Hey there Flintstones fans a little over a week left before the 25th and well i started thinking how did they celebrate Christmas in the past and so to both begin and end my journey i traveled back in time to a place called Bedrock to bring you a review of this special.
The plot of this stone age special is When Santa has an accident and twists his ankle and that catch a cold it's up to Fred and Barney to help save Christmas and Fred's job. I have to admit this was a pretty fun little story i ad no clue where it was going it was a cute little story it's not going to change how you think of The Flintstones but it's still pretty solid.
This special has the voices of Henry Corden , Mel Blanc , Jean Vander Pyl and Gay Hartwig. Oh boy where to begin with the acting well first of Henry Corden is great as Fred i believe this is the first thing he recorded as Fred altho it's hard to say since this came out the same year as The Flintstone Funnies which was when he took over the part Mel is perfect as Barney as is Jean who now plays a pre-teen version of Pebbles but for me the let down was easily Gay Hartwig as Betty how she sounds as Betty is not how Betty should ever sound ever at all.
One of the few things i look forward in hanna-barbera productions is the animation but tho here for some reason the animation looked cheaper then it already was the animation was a lot more stilted and i have no idea why The Flintstones was a huge franchise back in it's day you'd think they'd have spent at least a little bit of money on the christmas special but no instead they chose to produce something that's even more on the cheap.
Here is one of the only the pictures i can find of Pebbles as a pre-teen but she's not the only one that gets aged up so does Bamm-Bamm and honestly i like the idea of them aging up the child characters since it makes them more like real people and the designs aren't that bad either granted there pretty much the same designs they have when there babies but it's better then nothing and unlike 1994 Pebbles this one doesn't do nothing except get captured in the third act.
I wish i could talk that much about the jokes but the jokes in this on the same level as the later seasons of The Big Bang Theory maybe you'll get one or two decent jokes but chances are you won't you have Fred Flintstone going out as Santa the jokes write them selfs and the only joke they make about it is a fat joke and that's the easiest kind of joke you can make. With that said tho there are one or two semi-decent jokes i can't for the life of me remember them but they are there but you have to get through alot of terrible ones to get to them.
For some reason the makers on this special chose to make it a musical which is really freaking strange The Flintstones have done musicals before with the feature animated film and the christmas episode Christmas Flintstone but in those the songs never felt forced here tho it feels like there stopping the plot just to sing a song.
Overall this is a fine Christmas special if you have little kids or even if your a fan of The Flintstones for me tho the special gets a 6.5 out of 10.