More Costly Than Dobie Gillis

“Adult cartoon” was a sales pitch bandied about in 1960 as The Flintstones was about to debut. And it only made sense.

Animated cartoons were something found in kiddie matinees at theatres and on children’s shows on daytime TV. If you want to broaden your demographic, then you’d better say your cartoon series isn’t just for the youngsters.

Granted, The Flintstones featured a plot about having a baby and made gentle fun of suburban living. But it wasn’t over the heads of kid viewers, any more than old Warner cartoons about Bugs dressing as a woman to fool Elmer Fudd. They flocked to the show. And it’s the kids of the 1960s that still fondly remember the series today.
Reviews after the first show were mixed. You’ll recall the “inked disaster” quote from the New York Times and (legitimate) complaints about the superfluous sitcom laugh track. However, the Pittsburgh Press liked the show and looked past the debut to the second show, noting kids had already decided it was something they wanted to watch. This appeared in the edition of October 7, 1960.

CARTOON SERIES
'Flintstones': TV's Costliest Half Hour
$65,000 Per Week
By FRED REMINGTON
If any of the season's new TV shows can be called a sure-fire success on the basis of only one exposure, it would be "The Flintstones."
It made its first appearance last Friday night. It appears to have been widely viewed and favorably talked about by the people who make or break most TV offerings, the young. When a show wins acceptance among the youngsters, it's in.
We'll be getting our second look at this "adult cartoon series" tonight (Channels 4 and 10, 8:30) so here's a little background on it:
There is a general belief that a cartoon show is cheaper to produce than one with live actors. This is not so. "The Flintstones" is the most expensive regularly scheduled half hour show ever offered on television. The ABC network pays the Hanna Barbera Enterprises $65,000 for each "Flintstones" episode.

This is in contrast to the $36,000-$39,000 per half hour for films such as "Dobie Gillis," "Alcoa Presents," and "The Tom Ewell Show." Half-hours with big name stars like "General Electric Theater" and "My Three Sons" run around $50,000, where "Leave It To Beaver" comes in for $30,000.
"The Flintstones" is the latest cartoon series of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, whose "Huckleberry Hound" won an Emmy this year. They also created "Tom and Jerry," "Ruff and Ready" [sic] and "Quick Draw McGraw." They are veterans of 20 years at MGM, which tried unsuccessfully to match Walt Disney's success with animated motion pictures. MGM ultimately threw in the sponge, and Hanna and Barbera struck out on their own.
They presently employ 150 people, many of them former associates from the MGM animation studios.
"It is said we are doing for television what Disney did for pictures," Joe Barbera said one day recently. "Disney started a family of cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, who became almost national institutions."
Hanna and Barbera plan to pull Yogi Bear out of the "Huckleberry Hound" cartoon and develop a series with him as its central character. They also have in the works a 75-minute animated feature for theaters starring Yogi.
They see "The Flintstones" as a more adult show than their previous creations.
"We feel the sight is for kids and the sound is for adults," Joe explained. "We were a year casting this show, only instead of interviewing live people, we interviewed drawings."
Joe is a lean man with curly dark hair and flashing white teeth. He is handsomer than most leading men and looks about 27. Then he knocks you off your chair by referring casually to his grandchildren.
"I married young," he explains.
Among the people providing voices for the Hanna-Barbera animations are Mel Blanc, who has been the voice of Woody Woodpecker, Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny, and Daws Butler. Daws' salary and bonuses from Hanna-Barbera last year totaled $80,000.
Hanna and Barbera have greatly streamlined the animation process brought to such brilliant perfection by Walt Disney. So painstaking is Disney that for his big hits like "Snow White" and "Cinderella" he has had live actors and actresses play the parts, then translated the films to animation.
A "Flintstones" episode represents around 8000 individual drawings for the half hour of film. A Disney half hour would use at least 17,000 drawings, to achieve the marvelously graceful movements of characters, or of leaves turning gently in the breeze that are the Disney trademarks.
This is why Disney cartoons have to go into theaters before they come to TV. No sponsor could handle their original cost.