…A Flintstones Christmas Carol.
Man, I used to love me some “Flintstones” when I was a kid. Jenn and I were sitting on the couch this morning, watching this with our 2-year-old daughter, Ally, and once again, it came flooding back to me how many of the original episodes I must’ve sat through during my childhood. Every time I catch an episode on Boomerang, I’m invariably washed over by a wave of memories I didn’t realize; whether they’d schedule it early in the morning or immediately after I got out of school, I’d always camp in front of the TV and absorb every moment of “The Flintstones.” Yes, even the Great Gazoo years. (Dude, seriously, I fucking loved Gazoo. I don’t know why he gets hassled so much.)
Unfortunately, “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” isn’t from the show’s glory years; it was a 1994 TV movie, and, well, if you’ve ever caught any of the more recent Flintstones material, you know that things have been going steadily downhill since the original series. But, really, this is just a weird film all around, mostly because a surprising chunk of it stays steadfast and true to the original Charles Dickens story. The premise involves Fred playing the part of Ebeneezer Scrooge in a Bedrock production of “A Christmas Carol,” but his ego gets the best of him, and it gets to the point where his head’s so swelled that it barely fits through his dressing room door. Inevitably, it becomes a case of life imitating art, Fred realizes the error of his ways, and it’s just as happy an ending as you’d expect.
Unfortunately, Ally started getting antsy right around the point when Jacob Marbley (yes, you read that right) comes to visit Scrooge…and I couldn’t blame her, because it was deadly dull and barely anything like a “Flintstones” episode. So I started scrambling to figure out how to remedy the situation, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the words “Bonus Episode” on the DVD box. And, bam, it was off to watch “Christmas Flintstone,” the episode from the original series where Fred takes a part-time job as a department store Santa, only to be drafted to replace the REAL Santa, who’s been waylayed by illness. Oh, it was great stuff…and Ally, bless her, was enthralled by it, snuggled up to her mama, watching every moment of it and, at the end, asking for “‘nother one.”
So, clearly, I’m not going to recommend “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” in and of itself, but if you find it for an inexpensive price, it’s worth picking up for that bonus episode. I might never watch the film again, but I’ll be breaking out “Christmas Flintstone” every year for the long haul.
