Nearly 20 years after it has aired, The Flintstones On The Rocks has been one of the few Flintstones properties that has yet to be released in any HD or home media format.
The Flintstones: On the Rocks is a 2001 American animated made-for-television film featuring characters from The Flintstones franchise. It debuted on November 3, 2001 on Cartoon Network and was directed by Chris Savino and David Smith. It was dedicated to Hoyt Curtin, longtime Hanna-Barbera conductor and composer and William Hanna, creator of The Flintstones and founder of Hanna-Barbera Productions with partner Joseph Barbera. This film marks the final time that any original voice actors (namely John Stephenson as Mr. Slate) would appear in a Flintstones project.
It is the only Flintstones production to be produced by Cartoon Network Studios after the Hanna-Barbera studios was absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation in 2001. In format, the movie was intended to emulate the first and second seasons of the 1960s series, which was distinctly more mature and aimed at older audiences than the later seasons, and therefore chose to focus more on the relationships between the original core cast of Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty.
Since its original broadcast, the movie has not been released on home video, though bootleg copies exist on various torrent sites.
Fred and Wilma’s marriage is in serious jeopardy. Barney and Wilma decide to help out by taking them on vacation to Rockapulco for their anniversary.
So, as you can tell by the synopsis and certainly by the clip, this was an attempt to recreate the more mature first and second seasons of The Flintstones rather than the more kid friendly latter half of the series even to the point where Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm aren’t even in this movie.
And considering that they got many of the same people who worked on both Dexter’s Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls to put this together, and it definitely shows, along with some of the original people who worked on the original series, there actually is this interesting meshing of two different styles of animation, you have the old school mature animation combining with the new school animation that can still tell adult style humor but do it in a very specific way where most kids watching this wouldn’t even get half the references when they were younger.
The final result is an interesting and surreal approach to such a beloved franchise like The Flintstones and in a good way too.
The animation is amazing, that same style of animation from Dexter and Powerpuff Girls works surprisingly well for this universe, there’s even a really impressive stop motion sequence that still holds up even by today’s standards:
The voice work is really well done in recreating the original voice actors from the show, you’ve got Jeff Bergman as Fred, Tress MacNeille as Wilma, Kevin Michael Richardson as Barney, and Grey Delisle as Betty and they all do a really great job of filling these roles and giving them their own unique personalities to them.
The humor is pretty good for the most part and the film does a great job of balancing the hilarious elements with the more serious and emotion driven moments, specifically with the scenes where Fred & Wilma have to focus on repairing their troubled marriage and obviously, you want to root for them to get it back on track and they do a great job of exploring the pros and cons of their relationship to lead into a satisfying conclusion at the end.
The saddest thing about this movie is that unlike many of the other Hanna Barbera specials and movies that have been released in some way or form on DVD or Blu-Ray, this still does not have an official home release, not even as a Warner Archive exclusive, and honestly, it’s a shame, I really do think this should get some kind of home release in some shape or form whether it be a physical release or even a streamable release, so that more people can experience it for themselves. As of right now, you have to be lucky enough to watch it on a recorded blank videotape or find it deep online somewhere.
The Flintstones: On The Rocks does a great job of meshing together the old and the new into a very funny, well animated, and cleverly written homage to the original series, hopefully this post will allow it to get more attention where the demand will be there for a more wider release but for now, search this one and definitely give it a watch.
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