill Scott, voice of the title character) for Number Eight: George of the Jungle (1967)…
Our countdown continues — and yes, I'm starting to feel here like Casey Kasem — with Number Seven: The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958)…
You may remember a version of the above with Huckleberry Hound doing all the acrobatics done above by the rooster on the Kellogg's Corn Flakes box. That was the second version which they made up when Kellogg's stopped sponsoring the show. Sponsor plugs were also later edited out of the opening titles on our next two entries. Here's Number Six: The Quick Draw McGraw Show (1959)…
And yes, it always bothered me a little that Quick Draw was a horse commanding a stagecoach pulled by his own species. Next, we have Number Five: The Yogi Bear Show (1961)…
Sometimes, the best thing about a cartoon show was its theme song. Case in point, Number Four: The Underdog Show (1967)…
And this is the original — and to me, vastly superior — opening for one of my favorite shows…Number Three: The Flintstones (1960)…
This strong second-place finisher on our list shows you what you get when the creator of the property and one of the main characters is a recording artist who's had a bunch of number one hit records and then he brings in the Johnny Mann Singers. You get our Number Two: The Alvin Show (1961)…
And I always thought they oughta start the Emmy Awards year with two male hosts coming out and performing this number, ending with a march-through by a lot of big TV stars. This is, of course, Number One: The Bugs Bunny Show (1960)…
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…
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…
And then on October 7, they pre-empted Matty's Funnies and that 90 minute block went like this…
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.
This is the minute-and-a-half pilot/sales film that Hanna-Barbera produced in either late 1959 or early 1960 to try and sell a show called The Flagstones. This, of course, soon morphed into The Flintstones, a weekly series on ABC that was originally marketed more for adults — complete with a cigarette sponsor some of the time — than for kids.
Had it been for younger audiences, ABC would have programmed it for 7:30 PM, which is when "prime time" then began. Instead, it debuted at 8:30 on Friday evening, September 30, 1960 where it was a surprising hit. By this point, the recently-opened Hanna-Barbera studio had sold The Ruff and Reddy Show (NBC Saturday morning) and then Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw (both syndicated) but this was the series that really put them on the map.
Before anyone asks: It is said that the name was changed because in the Hi & Lois newspaper strip — by Mort Walker and Dik Browne, which debuted in 1954 — the family was named The Flagstones. And that may be true, though some question that reason.
The voice of Wilma was supplied by actress Jean Vander Pyl, who continued through the series and almost every other time Wilma Flintstone spoke until Ms. Vander Pyl left us. Betty Rubble was voiced in this pilot by June Foray, while Fred and Barney were both by Daws Butler, doing much the same voices he did as the mice in the Warner Brothers "Honeymousers" cartoons which aped the Honeymooners TV show starring Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.
June and Daws did not go on to do the series — Daws reportedly because that might have made the show close enough to Mr. Gleason's series to prompt a lawsuit…a move which Gleason once said in an interview had been contemplated. Again, there might be more to the story than that. Daws did play Barney for a few episodes later on when Mel Blanc had his infamous, near-deadly auto accident. And Daws was certainly capable of inventing a voice for Fred which did not sound as much like Ralph Kramden.
Two decades later when I was working for H-B, I made a comment to Joe Barbera about how Barney Rubble had obviously been named as a sly way of saying "Carney Double." Mr. B, as most of us younger folks called him, did a "take" that would not have been out of place in a Tex Avery cartoon. He then swore to me that that had never occurred to anyone at the time and I was the first person he'd ever heard point that out. I still find that hard to believe.
But enough background. Here's the pilot/sales film in question…
With a few updates/changes…
Thursday, July 25 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Room 9
MEET MICHAEL HIRSH
Business Chief magazine called Michael Hirsh "The Father of Canadian Animation." He co-founded Nelvana, the firm responsible for animating such famous cartoon franchises as, among so many others, The Care Bears, Babar, Barbie, Max and Ruby, The Magic School Bus, Beetlejuice, The Adventures of Tintin, Franklin, Cyberchase, and The Berenstain Bears, along with such larger-than-life personalities as Roseanne Barr, Mr. T., Deborah Harry, and Tim Burton. How did he do it? That's the question your moderator Mark Evanier will be asking in this rare one-on-one interview.Thursday, July 25 — 11:00 AM to NOON in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON JACK C. HARRIS
Jack C. Harris began writing and editing DC Comics in 1977; among the many comics he wrote and/or edited were Kamandi, Wonder Woman, House of Mystery, Sgt. Rock, Isis, Green Lantern, The Superman Family, The Unexpected, Weird War Tales, and Detective Comics. His work appeared later in Marvel Comics and Heavy Metal, among other publications. In short, he's been active in comics for decades, has worked with a wide range of editors, writers, and artists, and is a Comic-Con special guest. Here's your chance to hear him tell his experiences as he's interviewed by Mark Evanier.Thursday, July 25 — 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON KEN STEACY
Ken Steacy's visual storytelling career spans a half-century, as a writer, artist, art director, editor, and publisher. He has chronicled the exploits of Astro Boy, Iron Man, Harry Potter, and the Star Wars gang; and, in addition to producing his own IP, he has collaborated with Margaret Atwood, Harlan Ellison, and Trina Robbins. The recipient of an Eisner Award and an Inkpot Award, in 2009 Ken was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award for contributions to the industry. He'll be talking about all this and more in this spotlight when he is ruthlessly interrogated by Mark Evanier.Thursday, July 25 — 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON JO DUFFY
Jo Duffy has written comics including Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman, Batman, Wolverine, Fallen Angels, Nestrobber, Glory, Crystar, Elvira, Defenders, Punisher, and Star Wars, as well as the English-language edition of Akira. She has written short stories, essays, the comic book biography of Saint Francis, and an adaptation of Kipling's Jungle Book, and is the co-writer of two Puppet Master movies. She was the managing editor of Epic magazine and an editor at Marvel Comics, handling such titles as Elektra, Daredevil, Dreadstar, Groo, Doctor Strange, Hulk, and ROM. Hear about all this and more when she is interviewed in this spotlight by Mark Evanier.Friday, July 26 — 10:30 AM to 10:30 AM in Room 4
THAT 70'S PANEL
It was a time of major change in the comic book business; of new talent coming in and the industry being rebuilt to come with a changing world and marketplace. Hear all about it from people who were in the middle of it: Gerry Conway (Amazing Spider-Man, The Punisher), Jo Duffy (Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman), Marv Wolfman (Tomb of Dracula, The New Teen Titans), Al Milgrom (Captain Marvel, West Coast Avengers), and your moderator, Mark Evanier (Scooby Doo, Blackhawk).Friday, July 26 — 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM in Room 10
THE GROO PANEL
Since 1982, fans have followed the bumbling, almost tragi-comic exploits of easily the stupidest, most destructive character in all of comics, Sergio Aragonés' Groo the Wanderer. So here's your opportunity to hear all about this unique, long-running comic book character from Carrie Strachan (colorist of Groo), Jo Duffy (one-time editor of Groo), and Mark Evanier (who has something to do with this comic and maybe he'll even tell everyone just what it is).Friday, July 26 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 10
WALT KELLY AND POGO
Walt Kelly's Pogo was one of the greatest newspaper comic strips of all time and is now being reprinted in an award-winning series of volumes from Fantagraphics Books. What made the world fall in love with Pogo Possum, Albert Alligator, Howland Owl, Churchy LaFemme, Ma'm'selle Hepzibah, and the other denizens of Mr. Kelly's corner of the Okefenokee Swamp? That's the topic under discussion by cartoonists Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) and Rick Parker (Beavis and Butthead), historian Maggie Thompson, Walt Kelly archivist Jane Plunkett, Cartoon Voice Actor Jim Meskimen and your moderator (and co-editor of the Complete Pogo), Mark Evanier.Saturday, July 27 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
It just might be the fastest, funniest panel at the entire Comic-Con! Three cartoonists (and a few guest cartoonists) whip up hilarious cartoons right before your eyes based on suggestions from the audience and your host, Mark Evanier. Competing this year, armed with nothing but their own wits and some Sharpies, are Scott Shaw! (The Flintstones, The Simpsons comic books), Lalo Alcaraz (award-winning political cartoonist and the man behind La Cucaracha), and Disney Legend Floyd Norman.Saturday, July 27 — 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Once again, moderator Mark Evanier convenes his popular panel of folks who speak for some of your favorite animated superstars and videogames. Demonstrating their craft this year on the Saturday panel are Neil Ross (Captain Planet, G.I. Joe), Piotr Michael (Young Jedi Adventures, Wizards: Tales of Arcadia), Secunda Wood (Gabby's Dollhouse, Fast & Furious Spy Racers), Julie Nathanson (Final Fantasy, Skylanders), Bob Bergen (Porky Pig, Tweety), and Isaac Robinson-Smith (X-Men '97, Voltron: Legendary Defender).Saturday, July 27 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE HISTORY OF HANNA-BARBERA RECORDS
The legacy, voices, and music of Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and their collaborators are celebrated by host Mark Evanier and actor Tim Matheson (Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Sinbad, Jr., Animal House, Virgin River), cartoon voice performer Katie Leigh, animator and animation historian and Comic-Con special guest Tom Sito, and author Greg Ehrbar (host of The Funtastic World of Hanna & Barbera podcast).Sunday, July 28 — 10:00 AM to 11:15 AM in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
Each year, we gather together folks who knew and/or were inspired by the man they call "The King of the Comics," Jack Kirby. If you're attending this convention, you have to know who he was and what he did. Talking Kirby this year will be cartoonists Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) and Rick Parker (Beavis and Butt-Head), Kirby family friend Dave Schwartz, Jack's granddaughter Tracy Kirby, a Surprise Guest Panelist and your moderator, former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier.Sunday, July 28 — 11:45 AM to 1:15 PM in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES II
If you think the Saturday Cartoon Voices Panel was wonderful, wait'll you hear the Sunday one! Your moderator Mark Evanier has rounded up six more of the best folks who put the words into the mouths of your animated favorites. Come hear Debi Derryberry (Jimmy Neutron, Draculaura on Monster High), Daniel Ross (Donald Duck, The Tom and Jerry Show), Jim Meskimen (Thundercats, Avengers Assemble!), David Errigo, Jr. (Phineas and Ferb, Tiny Toons Looniversity), Debra Wilson (Baby Shark's Big Show!, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League), and Fred Tatasciore (Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Tiny Toons Looniversity).Sunday, July 23 — 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Room 7AB
COVER STORY
Industry people will tell you that the single most important page in any comic book is the cover, and often more effort goes into the cover than into the rest of the comic. What does it take to conceive, design, and execute a great cover? That's the question your moderator Mark Evanier will put to four artists who've done them over and over: J. Scott Campbell and Comic-Con special guests Joe Jusko, Ken Steacy, and Klaus Janson.Sunday, July 28 — 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
What does it take to establish and maintain a career doing voicework for animated cartoons and video games? There are plenty of coaches out there who will charge you a fortune for the kind of advice you'll get absolutely free at this panel. Your moderator Mark Evanier has assembled a panel of one of the top voiceover agents, Sam Frishman (C.E.S.D.) and three voice actors who work all the time: Gregg Berger, Debi Derryberry, and Debra Wilson. If you're interested in this profession, it's a must-attend!
Everything above — times, rooms, panelists, even how the moderator spells his name is subject to change. The entire programming schedule can be found and committed to memory on this page. During the con, I will not be one of those people sitting behind a table for any length of time signing stuff but come to one or more of the above panels and if there's time, I'll gladly autograph a few things for you if only to prove I know how to write my own name.
Thursday, July 25 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Room 9
MEET MICHAEL HIRSH
Business Chief magazine called Michael Hirsh "The Father of Canadian Animation." He co-founded Nelvana, the firm responsible for animating such famous cartoon franchises as, among so many others, The Care Bears, Babar, Barbie, Max and Ruby, The Magic School Bus, Beetlejuice, The Adventures of Tintin, Franklin, Cyberchase, and The Berenstain Bears, along with such larger-than-life personalities as Roseanne Barr, Mr. T., Deborah Harry, and Tim Burton. How did he do it? That's the question your moderator Mark Evanier will be asking in this rare one-on-one interview.Thursday, July 25 — 11:00 AM to NOON in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON JACK C. HARRIS
Jack C. Harris began writing and editing DC Comics in 1977; among the many comics he wrote and/or edited were Kamandi, Wonder Woman, House of Mystery, Sgt. Rock, Isis, Green Lantern, The Superman Family, The Unexpected, Weird War Tales, and Detective Comics. His work appeared later in Marvel Comics and Heavy Metal, among other publications. In short, he's been active in comics for decades, has worked with a wide range of editors, writers, and artists, and is a Comic-Con special guest. Here's your chance to hear him tell his experiences as he's interviewed by Mark Evanier.Thursday, July 25 — 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON KEN STEACY
Ken Steacy's visual storytelling career spans a half-century, as a writer, artist, art director, editor, and publisher. He has chronicled the exploits of Astro Boy, Iron Man, Harry Potter, and the Star Wars gang; and, in addition to producing his own IP, he has collaborated with Margaret Atwood, Harlan Ellison, and Trina Robbins. The recipient of an Eisner Award and an Inkpot Award, in 2009 Ken was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award for contributions to the industry. He'll be talking about all this and more in this spotlight when he is ruthlessly interrogated by Mark Evanier.Thursday, July 25 — 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON JO DUFFY
Jo Duffy has written comics including Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman, Batman, Wolverine, Fallen Angels, Nestrobber, Glory, Crystar, Elvira, Defenders, Punisher, and Star Wars, as well as the English-language edition of Akira. She has written short stories, essays, the comic book biography of Saint Francis, and an adaptation of Kipling's Jungle Book, and is the co-writer of two Puppet Master movies. She was the managing editor of Epic magazine and an editor at Marvel Comics, handling such titles as Elektra, Daredevil, Dreadstar, Groo, Doctor Strange, Hulk, and ROM. Hear about all this and more when she is interviewed in this spotlight by Mark Evanier.Friday, July 26 — 10:30 AM to 10:30 AM in Room 10
THAT 70'S PANEL
It was a time of major change in the comic book business; of new talent coming in and the industry being rebuilt to come with a changing world and marketplace. Hear all about it from people who were in the middle of it: Gerry Conway (Amazing Spider-Man, The Punisher), Jo Duffy (Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman), Marv Wolfman (Tomb of Dracula, The New Teen Titans), Paul Levitz (The Legion of Super-Heroes, Stalker), and your moderator, Mark Evanier (Scooby Doo, Blackhawk).Friday, July 26 — 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM in Room 10
THE GROO PANEL
Since 1982, fans have followed the bumbling, almost tragi-comic exploits of easily the stupidest, most destructive character in all of comics, Sergio Aragonés' Groo the Wanderer. So here's your opportunity to hear all about this unique, long-running comic book character from Carrie Strachan (colorist of Groo), Jo Duffy (one-time editor of Groo), and Mark Evanier (who has something to do with this comic and maybe he'll even tell everyone just what it is).Friday, July 26 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 10
WALT KELLY AND POGO
Walt Kelly's Pogo was one of the greatest newspaper comic strips of all time and is now being reprinted in an award-winning series of volumes from Fantagraphics Books. What made the world fall in love with Pogo Possum, Albert Alligator, Howland Owl, Churchy LaFemme, Ma'm'selle Hepzibah, and the other denizens of Mr. Kelly's corner of the Okefenokee Swamp? That's the topic under discussion by cartoonists Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) and Rick Parker (Beavis and Butthead), historian Maggie Thompson, Walt Kelly archivist Jane Plunkett, and your moderator (and co-editor of the Complete Pogo), Mark Evanier.Saturday, July 27 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
It just might be the fastest, funniest panel at the entire Comic-Con! Three cartoonists (and a few guest cartoonists) whip up hilarious cartoons right before your eyes based on suggestions from the audience and your host, Mark Evanier. Competing this year, armed with nothing but their own wits and some Sharpies, are Scott Shaw! (The Flintstones, The Simpsons comic books), Lalo Alcaraz (award-winning political cartoonist and the man behind La Cucaracha), and Disney Legend Floyd Norman.Saturday, July 27 — 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Once again, moderator Mark Evanier convenes his popular panel of folks who speak for some of your favorite animated superstars and videogames. Demonstrating their craft this year on the Saturday panel are Neil Ross (Captain Planet, G.I. Joe), Piotr Michael (Young Jedi Adventures, Wizards: Tales of Arcadia), Secunda Wood (Gabby's Dollhouse, Fast & Furious Spy Racers), Julie Nathanson (Final Fantasy, Skylanders), Bob Bergen (Porky Pig, Tweety), and Isaac Robinson-Smith (X-Men '97, Voltron: Legendary Defender).Saturday, July 27 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE HISTORY OF HANNA-BARBERA RECORDS
The legacy, voices, and music of Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and their collaborators are celebrated by host Mark Evanier and actor Tim Matheson (Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Sinbad, Jr., Animal House, Virgin River), cartoon voice performer Katie Leigh, animator and animation historian and Comic-Con special guest Tom Sito, and author Greg Ehrbar (host of The Funtastic World of Hanna & Barbera podcast).Sunday, July 28 — 10:00 AM to 11:15 AM in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
Each year, we gather together folks who knew and/or were inspired by the man they call "The King of the Comics," Jack Kirby. If you're attending this convention, you have to know who he was and what he did. Talking Kirby this year will be cartoonists Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) and Rick Parker (Beavis and Butt-Head), Kirby family friend Dave Schwartz, former DC Comics president Paul Levitz, Jack's granddaughter Tracy Kirby, and your moderator, former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier.Sunday, July 28 — 11:45 AM to 1:15 PM in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES II
If you think the Saturday Cartoon Voices Panel was wonderful, wait'll you hear the Sunday one! Your moderator Mark Evanier has rounded up six more of the best folks who put the words into the mouths of your animated favorites. Come hear Debi Derryberry (Jimmy Neutron, Draculaura on Monster High), Daniel Ross (Donald Duck, The Tom and Jerry Show), Jim Meskimen (Thundercats, Avengers Assemble!), David Errigo, Jr. (Phineas and Ferb, Tiny Toons Looniversity), Debra Wilson (Baby Shark's Big Show!, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League), and Fred Tatasciore (Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Tiny Toons Looniversity).Sunday, July 23 — 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Room 7AB
COVER STORY
Industry people will tell you that the single most important page in any comic book is the cover, and often more effort goes into the cover than into the rest of the comic. What does it take to conceive, design, and execute a great cover? That's the question your moderator Mark Evanier will put to four artists who've done them over and over: J. Scott Campbell and Comic-Con special guests Joe Jusko, Ken Steacy, and Klaus Janson.Sunday, July 28 — 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
What does it take to establish and maintain a career doing voicework for animated cartoons and video games? There are plenty of coaches out there who will charge you a fortune for the kind of advice you'll get absolutely free at this panel. Your moderator Mark Evanier has assembled a panel of one of the top voiceover agents, Sam Frishman (C.E.S.D.) and three voice actors who work all the time: Gregg Berger, Debi Derryberry, and Debra Wilson. If you're interested in this profession, it's a must-attend!
Everything above — times, rooms, panelists, even how the moderator spells his name is subject to change. The entire programming schedule can be found and committed to memory on this page. During the con, I will not be one of those people sitting behind a table for any length of time signing stuff but come to one or more of the above panels and if there's time, I'll gladly autograph a few things for you if only to prove I know how to write my own name.
Saturday, July 27 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
It just might be the fastest, funniest panel at the entire Comic-Con! Three cartoonists (and a few guest cartoonists) whip up hilarious cartoons right before your eyes based on suggestions from the audience and your host, Mark Evanier. Competing this year, armed with nothing but their own wits and some Sharpies, are Scott Shaw! (The Flintstones, The Simpsons comic books), Lalo Alcaraz (award-winning political cartoonist and the man behind La Cucaracha), and Disney Legend Floyd Norman.Saturday, July 27 — 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Once again, moderator Mark Evanier convenes his popular panel of folks who speak for some of your favorite animated superstars and videogames. Demonstrating their craft this year on the Saturday panel are Neil Ross (Transformers, G.I. Joe), Piotr Michael (Young Jedi Adventures, Wizards: Tales of Arcadia), Secunda Wood (Gabby's Dollhouse, Fast & Furious Spy Racers), Julie Nathanson (Final Fantasy, Skylanders), Bob Bergen (Porky Pig, Tweety), and Isaac Robinson-Smith (X-Men '97, Voltron: Legendary Defender).Saturday, July 27 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE HISTORY OF HANNA-BARBERA RECORDS
The legacy, voices, and music of Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and their collaborators are celebrated by host Mark Evanier and actor Tim Matheson (Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Sinbad, Jr., Animal House, Virgin River), cartoon voice performer Katie Leigh, animator and animation historian and Comic-Con special guest Tom Sito, and author Greg Ehrbar (host of The Funtastic World of Hanna & Barbera podcast).
Everything above is subject to change including what I'll be wearing. The whole danged programming schedule will eventually be over on this page. You won't catch me anywhere signing things during the convention but if and when there's time, I will obligingly sign a few (a few!) things for anyone who attends any of my panels. Please try to at least pretend you like the contents and are just not looking to enhance the item's resale price.
Tanya McLeod write to ask…
I was so excited when I heard there was going to be a cartoon channel, MeTV Toons. But as my luck always has it, Shreveport doesn't get it. The only way it looks like can get it is to get Frndly or Philo streaming service. Who would I contact about my area getting the over-t-e air channel? I have no cable, satellite or internet. Antenna is it. I've done a rescan several times…smaller cities close by have an over-the-air channel but Shreveport doesn't. It makes me very sad to be on FB and see all the cartoons I could be watching but can't. I get MeTV but not the new Toons channel.
Well, you must have some Internet connection since you sent me an e-mail…but I gather it's not the kind that could get you a watchable TV signal. What I would do is call whatever over-the-air channel in your area is the host channel for MeTV. If my Googling is correct, that would be station KPXJ. It can't hurt to give 'em a call and say, "I'm sick of all the reruns of Land of the Giants! I wanna watch The Flintstones!"
Understand that MeTV Toons is a new channel and the folks behind it are out there now, selling it like crazy to cities that don't have it yet. A little demand from the viewer side might help those salespeople get it in your town. It may also pop up there soon without you but wouldn't you feel powerful if you felt you helped get it picked up locally?
In case you haven't seen the announcements, the folks who bring you MeTV, MeTV+ and a whole bunch of other channels will soon be bringing you MeTV Toons, a channel which will run 24/7 cartoons. Many will be from the Warner Bros. library…so a lot of Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, Flintstones, Jetsons, etc., but they will be also tapping other toon libraries. Mentioned so far are Rocky and Bullwinkle, Casper, Betty Boop, Speed Racer, Woody Woodpecker and others.
More exciting for some of us is that our friends Jerry Beck and Bob Bergen are involved — Jerry as a consultant and as a producer of new content to run before and in-between classic cartoons, Bob as the signature voice of the channel.
The announcements I've seen say the channel will commence on June 25, 2024. There will soon be info available on how you can watch it on your TV. This is all very good news.
This ran here ten years ago. Time to run it again…
Brian Wong wrote to ask me what I could remember about a Flintstones Christmas comic I wrote back in 1977. There's not a lot there to remember, I'm afraid. I was writing comics for Chase Craig, who was my editor back when I worked for Western Publishing on Gold Key Comics. Chase had retired and then had come out of retirement to edit a line of comics for Hanna-Barbera which were published by Marvel. We were all working for H-B, not Marvel, on conventional-sized funnybooks.
Then one day in mid-August, Chase called me in and said, approximately, "Someone at Marvel just decided they want to put out a tabloid comic for this Christmas. It's got to be 48 pages and feature all the Hanna-Barbera characters in some sort of storyline that ties them all together but they want it to be mainly a Flintstones story."
I was never fond of intermingling the talking human characters (Flintstones, Jetsons) with the talking animal characters (Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear) but by then, I'd already learned a basic truth: When a company owns multiple properties and thinks there's a buck to be made by crossing them over, they cross over. End of discussion. Save your breath and don't bother arguing that the worlds do not quite intersect and that the mythology of each is diminished a little by homogenizing environments down to be compatible with one another. One of these days, someone at Disney will decide that the public is dying for a movie in which Darth Vader and The Hulk team up to battle Donald Duck. And it won't matter one bit that, uh, maybe those folks dwell in separate realities.
Actually, there was no time to even think about such things because the Flintstones comic had an impossibly-tight deadline. Chase, who had a fiendish but friendly glee in sending me off to write scripts overnight, sent me off to write a script almost overnight. I did the first 24 pages that night and the second 24 pages the next day. A few years later during a July heat wave, Joe Barbera asked me to write a prime-time Yogi Bear Christmas TV special with much the same all-star cast, also in two days. So this job was a good rehearsal for that job.
I wrote the comic in chapters — a Yogi Bear chapter, a Quick Draw McGraw chapter, etc. — so we could have different artists working simultaneously on different parts. As fortune would have it: When I went in to turn in the first 24 pages, Chase and I were discussing who we'd get to draw those chapters when Kay Wright poked his head in. Karran "Kay" Wright was a veteran comic book artist and animator who had worked for Chase back at Gold Key. He drew, among hundreds of comics, the Junior Woodchucks stories that Carl Barks wrote in semi-retirement.
He had recently been working as a producer for Hanna-Barbera and that very day, he had been laid off. He asked Chase, "You got any work?" Chase grinned and said, "Have I got work!" Kay was ideal for the assignment and he wound up drawing the entire book except for the Jetsons chapter which was drawn (uncredited) by Tony Strobl with inking by Joe Prince. Tony and Joe were other artists Chase had hired at Gold Key. Tony drew the Jetsons comics published in the sixties back when the TV show was first on, and he drew the best Donald Duck comics that Chase edited that were not drawn by Carl Barks.
We needed an inker for Kay's many pages and I suggested my friend, Scott Shaw!, who was just breaking into professional comics. He was good and he knew the H-B characters better than anyone except, of course, me. Soon after, I happened to be talking to another friend, Mike Royer, and he mentioned that he had a light work schedule at the moment so I persuaded him to letter the story. Our regular colorist for the H-B comics, Carl Gafford, colored it in, as I recall, record time. Anyway, it all got to press a day or two before it had to be printed.
Given the deadline, it's amazing that it got done at all, let alone that it turned out okay. At least, of the several hundred comic books I've written, it's probably in the Top Ten of those that people ask me about or want me to sign. Since so many are never mentioned at all, I figure we had to have done something right. It also sold pretty well in this country and even better in others. And that's all I remember about it except for this…
The day he sent The Flintstones Christmas Party off to press, Chase and I went out to lunch to celebrate. I said, "Well, at least that's over." He said, "Well, that one is but they called this morning and they want Yogi Bear's Easter Parade. I'll expect a script by the day after tomorrow."
The Flintstones debuted on September 30, 1960 when I was eight years, six months and twenty-eight days old. For a while, I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen or ever would see. That changed. It lasted in ABC prime time for six seasons but by about halfway through Season Four, I was bored with it. I liked a lot of cartoon shows better, including some Hanna-Barbera shows. When The Jetsons joined the ABC schedule on September 23, 1962, I thought that was a much better program even though it only lasted one year.
As you may know, The Flintstones occasionally had celebrity guest stars like Ann-Margrock (Ann-Margret) or Stony Curtis (Tony Curtis) and they'd have had more of them if they could have figured out stone/rock puns for more celebs' names. I was always kinda baffled by the first one of these they did. The first episode of Season 2 featured the composer Hoagy Carmichael…and they didn't even turn him into Hoagy Carmarble or anything. He was Hoagy Carmichael, doing his own voice and living in the Stone Age.
At the age by then of 9.5 or so, I vaguely knew who Hoagy Carmichael was and I suspect that 75% of the viewership didn't. He was a great writer of songs but he wasn't that famous. I don't recall seeing him on any other TV show for the rest of his life, which ended in 1981. I regret that, years later when I worked for Hanna-Barbera, I didn't think to ask Bill Hanna or Joe Barbera just how or why someone thought it was a good idea to snag Hoagy Carmichael as a guest star. I pestered both men with questions aplenty but somehow never got around to that one.
I'm going to guess that since they obviously did it for whatever publicity value it had — which was probably not much — somewhere out there, there are a few magazine-type articles about this. They probably explain about Hoagy being a huge fan of the show and Bill and Joe being huge fans of him and somehow they connected and it was too good an idea not to do…which it wasn't. And I'll further guess that while some of all of that was true, there was also some connection like Hoagy and H-B having the same agent or some idea about H-B doing a cartoon series with famous songwriters.
Whatever the catalyst, here's a clip from that episode. Despite the animated Hoagy giving credit for the song to Barney Rubble, it was all a Carmichael composition which, maybe they hoped, would become some kind of hit record…
Hi. Before you venture into the sixth part of this series, it might be a good idea to read the First Part, the Second Part, the Third Part, the Fourth Part and, just for good measure, the Fifth Part…
All up to date? Good. So when we last left me, I was ten years old and wondering why many (but not all) of my favorite Dell comic books had suddenly turned into Gold Key comic books. Here is a simple before-and-after of one of those comics. At left is The Flintstones #6 with a cover by Harvey Eisenberg, It's Fred mooning the readers. At right is The Flintstones #7 with a cover by Pete Alvarado…
As you can see, apart from a different symbol in the upper left hand corner, not much difference. There was not much difference inside, either but some of these comics changed as they passed from Dell to Gold Key. Below left we have the first page of the last Dell comic of Bullwinkle and at right, we have the first page of the first Gold Key issue of Bullwinkle. For this, it will help if you click on the image to make it larger on the screen…
See the difference? I don't know the names of the artists on the two pages except that they're not the same person and neither one of them is Al Kilgore. But the two pages have the same letterer — Ben Oda, who in his long career lettered an insane number of comic books for half the companies in the business. The difference in the word balloons was not Ben's idea. He was just doing what he was told by his editor.
They dispensed in this story with the traditional panel borders. They put the words in oddly-shaped balloons and floated them away from the edges of the panels so the white of the balloon did not meet the white of the gutters between the panels. This was supposed to make for better coloring since the colorist didn't have to deal with a huge blob of white in each panel throwing the color compositions off-balance. They also reduced the "tail" (the pointer) on each balloon to a single line…and to do all this, they put fewer words in each balloon and limited the amount of space the artist had to draw in.
Personally, I thought it was a bad idea. But suddenly, a lot of Gold Key comics were doing this to some (not all) stories in each issue.
As I mentioned in an earlier chapter that I'm too lazy to look up, some of the comic books produced by Western Publishing — at first under the Dell label, later under the Gold Key imprint — were produced out of an editorial office in Los Angeles and some were done in an editorial office in New York. There were several editors in each office but the main guy in L.A. was Chase Craig and the main guy in New York then was Matt Murphy.
Chase Craig was a traditionalist when it came to doing comics. (Full Disclosure: He was my main editor when I wrote comics for Western in the early seventies. He was a lovely man who was very good to me and he taught me a lot. He was also the primary — but by no means the only — person who gave me the information I am imparting to you in this series.) Matt Murphy was of the opinion that the switchover from Western producing comics for another company to Western producing them for their own company was the perfect time to try reinventing not so much the contents of the comic books as the graphic style. (Full Disclosure: I never met Matt Murphy but I met many of his associates.)
The two above issues of The Flintstones were edited by Chase Craig out of the Los Angeles office of Western Printing and Lithography. The two above issues of Bullwinkle were edited by Matt Murphy out of the New York office of Western Publishing and Lithography. Chase and Matt fought a lot.
I don't mean they were bitter enemies. They got together for friendly conferences and meals a few times a year on one coast or the other. They agreed on a lot of things. They just didn't agree on everything…and among the non-agreements were many of Murphy's ideas of changing how comics looked. To complicate matters, the New York office did most of the production work on covers, including things like title logos and lettering placement, and the coloring of all the interiors. Though he was in charge of roughly half the line, Chase did not have final say on the coloring on the comics he edited and he often disliked it a lot.
When Murphy persuaded the folks upstairs to try some of his innovations, Craig was told to apply them to the West Coast books. He balked and stalled…and he had an advantage. Most of the comics he edited had long-range contracts and were in no danger of being canceled so he was allowed to get them way ahead of schedule. He had issues of Mickey Mouse that had been completely drawn for the "old" format and wouldn't be going to press for a year.
But a lot of New York books were doing these experiments with no panel borders or balloons not touching panel borders or one-line tails on word balloons or color in-between the panels. Here are pages from two New York books from this period. And again, you can make the image larger by clicking on it…
I don't know who did the page on the right but the one on the left was drawn by Mike Sekowsky for the Boris Karloff Thriller comic. And both were, again, lettered by Ben Oda.
According to Chase, the New York office had the idea that these new approaches made the comics feel more sophisticated and set their books apart from what the other comic book companies were doing. They were "gung ho" (that was the term Chase used) to make the whole line like that, even printing up new page blanks for the artists to draw upon.
Comic book companies have occasionally done that. They print up sheets of quality (hopefully) drawing paper that are cut to the proper size and they print guidelines on each piece in light blue ink. The artist then fills in the blanks. It saves them from having to buy paper, cut it to size and then rule off the size of the image on the page and where the gutters between the panels will go. Also, if the penciler buys his own paper, others who work on it (like the letterer or inker) may complain they don't like his choice of drawing paper.
When a comic book page is finished in ink and is photographed for printing, light blue ink doesn't reproduce unless the camera guy or scanner makes special adjustments…so it can become invisible in the final image. Western printed up pages with the margins for the art indicated in light blue and within each panel, there were margins to show how far from the panel borders (that were not going to be inked with black lines) the word balloons should be.
At first when Chase passed out these new page blanks to the artists drawing for him, Chase told them to ink in the panel borders and to ignore the dotted line margins that kept the word balloons away from the panel borders. And when he did that, a kind of intra-company Civil War broke out.
A group called Postmodern Jukebox favors us with their rendition of the theme from The Flintstones…with a little Andy Griffith Show for reasons which should be obvious.1
1I often say "…for reasons which should be obvious" when I have no friggin' idea what those reasons are.
Many animation fans are incensed — more than I suspect they need to be — over the news that HBO Max has removed over 250 Warner Brothers cartoons from that streaming service. Gone are pretty much every cartoon WB made from 1950 onward. Some of the responses I've seen on the 'net make it sound like Warner Bros. Discovery — that's what the parent corporation is called this week — has decided to burn all existing prints and never let those wonderful cartoons be seen anywhere ever again.
That's not what's happening here. It's a programming decision and whether it turns out to be a good one remains to be seen. It probably depends solely on where and when they make those cartoons available again. They will. Those films are among the company's most valuable assets. They attract an audience every time they're shown anywhere and they don't really cost the corporation anything to run. Oh, sometimes one division of WBD has to pay something to another division of WBD but the money doesn't go outside the firm. No residuals are paid to Mel Blanc's estate or Chuck Jones's estate or anyone.
They're also the bedrock of an extremely lucrative merchandising program that rakes in zillions. Taking away the Tweety and Yosemite Sam cartoons jeopardizes the sales of Tweety t-shirts and Yosemite Sam whatever-they-can-sell-with-his-image-on-it-this-month.
All the news items about this move say that no decision about the future of those cartoons has been made. That may be so or it may be more correct to say that no plans have been announced. Either way, they'll turn up somewhere. It would be Corporate Malpractice for the current management to not monetize them in some way.
And the current management is just that: The current management. It's been quite a while since I talked to anyone who works for any arm or tentacle of WBD who didn't seem unsure whether they'll have a position there next month…or if so, to whom they'll be reporting.
If anything, this episode may teach us a lesson about not relying on streaming services to stream what we want to see when and where we want to see it. My friend George shares with me a love for the 1951 movie Ace in the Hole starring Kirk Douglas. Almost every time I talk to George, he complains that nobody ever runs it these days.
Well, I do…or can. I bought the Criterion DVD — great print and extras aplenty — and it's still available on Amazon for $22. What George (who has a lot more money than I do) is complaining about is that no one's running it for free, like on TCM. But it's available. If you don't want to spend the $22, it's watchable 24/7 with a premium subscription on Amazon Prime, for $3.99 on Vudu or Apple TV, for $2.99 on Google Play or YouTube…
…and even if all those services drop it next week, George can come over to my house and watch it if he'll stop at Vito's Pizza on La Cienega and pick up a pie with mushrooms and meatballs. In a world of infinite streaming services and channels, nothing good is ever going to be unavailable for very long. You just have to look a little and, in some cases, spend three damned dollars.
Getting back to Bugs Bunny and his pals: Someone on a comment thread I read wrote, "It's criminal that children today will never be able to watch classics like What's Opera, Doc? and Duck Amuck." I think "never" is too strong a word here, especially since a lot of the cartoons in question are quite viewable on Boomerang if someone is willing to spring for $5.99 a month.
And for less than a hundred bucks, it is still possible to purchase the Looney Tunes Golden Collection — a 24 DVD set of 40 hours of Warner Brothers cartoons that no one can ever take away from you or charge you more to view. That's not all of them but by the time you get tired of watching those over and over, it's likely the ones you can't see on HBO Max right now will be available somewhere else. That somewhere else might even be a better showcase for them.
Don't despair. Bugs, Daffy, Porky and all the rest will outlive all of us, including the current management at Warner Bros. Discovery and the next management at Warner Bros. Discovery and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that…
