Flintstones Daily Strips, October 1961

Over the years, the Yowp blog has posted the Sunday (Saturday in Canada) colour comics starring Yogi Bear and The Flintstones syndicated by McNaught. There were also daily cartoons in the papers as well, a single panel for Yogi and a strip for The Flintstones.

A few of the Yogis have been spotlighted on blogs over the years but I have found few that aren’t photocopies of microfilm, let alone original artwork. However I did find the start of The Flintstones run in scans of one paper which are quite readable.

As you know, this blog has been retired. It was created to identify Capitol music cues in the old syndicated Hanna-Barbera cartoons. That was done some time ago. Some readers like the Hanna-Barbera newspaper comics so I posted them. I’ve had a number of The Flintstones dailies sitting in a draft folder. There’s no point leaving them there, so I’m going to put them up.

The comics first appeared in papers on October 2, 1961. Mercifully, this is before the appearance of Pebbles. As having a child changes the lives of its parents, so, too, does the introduction of a toddler into a cartoon. I much preferred The Flintstones TV series as an adult contretemps, though the battle-of-the-sexes concept was shopworn by the time television arrived. Anyway, there will be no sign of Pebbles below.

The October 2nd comic is a basic introduction, while the 3rd is a twist on an old gag Jack Benny used on radio about rotund announcer Don Wilson and small cars. October 6th is a familiar gag from the TV show—a domesticated animal does household drudgery. This one is weaker that what you’d see on TV. The animal would be Stone Aged (this one is an ordinary pig) and writer Warren Foster would have it look at the camera and wisecrack something.

These are from October 2nd through 7th.


October 9’s comic has what was even an old punchline in 1961—women gossip a lot. October 10 is another variation on animals-doing-chores. October 12 revolves around Baby Puss, who found immortality in the TV’s closing animation but did very little else in the original series. (Oddly, the Jetsons’ cat was the same. It precipitated action over the end titles but was in a grand total of one of the actual half-hour cartoons). October 13 includes an appearance by Mr. Slate (at least that’s who I say it is) and the following day is another husbands-vs.-wives scenario.

These are from October 9 through 16.


Incidentally, the little drawing of Fred’s head and the club came from a different newspaper. I presume it existed in case it was needed to make up the difference in column width and the comic.

I have the rest of the month in a folder and I’ll see if I can find time to post it.