Saturday Morning Cartoons: The Flintstones

Happy Saturday Morning to Everyone (even though I know it's Saturday afternoon that I'm posting this-- I like to sleep in!) and hope you're ready for this week's Saturday Morning Cartoon profiling of THE FLINTSTONES. Admittedly a cartoon series more of our parents' generations, having originally run in the early 60's, but one I feel had a resounding impact on popular culture and entertainment.



A premise we are all very familiar with, The Flintstones took the day to day happenings of 1960's everyday life and translated it as to fit within a Stone Age structure, adapting technological features of modernity to exist through various prehistoric vehicles. Something I always notice about The Flintstones if I watch it now is their wild manipulation of the environment and their shameless exploitation of animals to serve their utilitarian purposes.

The two families profiled through the cartoon series are the title family of The Flintstones, comprised of blue-collar working everyman Fred, his disproportionately attractive wife Wilma (more on that later), their canine companion Dino, and their precocious strawberry blonde daughter Pebbles, who inspired a trend in female American toddlers' hair stylings with her signature ponytail. Fred's endearingly dopey best friend is Barney Rubble who has a wife named Betty and a son Bamm-Bamm, constantly carrying a turkey-leg shaped wooden club. Interesting side-note, Bamm-Bamm is not in fact the biological child of Barney and Betty but was abandoned on the family's doorstep and then taken in and cared for by them.

What both Fred and Wilma as well as Barney and Betty's marriages reflect is the commonly noted patriarchal precedent in many American sitcoms, animated and live action, of hot wife with overweight, incompetent and obviously less attractive husband. Examples of this just fly through your mind right when you realize it, Homer and Marge Simpson (The Simpsons), Doug and Carrie Heffernan (King of Queens), Peter and Lois Griffin (Family Guy), pretty much any Judd Apatow movie. I can't pretend to be profound about this, it's really talked about a lot, and is hardly anything new. The Flintstones were conceived by Hanna Barbera to be a paleazoic animated representation of The Honeymooners, who absolutely fit that mold, as Alice was certainly more attractive than Ralph.



Deconstruction aside, The Flintstones' presence in our generation's life was certainly rooted in the reruns of the original series, but was hardly limited to that. Their family became the face of their own line of children's vitamins, and of gluten-free breakfast delicacy Fruity Pebbles, and the chocolatey counterpart, Cocoa Pebbles.

They then went on to be represented in the live action movie in 1994 starring John Goodman as Fred, and Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma (Celia of Weeds--thought don't you think Kathy Griffin could have done this?). Funnier casting went to children-shrinkin 90's icon Rick Moranis as Barney, and professional lunatic lesbian Rosie O'Donnell as Betty. There was even a follow-up cinematic gem in 2000 with the prequel The Flinstones in Viva Rock Vegas, but that's just too pathetic to even yabba dabba get into.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Susie Carmichael

I'm constantly nostalgic for Saturday Morning Cartoons as an institution. I'm not around kids who would engage in such a Saturday morning activity anymore so I don't even know if TV milestones from my youth such as TGIF or One Saturday Morning even have any cultural relevance anymore. Regardless, I've decided to turn said nostalgia into a weekly segment deconstructing cartoon characters from my childhood each Saturday morning to take care of that jones and to revisit fond figures from years past.

Who better to start with than feminist of color and egalitarian Susie Carmichael?






Susie Carmichael played a pivotal role in the Nickelodeon series Rugrats, which originally aired from 1991-1994. Susie's introduction came in 1993 and she served as a foil character to the relentlessly tyrannical and manipulative Angelica. Angelica and Susie were older than the babies and were able to articulate themselves to the adults. However unlike Angelica, Susie used her postion of privilege in a kind and inclusive way, always looking out for the well-being of the babies and for the completion of whatever task was at hand.

Susie was the only primary character of color on the show, and was the youngest of four children in the Carmichael family. Her father was a head writer of one of the babies' favorite television programs, "Dummi Bears," and her mother was represented as having filled multiple career roles, including chef, pilot, and doctor. Perhaps this caree range is far-fetched, but it is still depicting women as beng capable of succeeding in male dominated work spheres. So it makes sense that Susie would have such an empowered and inclusive perspective and approach on life.

Thinking back Susie is the only black cartoon character I can really remember from my own childhood. Since then there have been more animated representations of African Americans in both a mixed race and predominantly black environments (The Proud Family, Little Bill, Vince of Recess) but it's interesting to think of Susie as one of the premiere representations that American youth had exposure to through cartoons. Especially in light of Disney introducing its FIRST black princess in their upcoming "The Princess and the Frog."

The issue of progress aside, speaking from strictly an exposure standpoint, Susie Carmichael's influence and relevance seems to have been before its time, in a good way.