“I hope he flies better than he walks!”

Justin’s rating: At least there wasn’t a laugh track.

Justin’s review: Something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly convey to my children is how little choice we had as kids when it came to watching TV. We were slaves to the network schedule, extremely limited channels, and the occasional Blockbuster run. So we almost never said “no” to a program that we were allowed to watch, even if it fell way outside of our preferences.

Thus, I can vividly recall — often with psychic scars — the sheer number of un-entertaining children’s shows I watched because the choice was “this or go read a book.” Scooby Doo would fit into this category. The Jetsons, most definitely. Anything with a laugh track from the ’70s or before. And the grand-daddy of all un-entertaining cartoons, The Flintstones. Maybe you’re the rare unicorn exception, but I’ve never once met someone who honestly claimed to enjoy this show. It was an animated knock-off of The Honeymooners with a laugh track and a caveman theme, that’s it. The only interesting bits were seeing the primitive takes on “modern” (1960s) appliances.

But could Christmas be the ground on which we call a truce in my long-simmering dislike of this series? Probably not, but I owe it to my past self to prick myself with this pain and thus remember the sacrifices I made to keep my mind entertained in the ’80s.

Taking place a decade after the TV series originally ran, A Flintstone Christmas is obviously trying to go for “long lasting classic” status. And you know what that means: Songs. Terrible songs. And a whole lot of them to pad out the 48-minute runtime.

It’s Christmastime in Bedrock, which would seem somewhat impossible if this is supposed to take place long before Christmas actually happened. But all of this is solved if you buy into my pet theory that the Flintstones actually exist far into the future after a worldwide apocalypse that sent humanity back to the stone age. The dinosaurs? Survivors of genetic cloning. It explains how all of these people and animals of different eras could exist together.

But just because the songs are bad doesn’t mean the visuals are slacking. This specially actually benefits a lot from being made in a different decade, as it looks really top-notch — specially the backgrounds. I’m pretty familiar with how cheap Hanna-Barbara can look, but this isn’t it.

This special didn’t tax any writer’s brain coming up with a story. On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus ends up injuring himself right in front of Fred and Wilma’s home. So Fred and Barney agree to take Santa’s sleigh and go around the world to pass out gifts. I think we’ve seen this plot so many times that I seriously suspect Santa never had to work a day in his life.

The only interesting facet is that there’s a bit with CB radios, no doubt which was included because of the late-70s fascination with trucker talk. Anyone down for a round of “Convoy?”

The rest is a series of escapades of the duo delivering presents, more songs, and everyone uttering trite one-liners. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’d suffer through as a kid while mostly grooving on the Christmas theme. I liked it as much as I ever have a Flintstone cartoon, which is to say “not at all.” But at least it’ll probably be the last time I ever see one in my life, so I’m not going to Grinch up the last sentence of this review.

Intermission!

• Dinosaurs wore earmuffs in the snow
• Walking around barefoot in the snow couldn’t have been fun
• Whole lot of Santa shaming going on
• Stop looking at the camera!
• A chisel typewriter
• How the intercom system works with a talking bird
• Santa’s reindeer are super-duper sparkly
• The primitive Eiffel Tower and other world monuments