Animation fans this is a review that i've been putting of for a few days now mostly because something else has come up on the days I planned to do this review. However i've finally got the chance to take a look at something that is kind of historic in the world of animation since without this one episode there would be no Flintstones and without The Flintstones TV series there would be no The Simpsons or no Family Guy and so here is my review of the first episode of The Flintstones TV series with the episode being called "The Flintstone Flyer" enjoy.
The plot of the episode is Barney invents a flying machine which he and Fred want to use to go bowling with Wilma and Betty finding out since both couples have tickets for the opera the very same night that Fred and barney want to go bowling. In all honesty the plot of the episode is average at best which is honestly something that I expected to be the case since this show isn't known for having deep plots or even great plots for that matter but I still would liked the story to have been a bit better then what it actually was.
Starring in the episode is Alan Reed as Fred Flintstone and Jean Vander Pyl as Wilma Flintstone and The Paper Boy. Also starring in the episode is the late and great Mel Blanc as Barney Rubble and Bea Benaderet as Betty Rubble. I really have nothing to say about the cast for this episode since pretty much all of the actors in this episode are voice acting legends and the fact that the show managed to get this much talent in the show and this episode.
As for what I thought about the acting in this episode it was honestly a lot better then what I remember it being. I say this because I haven't seen this episode in a long time and so I couldn't recall what the acting was like and so you can imagine my surprise when I saw that the acting in the episode was really good which to be honest given who's in the episode really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in my opinion.
The animation in this episode was done by Hanna-Barbera Productions and I don't think that I need to say what shows they've worked on since there a really well known company and there shows are really well known. Hanna-Barbera Productions is known for being cheap when it comes to there animation and the same is true with this episode since there are alot of repeated backgrounds and alot of the movements from the characters can be pretty stiff at times.
I personally only noticed one animation error in this episode and it's the fact that for alot of the episode Barney's are coloured black but for some reason near the end of the episode his eyes are colourless. If this was just in one quick shot i'd be alot more forgiving but since it's in the entire finale of the episode and so I have to wonder why didn't anybody bother to fix this issue since more then enough people would have had enough chance to see the mistake and yet no one bothered to do so.
This episode made me realise how violent Wilma and Betty are since we see them hit there husbands quite hard a few times in this episode. Not only that but Wilma hits Fred who she knows has a head and arm injury and she hits him at least once maybe twice on the head , i'm honestly shocked that it's taken me thins long to realise how violent Wilma and Betty are and i'm surprised that no one else has picked up on it.
This episode is twenty six minuets long which feels about right since the episode doesn't have enough story to cover anything longer then that in my opinion. Helping things is the fact that the pacing of the episode is honestly quite good with nearly all of the scenes focusing on advancing the plot which is what an episode of this length should really be doing and it's something that I feel's be lost since alot of shows these days don't bother with the plot they instead focus on the comedy and nothing more which isn't really a good thing since without a story it doesn't matter what the jokes are because your audience just won't be interested.
This is I believe the only episode of the show where they show that Barney is an inventor which is a shame because with Barney as an inventor you then open the show up to alot of funny plot lines. I honestly have to wonder why they chose to drop this idea because it can be a really funny idea and like I said it does open the door to alot of plots and alot of funny jokes but for some reason the idea of Barney Rubble being an inventor was dropped after this one episode.
Now then boys and girls since this is a comedy that means that I have to talk about the jokes that are in this episode. I honestly that the jokes in this episode are very hit and miss since alot of the jokes are in my opinion very dated and that doesn't make them that funny but the jokes that are funny are honestly pretty freaking funny but I honestly feel that the episode has alot more bad / dated jokes then it does good / funny jokes.
Overall this was a really good episode in my opinion and I can honestly see how the show became as popular as it did. I say that because as i've said in this very review there are alot of good things that are in the episode but at the same time there are a lot of bad things in the episode as well which i've also talked about in this review and so while I don't think this was the best episode for the show to start with I do think that this still was a good episode and so the episode gets a 7.5 out of 10 from this fan of The Flintstones.
All of the images that I used in this review were gathered either Amazon UK , Google Images or the official the Flintstones fandom wiki page. For once i;m not going to recommend that you use Google Images if you want images from either this show or this episode since even tho they have alot more verity the official the Flintstones fandom wiki page has images that are alot more higher quality and higher definition which is something that I always look for when making a review that and the official The Flintstones has an episode by episode cast list which is always handy.