Kip Williams wrote:
>
>>> Well, at its best, The Flintstones are about as funny as a Gold Key
>>> comic book, while the Simpsons at their best, or even at their
>>> average, are like a good issue of MAD magazine, from when MAD was funny.
>>
>> I can name specific Flint episodes that would blow MAD humor away, and
>> with a jarring Foster/Maltese sarcasm that's with much more silly
>> abandon than Simpsons' tired old Universal Cynic act--
>
> Please do. I'd be interested to see if being reminded of them has any
> effect on my memories of the show as mostly a welter of recycled
> "cavemen do everything the hard way" gags from older cartoons and silent
> comedies, mixed with gags where the bird in the record player looks up
> and says, "awwk! for this I hadda go to night school?"
If that's what you remember, try some of the second season episodes,
where the dialogue took on their new absurdist-sarcasm jazz-riff, and
the scripts barely even got around to mentioning the prehistoric setting
if at all--
"Missing School Bus" and "Divided We Sail" have already been mentioned,
but writer Larry Markes on both also took "Flintstone at Princestone",
"Alfred Brickrock Presents" and "Take Me Out of the Ball Game"'s scripts
to the key level of smart-silliness...
While most of the first season was early-HB slapstick done right, but
Arthur Philips' "In the Dough" has its absurdist digs:
("And now for a word from our sponsor:"
"Ladies and gentlemen, this program is costing me a fortune, so
please...BUY MY PRODUCT!")
>> (Monorail, granted--thanks, Conan!--but, er, I DON'T think we should
>> be putting up the Simpsons' well-mined "World's Worst Musical" crutch
>> as an example of breathtaking *originality*...)
>
> I was thinking of it as an example of "humor," as witnessed by the
> number of people in the room who were laughing at the time it was on.
>
>>> or the Stonecutters' Song, to name a small sample.
>
> I don't see any musical counter-examples, which isn't surprising, given
> that most of the music on "The Flintstones" was straight lip-synching to
> popular songs by "Ann Margrock" or "Bobby Darrock" or "The Rockinghams"
> or whoever they could render hilarious by the application of "-rock" to
> their name, so I'll suggest the only funny song I recall from the show,
> "The Twitch."
For some reason, the only one that sprang to mind was Fred "writing" his
own version of "Stardust" in front of Hoagy Carmichael, but that's more
plot related.
>> The "Price is Right" parody in "A Houseboat Divided" still has
>> surprising venom when re-examined closely. :)
>
> And how many seasons did they keep up their top level? Two? As opposed
> to over ten for the Simpsons.
(Really? Most Simpsons fans I hear say they fell off watching it after
it turned petulant, self-marketing and preachy/overbearing after Conan
O'Brien had left by Season 6, let alone Matt...But okay, the math does
work out.)
>> (only people who have never heard of old-radio think the
>> Simpsons are funny)
>
> Considering that right now I have, on my iPod, "The Goon Show," "Vic &
> Sade," Jean Shepherd, Fred Allen, Bob & Ray, Nero Wolfe, Phillip
> Marlowe, the Theatre Guild* and Radio City Playhouse (among others) and
> that I listened to a weekly show of old-time radio (which started out as
> an hour and expanded to over two in the course of its run) for two or
> three years, and traded tapes with other collectors back in my teenage
> years, and CDs full of mp3s more recently, I think I've "heard of"
> old-time radio, so you'll have to drop that particular line of offense.
So...no Jack Benny Show, then?
Might help, it was the biggest influence on Warren Foster & Michael
Maltese's humor even back to the Warner days, Mel Blanc and Bea
Benaderet brought their shticks straight over, and Frank Nelson
returning to play bedeviling shop clerks wasn't exactly a subtle hint
either. ^_^
Derek Janssen ("Look, all I want is to be treated like a customer!" "All
right, but you won't like it...")
ejanss@
comcast.net
