A Flintstone Family Christmas

A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent short has Fred and Barney being held up by a young orphan who has always been in trouble with the law. Wilma feels sorry for the kid and invites him back to their house for Christmas but Fred doesn't like the kid at all but overtime they become buds. A FLINTSTONE FAMILY Christmas isn't nearly as good as some of the early episodes and specials that dealt with the holiday. Overall I think fans of the show are going to be somewhat disappointed because this special is just missing a certain quality that made the earlier stuff so special. With that said, this here isn't too bad but I think the biggest problem is that the kid is just so annoying. Not once did I like this kid and I really didn't care for his transformation as the picture went along. Perhaps I'm being too harsh on a cartoon but this was a big part of the story and it just didn't work for me. I also thought some of the jokes were a little flat, especially for a Christmas special as there's even a joke about Charlie Mansonstone. Try explaining that to the kids if they ask.

There seems to be a lot of sarcastic comments on this (and the other two Flintstone Xmas specials) referring to the fact that even a modern stone age family cannot celebrate. I might have been one of them, but if you are the type of person who is going to seriously judge a satirical cartoon where humans use dinosaurs as slaves for their household appliances then perhaps you should be locked in a cold, dark room for a long spell.

In this one, which received an Emmy nomination, Fred takes in a homeless orphan boy called Stoney and tries to give him the best Xmas ever. The enthusiastic kid tries to help but instead makes lots of trouble for Fred.

It's a great cartoon, and certainly one of the best Xmas specials.

So yeah, this isn't a very good special really. Only 20 minutes isn't really enough, and I'm surprised that it got an Emmy nomination.

Animation is patchy, script is predictable.

But really, I wanted to comment on a review by 'stakes' who said this is 'sacrilegious'.

I mean honestly, The Flintstones isn't a documentary. Notably, cavemen and dinosaurs didn't live side-by-side, plus thousands of other things that show this is a world that simply doesn't fit into reality. Nor should it. It is animated. It is a family show. It is a satire.

The words 'sacrilegious' and 'blasphemy' are such silly words. Literally everyone is sacrilegious at any given time, depending which religion (if any) you believe in and who is viewing you.

Please stop saying this clearly fictional world doesn't fit with your fiction. Absurd.