It's a plain and simple fact that, for a franchise as big as The Flintstones, not everything conceived with them saw the light of the day. Today, I'm going to spotlight three such projects. From the 1970s all the way until 2012, here are three Flintstones cartoons that went the way of the dinosaurs.
1. The Blackstones
Conceived at some point in the late seventies by Joe Barbera, The Blackstones aimed to be a spin-off of The Flintstones that centered around a black family. Barbera thought the show would be able to find success among the many other successful black-centric series of the time, and had HB legend Iwao Takamoto get to work on some concept pieces of the family, who would've been neighbors to the Flintstones. In the end, however, every network passed on the show, forcing them to abandon the concept.
2. The Flintstones' Lost Episodes
Going forward to the 90s, this next one was a pitch aimed at Hanna-Barbera from animator William Wray. Considered a more "back to basics approach", this reboot aimed to be a lot closer to the look and feel of the original series than most later iterations tended to be. Wray explained on his Twitter in 2021 that the show would've been set before Bedrock had been founded. The women of the stone age would civilize the men, only for the men to discover Bedrock and take all the credit. So why did this one never come to be? To put it bluntly, blame John Kricsfalusi. According to Wray, the executive he pitched this to was very much excited about the project, but his boss was "in bed with John", who convinced them to abandon the show. A real shame, if I must say. Out of the three projects I'm discussing here, this one had the most potential to be something great in my opinion.
3. Seth MacFarlane's The Flintstones
Now, it's time we talk about the canceled Flintstones series you're probably all aware of. Announced by FOX in 2011, this would have been a modernized reboot of the classic series by none other than Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane, who was actually a writer for Hanna-Barbera back in the 90s. The show's announcement was accompanied by a short teaser featuring Seth discussing his vision for the show, promising a 2013 release date that would leave audiences "Flintstoned" (ugh). However, only a year after the show was announced, the series was essentially put on ice. FOX executives weren't big on the pilot script, and MacFarlane made the decision to leave it behind to pursue other projects. He later explained in a Reddit AMA that another reason the show didn't happen was because he had trouble differentiating Fred from Family Guy's Peter Griffin, which I must admit I find a bit hard to believe. Regardless of the reason, the show never happened, but FOX didn't give up entirely on a new Flintstones series. At the moment, they're currently giving it another try, although MacFarlane is nowhere to be seen with this new iteration.
That's all three I have to share with you today, but unsurprisingly, there are other canceled Flintstones cartoons out there, and probably even more that we've never even heard of! Check out this post I did in September, focusing on a version of the Flintstones set in the 1970s. I'm curious to hear from you guys on these shows. Are we better off without these, or are there any you wish had materialized?
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