Did All the Silly Flintsone "Spinoffs" Hurt the Original Show?

[Brian Damage]

If you are a fan of the spinoffs, then I apologize, but most if not all of them were nowhere near the quality of the original 60's series. Did they water down the franchise?

[steevo]

Not for me. I never really watched any of the spin offs and re-makes. The classic will stand on its own.

[MickeyMac]

Originally Posted by steevo

Not for me. I never really watched any of the spin offs and re-makes. The classic will stand on its own.

Thats how I see it too.

[Mr. Television]

The only spinoff I ever watched was the one with Pebbles and Bamm Bamm as teenagers. The original remains a classic.

[comedyfreak]

Not for me I liked the spinoffs, my favorite after the Flintstones are Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, and The Flintstone Comedy Hour.

[old grouch]

If you consider cereal a spinoff, then yes, I am a big fan. I love Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles.

[McGillicuddy]

Pebbles & Bamm/The Flintstones Comedy Hour came along soon enough after the original series, that they're OK. I assume much of the production staff was still intact, and the voices of Alan Reed, Mel Blanc, Jean Vanderpyl, Gerry Johnson, and Don Messick were still used.
Later versions, I couldn't enjoy. In The Flintstones meet The Jetsons, I couldn't deal with the new Betty's voice. Also, at some point, didn't they have to "tone-down" Fred's temperment, because he was considered to violent (???). I don't know, but even in the world of animation, you just can't go home again!

[Retro4Life]

I never really considered the spinoffs as the same show as the original since they didn't really reference much that happened there and some of the stuff was so 'out there' that you really couldn't connect them (i.e. Fred and Barney being Bedrock cops that worked with the Schmoo, etc...).

[1960'sTVfan]

When the original Flintstones series ended in 1966, it was over, it was done. None of the spin-offs came close to equaling the classic original series. I saw some episodes of The Pebbles & Bamm Bamm Show in 1971, I thought it was awful. The series started off on the wrong foot with the dumb episode "Gridiron Girl Trouble". The show also had an overly loud, annoying theme song, and that shrill whistle blowing only made it worse. One important difference to note though, The Flintstones was basically a cartoon intended for adults, an animated take off on The Honeymooners. On the other hand, The Pebbles & Bamm Bamm Show was strictly silly juvenile fare for the kiddies on Saturday mornings. Another thing, Pebbles and Bamm Bamm sure grew up awful fast, in 1971 both should have been about 8 or 9 years old instead of around 16 or thereabouts as this series implied.

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...Fred Silverman, who began his network career as a programmer of CBS' Saturday morning schedules in the mid-'60s. It was his idea to turn Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm into teenagers, and feature then in their own series in 1970 [reflecting the "teen comedy" approach he successfully exploited with "Archie" and "Scooby-Doo"]. He was able to expand that into the equally successful "FLINTSTONE COMEDY HOUR", which ended as a half-hour format one year before he left CBS to join ABC. When he moved to NBC in 1978 as chief programmer, he decided their Saturday morning schedule could use a "boost" in early 1979 by featuring Fred and Barney in their own half-hour format {"THE NEW FRED AND BARNEY SHOW"}, then as a "base" to exploit other characters in a 90 minute format, starting with "FRED AND BARNEY MEET THE THING" in the fall of '79 {featuring Ben Grimm of Marvel's "Fantastic Four" as "Benjy", a stone-age teenager!}, then as "FRED AND BARNEY MEET THE SHMOO" in 1980 (incorporating "THE NEW SHMOO", based on Al Capp's iconic character from his "Li'l Abner" comic strip, which had ended almost three years before). When that didn't work out in the long run (Silverman even stitched together half-hour episodes as a brief early Sunday evening series before "DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD" in the fall of '80), he again reworked it as "THE FLINTSTONE COMEDY SHOW"....which continued in a half-hour format after Silverman left the network in the summer of '81. Then it became "THE FLINTSTONE FUNNIES", which finally ended in 1984...then ABC, the network that originally telecast the first series from 1960 through '66, brought them back as 'THE FLINTSTONE KIDS"!! And their success led to several TV movies, syndicated and network, over the years...

[angiefan]

No! I loved The Flintstone Comedy Show,The New Fred and Barney Show,The Flintstone Kids and the Cereals.I didn't like Pebbles and bamm Bamm Show very much.

[70s show watcher]

i dont think the spinoffs hurt in fact i found some of the stories quite funny