Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby

These next-generation Flintstone television movies can be compared in similarity to The Brady Bunch television sequel, The Brady's. Much like that show, the kids from the Flintstones show from the 1960s are grown up and now control (to some extent) their own lives. Married and living in Hollyrock (Flintstones version of Hollywood), Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are expecting. Of course, Fred and Barney are going to get involved and because they love their children, they usually cause havoc in their wake. Betty and Wilma are always trying to make everything better.

The movie plays out like a soap opera of sorts, with misunderstandings and crying and fighting. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like the plot of the Steve Martin version of Father of the Bride Part II. You might recognize some of the voice actors. Jerry Houser is the voice of Bamm-Bamm, and ironically was also a character from the Brady Bunch TV sequel, The Bradys as Wally Logan. Brad Garrett also lends his talent to the film as a character named Big Rock. Even Mark Hamill is part of the cast.

After Bam-Bam Rubble and Pebbles Flintstone get married, Pebbles becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins. It's basically a story that someday all kids will have to grow up and stop having fun at some point, which will just terrify them. I say we keep them away from the real world AS LONG AS POSSIBLE (God knows I could have used it).

In my humble opinion, this is most like the original series, and the best, most enjoyable of all the sequels in terms of the story, humor and pacing.

...after this piece of prehistoric junk. Awful, awful TV movie. Follow-up to the forgettable one where Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm get married. Everything is by the books here in regards to TV reunions: Wilma and Betty now own a catering business. Usually when we revisit beloved sitcom characters in TV reunion movies, the women are suddenly career women now working either as real estate agents or own a catering business. No one knows why, but it is an unwritten law to which all bad TV reunion writers must adhere. Pebbles works at an ad agency. Hoo boy. And Bamm-Bamm wants to be a successful screenwriter, evidently channeling the dreams of whoever wrote this piece of junk. What's even more offensive are the voices and character design. Jean Vander Pyl was the only surviving original (main) cast member, and she's fine (though H&B had the annoying and wholly unnecessary habit of electronically "sweetening" her voice for about the last ten years of Flintstones productions she worked on.). John Stephenson returns as Mr. Slate, sounding almost exactly as he always has. Excellent. Don Messick does a quick cameo as baby Bamm-Bamm in a flashback. Nice. But - beware! - this is a Henry Corden-voiced cartoon, and as wonderful a character actor as Corden was, he was terrible as the voice of Fred, yet H&B would never admit it and recast anyone else until the amazing "The Flintstones: On the Rocks" TV movie 8 years later. Corden's bizarre take on "Yabba Dabba Doo!" ("Yappa, dappa-doo!") must have Alan Reed rolling over in his grace. Surprisingly, we've got Frank Welker as Barney & Dino. "Surprisingly" because Frank Welker is versatile and very talented and the voice director (Gordon Hunt in "I just don't care anymore" mode) has managed to find the two voices Welker cannot do to save his life. Barney's frequent, all-but-involuntary chuckling that punctuates the end of a lot of his lines makes Mr. Rubble sound like he's suffering from emphysema. Dino, too, no longer barks, evidently having had his vocal cords removed, but instead wheezes. Would it have killed the producers to pay Mel Blanc's estate some money and just drop in some old audio of Dino barking and yapping and growling from the original series? The character design is atrocious. Wilma and Betty no longer have feminine figures but instead have bodies that resemble men in drag. Fred's head and nose in particular bear very little resemblance to any of the models they used in the original series. I saw this when it originally aired and was mortified. I just caught the first 15 minutes on Boomerang this afternoon and couldn't bear to watch any more. Horrible production; typical of late H&B cartoons and cartoon movies. Avoid it at all costs.

I have never actually been a fan of "The Flinstones," but this movie is the cutest thing I have ever watched. The thought of Pebbles and Bamm Bamm becoming parents is like a fan fiction come to life. It's just adorable. The animation is excellent and the characters have a certain charm to them. After seeing "I, Yabba Dabba Do," which was also good, on TV a couple times, I stumbled across a clip of this movie and just had to see it. I'm glad I did. Sure, the cartoon's not without its flaws, but they're drowned out by the sweet and tender nature it has to offer.

I give "Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby" an 8/10.