Cartoon Country: Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs!
So last year, I posted my initial reaction and my impressions of Warner Brothers’ latest animated Flintstones series Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs.
It was originally going to be a segment of Peeks, but I switched it to Brain Candy when I learned that WB decided to cancel the series after one season instead of the two seasons that were originally planned.
I did this because I figured that WB was just going to bury this show in a landfill somewhere with all of the unsold Atari E.T. game cartridges and act like it never existed. However, as of this writing, Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs is currently airing on Boomerang in the United Kingdom and in Africa, and it’s supposed to come to Boomerang’s streaming service some time thereafter. So because of this and also because I’ve since seen some additional material since viewing the initial pilot for the show, I can now do a proper Cartoon Country for it.
So off we go again!
I’ve already explained the premise of YDD last February in my post Yabba Dabba Done, but in case you don’t feel like referring to that, here it is one mo’ time:
Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are back in this quarter-hour animated comedy series, Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs! Warner Bros. Animation takes you beyond Bedrock to The Crags, a vast land that is as dangerous and wild as the dinosaurs that inhabit it.
Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble are two best friends, growing up in the prehistoric time when dinosaurs and giant beasts still walked the earth. But as exciting as that sounds, they live in peaceful, quiet old Bedrock, a modern domestic civilization similar to our own (but with stone cars that run on leg-power). That’s why whenever they get the chance, Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm and Dino head to the open wilderness, helping new friends, fighting new enemies, and learning about life through their endless crazy adventures. Back in Bedrock, Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty still enjoy all the familiar quirks and trappings of life as a modern Stone Age family not knowing all the trouble (and fun!) their kids are getting themselves into.
Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs! is produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Mark Marek (producer, MAD, Be Cool Scooby-Doo!) and Marly Halpern-Graser (executive producer, Right Now Kapow) serve as producer with Sam Register as executive producer.
Now, here are my thoughts:
WHAT’S GOOD
This is an original idea and a fresh take on the Flintstones franchise. I think that there being a Jurassic Park like savage area inhabited by wild dinosaurs located adjacent to Bedrock is a cool idea, and it’s something that’s never been attempted before in the franchise. It’s also a nice change of pace to have a Flintstones show that takes the primary focus away from Fred and Barney for a change (Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty are still very much a part of the show, of course, but here they’re more supporting characters). Yeah, I know that we’ve previously had The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm show in the 1970s…
…but let’s be real: that show just Archie with the Flintstones branding (teen Pebbles was pretty hot, though).
There was also that short lived Cartoon Network show in 1996 starring P&BB titled Cave Kids, but that only lasted for eight episodes and it came and went so quickly that I never saw it.
Speaking of which, did you know that there was a series of children’s books featuring Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm that was also titled Cave Kids published by Gold Key in the 1960s? Because I didn’t!
Another good thing about Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs is that it’s a rarely seen take on P&BB as pre-teens! Except for a couple of prime-time specials, we never saw that before. Here, P&BB aren’t babies nor teenagers, but rather they’re a happy medium between the two. They appear to be between 8 and 11 age-wise.
Plus, kudos to this show’s producers for remembering that Bamm-Bamm is super strong!
Even as kids, my twin Damon and I would watch The Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm Show and wonder “What happened to Bamm-Bamm’s super strength?” Sure, as a teenager he was shown as being kind of a jock, but come on! As a toddler, Bamm-Bamm could lift an entire couch with one hand! As a teenager, he should’ve been able to lift the entire Bronto Bunch, motorcycles and all, and juggle them over his head! This show at least remembers that little detail. As a bonus, just so that Pebbles has something to contribute to the show, here she’s depicted as having above average intelligence, as opposed to before, where she merely inherited her father’s love of hatching hair-brained schemes.
And you’re free to disagree with me on this, but I saw the pilot and I thought that it was pretty funny. I genuinely laughed at the Wikipedia joke, as I did with the running gag of Dino taking off for the hills in terror and Pebbles asking “Why did we bring you?” Yeah, I thought that was funny! Fight me!
I read that Capatain Caveman will be making an appearance on the show at some point. Damon has theorized a way to include Cavey on this series where his inclusion would actually make sense! He’s the one who laid this all out, so I’ll just re-print his words. Take it away!:
Going back to the Captain Caveman thing for a sec, ever since 1983, Hanna-Barbera has been trying to integrate Captain Caveman into the Flintstones universe. First they tried making him a straight-up Superman parody and that didn’t work since he was still covered in hair and couldn’t speak a sentence without saying “Unga-munga” first, so you’d have to be blind, deaf or just have a Degree in Dumb not to see that Chester the Copy Boy and Captain Caveman were one and the same. They next tried making Cavey a fictional character on a TV show on Flintstone Kids, and that didn’t work either because the show-within-the-show that Cavey starred in was also set in Bedrock, so he still stuck out like a sore thumb. Only after the WB takeover someone finally got the idea that if you put an actual savage land in this prehistoric setting (which itself should be a no-brainer), you could put the hairy wild man in there and he’d actually fit in! Just make him the Crags’ Tarzan. You wouldn’t have to explain why Cavey is the way he is; he spent his entire life in the Crags, so naturally he wouldn’t be civilized like the citizens of Bedrock.
There’s an ancient saying which I think applies here. What is it? Oh yeah…DUH.
Also, this intro is pretty cool:
WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD
Of course with any update/revival/fresh take of a long established franchise (and you can’t get much longer established than The Flintstones!), you’ll hear the inevitable comments like these:
I haven’t seen this, but they’re doing something new and different from what I’m used to, so I know that it’s bad!”
…but out of all the negative comments and criticisms about Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs, most of them have been about the art and the character designs, and I have to say…yeah, I can see where they’re coming from. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t hate these designs, but the whole thing looks kind of…rough, for lack of a better word. This looks more like an early draft than the finished product. I mean, why is Pebbles so skinny? How is she even able to support herself with those little stick legs? And those brown jeans on Bamm-Bamm. No, just no.
Apparently, Warner Brothers commissioned several artists and animators to come with their own designs for the characters, and they ended up going with Mark Marek’s designs. For those who don’t know, Mark Marek drew the Henry & June host segments for Nickelodeon’s Kablam!.
Kind of makes you wonder what the character art of the people who didn’t get the job looked like.
Personally, I would probably have gone with Chris Battle’s designs:
The kids’ heads are kind of big, but they’re still recognizable as Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, and at least Bamm-Bamm isn’t wearing brown jeans!
Granted, I would have preferred a more traditional look for the characters and the show, again, viz:
…but I’m willing to overlook that if the show is consistently good and the episodes are well written, overall. And I do like the ponytail on Pebbles.
Another not so good thing is that Boomerang UK isn’t promoting this very well. Case in point, this promo:
That wasn’t terrible, but I felt that Boom UK could’ve placed more emphasis on The Crags and it’s inhabitants. Also, personally I would have drawn the Crags dinosaurs in a different art style. Make them more stylized and dangerous looking as a way to differentiate them from the tame, domestic dinos that willingly (or some cases, not so willingly) serve the humans in the more civilized Bedrock. A more cinematic look and feel, with detailed backgrounds, light and shadow effects, etc., would have been nice also, but you take what you can get.
I don’t know how well Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs is going to be received by the general public, but personally I think that it’s a pretty cool idea, and since this is the first new Flintstones series in years that’s not some crossover DTV with WWE wrestlers, I’m willing to give it a shot. At least WB remembers that The Flintstones exists and is trying to do something new with them. Yeah, there’s also that upcoming adult animated reboot of The Flintstones produced by Elizabeth Banks that supposedly in development, but I can’t get excited about that. I wanted to talk about YDD! because that’s an interesting idea and a different take on the franchise (Heck, the idea could work even if it didn’t take place in the Flintstones universe!), but this reboot just sounds like more of the usual strum and drang and I don’t think that Family Guy style jokes is the shot in the arm that this franchise needs. So sorry, folks, but I don’t plan on watching nor writing about that one.
Myself, I remain cautiously optimistic about Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs!. It’s a decent concept that could work in the right hands. And who knows? If the show goes over well, WB might to decide to renew it for a second season after all. Unfortunately for us here in the good ol’ US of A, we’ll have to settle for clips floating around online for now, but wherever you can see it, check it out!
“Yeah, kids! Come on over and visit The Crags! I LOVE finger food!”
Talkin’ Nerdy: The Cold, Hard Truth About Tiny Toons
We recently came across this little nugget on the Anime Superhero Forum:
“Its really strange how the Tiny Toons characters did not appear as recurring characters in other Looney Tunes cartoon series like Taz-Mania, Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, Duck Dodgers (2003), Looney Tunes Show (2011), New Looney Tunes/wabbit or the HBO Max Looney Tunes Cartoons (2020). Does Warner Bros think the Tiny Toons are not good enough to add to any cartoon series that has the Looney Tunes?.” (Yeah, I’m including the poor punctuation.)
-Really, dude? This is strange to you? You really don’t know why you don’t see Tiny Toons characters turning up in non-TT projects like Taz-Mania, Duck Dodgers and Wabbit/New Looney Tunes? Seriously?
Well, the concrete reason is because the Tiny Toons characters are co-owned by Amblin Entertainment, and Amblin would have to be associated or involved with any such project in order for Warner Bros. to use them, but there’s another, very obvious fly in this particular ointment, a fly the size of a brontosaurus. Here’s the cold, hard truth about Tiny Toon Adventures in relation to the rest of the WB lore:
The Looney Tunes don’t need the Tiny Toons. At all. The Tiny Toons need the Looney Tunes, but not vice-versa.
What would the Tiny Toons do in a Looney Tunes project? Seriously, I’m asking: what exactly would they do? What purpose would they serve, beyond popping up on screen every so often to remind us that they exist? The problem with trying to integrate the Tiny Toons characters into the Looney Tunes universe is simply that the Tiny Toons are just super-deformed teen versions of the Looney Tunes characters; take away the ‘kid factor’ and they’re just clones of the Looney Tunes and they’d just be redundant appearing alongside of them. Why would you need Buster Bunny when you have Bugs Bunny? Why do you need Plucky Duck when you have Daffy Duck? What need is there for Dizzy Devil when Taz is around? And so on.
As previously stated, Warner Bros. would have to secure permission and/or collaboration from Amblin to use the Tiny Toons for anything, but frankly such a move wouldn’t be worth the effort; Warner doesn’t need the Tiny Toons for anything since they already have the Looney Tunes, whom they own lock, stock and barrel. If you own the rights to Rice Krispies, then you have no reason to buy a cheap knockoff cereal from Aldi.
This is also the reason why the WB shows that came after Tiny Toons have fared better and are remembered more fondly. Tiny Toons‘ greatest success was that of a trailblazer: the series kick-started Warner Bros. Animation’s Silver Age, leading to the likes of Animaniacs, Pinky & the Brain, Freakazoid! et al, but those shows, most notably Animaniacs, are celebrated more and have more staying power because the casts of those shows were original characters with no blatant ties or associations with any pre-existing franchise. Yeah it was cool whenever A! or F! would reference or call back to or feature a brief cameo by a Looney Tunes star, but they didn’t rely on those characters in order for their shows to work or their characters to flourish; the casts of A! and F! could stand on their own. By contrast, the notoriety and legacy of Looney Tunes is baked into Tiny Toon Adventures’ DNA; the Tiny Toons could not and would not exist without Looney Tunes, and at the end of the day, they’re basically just knockoffs that we don’t need when the genuine articles are around. If Tiny Toons had never happened, the Looney Tunes would still continue to exist as they always have.
You know how you never see Scrappy-Doo turning up in these latest Scooby-Doo projects?
The calmer, more rational Scrappy who actually helped move the plots along and devised his ‘Scrappy Traps’ was basically a composite stand-in for Fred and Velma…
…But now that Mysteries, Inc. is back together as a Five Man Band, they don’t need Scrappy anymore.
Or how about Roger Rabbit?
After Who Framed Roger Rabbit? came out in 1987, in the wake of the huge “toon boom” that followed the movie, Disney tired making a big push to incorporate Roger into the Disney shorts gang alongside Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto et al, but despite Disney’s best efforts (including having Betty White flat-out state in a Disney anniversary special that Roger was the Disney gang’s “new buddy”) this didn’t happen. Know why? Well, for one thing, again, Roger is co-owned by Amblin, so the Mouse House couldn’t really use him without their involvement or association. For another, let’s look at this character for a moment; what’s he known for? He’s well-meaning, but kind of a bumbler; he’s a little accident prone and has a habit of causing chaos and confusion wherever he goes. Hmm, that sounds kind of familiar. Who else in the Mickey Gang is like that? Maybe…
….THIS GUY.
Yeah, aside from ownership rights, the reason Roger Rabbit was never fully integrated into the Disney shorts canon was because Roger was basically Goofy, and Mickey’s Gang already had a Goofy. Sticking Roger in there with them would’ve just been redundant.
It’s the same principle with the Tiny Toons: now that Warner is doing stuff with the Looney Tunes again, they don’t need to use the Tiny Toons for stuff, as they were just teenage stand-ins for the Looney Tunes. Tiny Toon Adventures was a nice kiddification/love letter to the Looney Tunes franchise, but those characters just aren’t needed now, as they didn’t bring anything new to the table that Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Elmer, Sam and the others don’t already contribute. And that’s the reason.
-Side bar: in this same thread, we came across this post:
“If it weren’t for Tiny Toons we’d never have Lola. Remember Babs didn’t really have an LT counterpart so when Space Jam was made they gave her one years after the fact. Even though they never met.”
Sorry, but that’s simply incorrect. Lola Bunny’s creation had nothing to do with Babs. Lola’s first appearance was Space Jam, which opened in 1996; Tiny Toons ran from 1990 to 1995, and was already over by the time Space Jam came around.
Lola was based on Honey Bunny, a character from the Looney Tunes comic books; a female Bugs counterpart who served as his love interest or rival, depending on what the situation called for.
The story goes that Honey Bunny was going to make her big screen debut in Space Jam, but the movie’s execs weren’t pleased with her appearance; they thought she looked like Bugs in drag, so the artists redesigned the character, making her curvier and more feminine looking, until they eventually decided that this was a completely different character, thus Lola was born. She was not created to be a mentor for Babs. That issue was addressed in the TTA episode “Fields of Honey” where Honey was given a revisionist history to make her seem more important and interesting than she actually was, instead of just being Minnie Mouse to Bosko’s Mickey. So the above statement isn’t remotely accurate.
But thanks for playing, and enjoy your complimentary set of steak knives!
Toon Adjacent: Bugs Bunny Meets the Super Heroes
So recently Jason came across this and showed it to me:
‘Kay.
My initial thought upon seeing this was:
…But after having a little more time to process things, I have a little more to say about it. Unfortunately, we never actually saw this majestic spectacle unfold, and as far as we know, no more footage of this extravaganza exists, so I can only offer my initial impressions on it.
-First of all, I love how Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin are referred to as “The Super Heroes”, as if these 3 are the only superheroes in existence.
“So they’re ‘The Super Heroes’, huh? And what are we, chopped liver?”
A more accurate title would be Bugs Bunny Meets the Justice League or Bugs Bunny Meets the Super Friends or Bugs Bunny Meets the DC Super Heroes, or the 3 of Them That We Could Fit Into This Venue, Anyway.
While the DC roster is, shall we say, a trifle limited, I can at least see the reasoning for it, from a technical standpoint. I can understand why Flash and Green Lantern weren’t used for this:
…As their super powers would have been impossible to replicate on a live stage, especially at such a small theater.
“A guy who can move at the speed of light and a space cop who can make green energy constructs? No way in Helvetica can we afford that!”
Similarly, I understand why they didn’t go with Aquaman: ’cause then they would’ve had to put a pool on the stage and the performers would have had to avoid falling into it, and the guy who would’ve played Aquaman would not only have to be able to fit into the suit, but also be a good swimmer, so yeah, it would’ve been too much of a hassle to make the ‘story’ of this show center around the ocean in order to accommodate him.
Green Arrow would’ve simply been redundant: they didn’t need 2 rich guys with toys, plus they couldn’t risk a stray arrow hitting somebody in the audience.
They likely went with Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin because they were the easiest ones to replicate on a live stage with no special effects. Of course you wouldn’t be seeing Batman whipping out his grappling hook or Wondy snaring someone with her magic lasso; once you strip away all the fancy stuff like the Lasso of Truth, silver armbands and fancy Bat-Gadgets, their powers basically amount to punching and kicking, so we just get 3 Justice League members for this show. Two if we’re not counting sidekicks.
“Well, screw you too, buddy!”
On the Looney Tunes side, we get Bugs of course, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Taz, Speedy Gonzales, Foghorn Leghorn and a grossly oversized Tweety Bird. (Though not the human Looney Tunes like Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam for some reason.) I gotta say, these aren’t the greatest costumes I’ve ever seen. Daffy looks like he’s suffering from a bad case of Can’t-Shut-My-Beak-Itis. My guess is that Warner Bros. just gave whoever came up with this the OK to use their characters, but otherwise weren’t heavily involved in it. These costumes look more like outfits you’d buy for a kid’s birthday at Party City.
Heck, the mascots at Six Flags look better than this.
What’s funny about this is that it ran at the Baltimore Civic Center, and we’re Marylanders. How did this manage to slip past us? We’ve honestly never heard of this until Jason saw this commercial on his YouTube feed. The kid versions of ourselves would’ve wanted to go see this; I’m sure it would’ve been pure cheese, but it would’ve been entertaining cheese. For kid comic book and cartoon geeks, the Looney Tunes and the Justice League sharing a stage was like a video arcade that also had free pizza. If nothing else this could’ve been a fun show to riff on MST3K style. Now I wish I had seen this; I’m dying to know what sort of circumstances would create the need for 3 members of the Justice League to team up with the Looney Tunes. The very idea that Foghorn Leghorn exists somewhere in the DCU is utterly side-splitting to me.
One final note about the roster: we get Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman, but there’s a glaring omission here, one the size of a brontosaurus…
…WHERE THE HECK IS SUPERMAN???
You can’t have a live show starring the DC Super Heroes and not have Superman. That’d be like having a Disney live show without Mickey Mouse or a Muppets special without Kermit the Frog. You just don’t do that. What’s especially strange about Superman’s absence is that this show happened in 1979…
…The same year Superman: The Movie opened in theaters. You’d think any entrepreneur worth their salt would put Supes in the show just to cash in on all the hype. And it’s not like they couldn’t use Big Blue: all they’d have to do is put a buff guy in the blue-and-red suit and make some breakaway props for him to smash up. I know they couldn’t have him flying or using heat vision, but he could at least burst through a prop wall or something.
The big question raised by this is simply: who comes up with something like this??
“Eh, campy stage shows were just somethin’ ya did in the 70’s doc. Like listenin’ to disco music or snortin’ lines o’ cocaine!”
Yearly Wrap-Up 2019
Howdy, folks!
Well, the year 2019 is winding to a close and the year 2020 looms over the horizon, so as always, we’re going to our Year In Review and inform you about what to expect here at Twinsanity in the following year.
As you’ll recall, back in August we mentioned that we were beginning the process of transforming Twinsanity from a blog to a full blown website with video content. That’s still our main goal that we’re working towards doing. One main reason for this is because we want to be seen on camera. Our type of entertainment is largely a visual medium and we feel that videos are the best way to gain viewership, as many people would rather look at a video than read. Well, thankfully, those plans haven’t been scrapped; we’re still in the process of producing videos. We just have to get some more up to date equipment and so forth. However, while that’s still our main goal, we’re not content with just doing nothing creatively until we’re ready to make the jump to videos. Therefore, one of our goals for 2020 is to write at least 1 regular size blog post and 1 micro blog post (which you can find on our Tumblr account – twinsanitycomedy.tumblr.com in case you forgot) each month.
So we will indeed start putting blog posts here again come next year (albeit in a slightly smaller quantity), at least until we’re fully ready to start video production.
And yes, I will most certainly try to continue with the What The Funny mini series for Regular Show that I started back in June. I was hoping that I’d be able to do that one as a video series, but that will have to wait, at least for now. I don’t know what the next series that we’ll be doing for WTF after that one yet.
Similarly, Damon will be continuing his Pop Dream mini series for Animal Jam. As always, the mini series individual parts won’t be posted in a row, as we prefer to space them out. Hopefully, we’ll be able to finish them both by the end of next year.
Aside from that, there are no major changes in the planning. I’d like to write more Toon Adjacent segments, as I enjoy doing those, but there aren’t a great deal many of those yet. To myself, the Toon Adjacent segments are split into two subdivisions: Cool-lectibles, where we talk about toys and other merchandising based on cartoons, and Sweet Spots, where we talk about theme park and tourist attractions. I wanted to call the later Theme Snark, but that name’s already being used by YouTuber Charlie Callahan. In any case, I hope that we’ll be able to write more Toon Adjacent segments in 2020. We’re working for one for Warner Brothers World in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It’s about 50% written as of today.
Cartoon Country and Brain Candy (formerly Highly Opinionated) will continue as they have been. I have to admit that CC is one of my favorite segments to work on, and Brain Candy seems to be working out well, so there’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken. Pretty much all of the segments will eventually make the jump from blog to video. I know that we haven’t written a Talkin’ Nerdy or Beyond the Background segment in a while, but we write these things as we’re inspired to do them.
We also hope to write more TV Special Showdown segments, as those are enjoyable to do. Same deal with The Retro Bin and especially The Cartoon Couch.
“One more thing…”
Since we joined Tumblr, we’ve been seeing some cool comics and cartoons posted there, which has re-ignited that itch to start drawing regularly again and to start posting our cartoons online; we may start doing that as soon as we learn how. (I know earlier we considered possibly starting a second blog devoted to fiction, but I think since then we agree that we’d rather do comic strips, since that gives us an excuse to draw, something we each want to get back into anyway.) We’ll either post them here after this blog gets remade into a video site, or we could just put them on our Tumblr account, or possibly both. (Which is another incentive to do comics as opposed to fiction; we wouldn’t need to create a separate blog for comics. The ‘fiction’ we were planning to do was just going to be short skits and vignettes anyway.)
Overall, there’s not a whole lot of new stuff to report. We plan to just keep doing what we’ve been doing until we’re finally able to start uploading video content. When that happens, this site will get a revamp with a new look and theme, so keep reading and watch out for updates which will be seen as we report them. We’ll see you next year!
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