A FLINTSTONES CHRISTMAS CAROL (1994)

A FLINTSTONES CHRISTMAS CAROL (1994) – Balladeer’s Blog’s 14th Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues with a review of this 69-minute version featuring the story tailored to fit the characters from The Flintstones.

Bedrock is presenting their community theater version of A Christmas Carol (Don’t waste time contemplating how a B.C. production of that tale exists, just accept it along with the cars, tvs and other fun nonsense from the cartoon series). Fred Flintstone has won the role of Scrooge, and in his usual blustering way he has let the role go to his head.

Not only does Fred become unbearably snobbish toward the players with “lesser” roles but he grows impatient and short-tempered with everyone around him. In addition, Fred goes Method Actor on everybody, so thoroughly immersing himself in the role of Scrooge that he becomes a stingy figure in “real life” too.

Wilma Flintstone, Fred’s wife if you’re new to the series, is the stage manager of the play and is dealing with her own set of stresses, all of them exacerbated by her hubby’s increasing diva tendencies. By the night of the play’s performance, a flu called the Bedrock Bug will have sidelined so many of the actors that Wilma will have to go on for any female thespian that can’t make it.

As you can imagine, while we (and the audience at the theater in Bedrock) watch A Christmas Carol play out on stage, Fred gets knocked back into his senses and undergoes a conversion just like the Scrooge character. By the end of this animated film, Fred is back to his normal self.

The other characters: 

CHARLES BRICKENS (as he’s called here) is voiced by the one and only John Rhys-Davies as he narrates the festivities.

NEPHEW NED, re-named for this Carol version to avoid having two Freds I guess, is voiced by Will Ryan and is not played by one of the Bedrock regulars.

BOB CRATCHIT is played by Barney Rubble, with his wife Betty as Mrs. Cratchit, while his child Bamm-Bamm Rubble does a very limited version of Tiny Tim. Fred and Wilma’s daughter Pebbles and their dog Dino play a few other Cratchit children.

MARLEY’S GHOST is played by Fred’s boss Mr. Slate, and we even get to see his insubstantial face appear on this Scrooge’s saber-tooth tiger door knocker.

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST and SCROOGE’S LOST LOVE BELLE both get played by Wilma as she pinch-hits for actresses struck down with the Bedrock Bug. She takes advantage of the situation to really hammer Fred over the head with the way the message of the play also applies to his sudden behavioral changes in real life. 

PHILO QUARTZ, the black Bedrock citizen who was first introduced in the Flintstones Babies cartoon series, gets to be a full-grown adult cop in this production and is voiced by Rene Le Vant.

MAGGIE MAGMA, an all-new character, is Mr. Slate’s sultry secretary. Bizarrely enough, she was very flirtatious with Fred during rehearsals and relished her love scenes with him. She was originally supposed to play Belle, but the sickness causes Wilma to replace her. Maggie is voiced by Marsha Clark, not to be confused with the incompetent prosecutor Marcia Clark. 

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT and various other characters in the play are portrayed by miscellaneous Bedrock citizens who aren’t regulars. This animated feature was directed by Joanna Romersa, whose credits go all the way back to the 1955 cartoon Lady and the Tramp.

Just like in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, even though we and the theater audience are supposedly watching a stage play we get a full-blown, large-scale treatment of the story, complete with special effects and spacious settings for the town. We even get a Bedrock version of Big Ben since the Carol was set in London.

(Don’t waste time fretting over the fact that Big Ben had not yet been built when A Christmas Carol was published in 1843.)

A Flintstones Christmas Carol is much more elaborate than the Jetsons Christmas Carol and is certainly much more Christmassy. It gets extra points from me for including the scene of people shoveling snow off their rooftops, which a lot of versions omit.

On the other hand, this production leaves out Ignorance and Want, presumably because of the darker tone of those figures. Ultimately, this adaptation of A Christmas Carol is fairly good, but the crankiness of both Fred and Wilma gets to be a bit much at times.     

FOR MORE VERSIONS OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL CLICK HERE:   https://glitternight.com/category/a-christmas-carol-2/