Yabba Dabba Don’t
“The Flintstones” is a genuine pop culture icon. Sure, it may have been a riff on “The Honeymooners,” thankfully stripped of the overtones of domestic violence, but it was also a truly affectionate, witty look at suburban American life, set in a beautifully designed neanderthal world. It’s not “The Cherry Orchard” or anything, but it’s pretty good. And, thanks to being tied up in various legal issues, the show has mostly been left alone since the disastrous Spielberg-produced 1994 live-action version, and its even worse prequel “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas” six years later. Until now, that is.
And it seems like the men in charge are determined to cram all the bad ideas that would have happened over a decade of brainless development (Kevin James as Fred! David Spade as Barney! The guy who made “Hop” to direct! The Black Eyed Peas to sing the theme tune!) into one horrible, horrible decision, as Deadline announced that Seth MacFarlane, creator of “Family Guy,” “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show,” has been hired to shepherd a reboot of the series for TV, and possibly for film.
MacFarlane, who was grown in a tank by Fox executives in a bid to make shitty late-period “Simpsons” look palatable in comparison, apparently considers it his lifetime dream to ruin reboot the show and, while the rights holders initially had concerns giving his shows’ sometimes ‘edgy’ material (example: “hey, remember that time we saw that pederast?” Cut to: a pederast), but they seem to have been overcome by the throwing a ton of cash of them.
The TV series, which will start airing on Fox, alongside the three other animated half-hours that the MacFarlane Joy Factory cranks out without cease, in 2013, but considering that the frustrated Dean Martin impersonator (seriously, we’re not joking, check it out below) is currently making his feature directorial debut, on the Mark Wahlberg comedy “Ted,” the possibility of a film is being dangled above our heads, like a giant fucking sword of Damocles. But a sword of Damocles made up of recycled Star Wars references, and gags stretched over four minutes because the script was running short. [Deadline]