Saturday 1 January 2022

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.

18 comments:

  1. The character designs, and a few of the situations depicted,
    rule hard...very hard.
    All thanks for having discovered these over 60-year-old strips.

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  2. You know I consider the Flintstones comic strip--especially in its earlier years--as one of the great joys in life! So thank you for posting these!

    And Happy New Year!

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    1. Same you, SC. The rest of the month's strips will be up in a few weeks.

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  3. The legendary Gene Hazelton drawn great part of the Flintstones comic strip between 1961 and 1986.
    But in the première year of this strip (1961), it had a rely among him and the other artists from Hanna-Barbera, as Harvey Eisenberg (the Carl Barks from Hanna-Barbera), Dick "Bick" Bickenbach, Roger Armstrong and Dale Hale.

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  4. There's a cool site which focuses the whole trajectory of Flintstones comic strip, which's shared in three periods: the Gene Hazelton period (1961-86), the Don Sherwood period (1985-94) and the Karen Matchette period (1994-98).
    Here's the link: http://flintstones.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_comic_strips).

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  5. These materials are also included in the Ger Apeldoorn's blog (http://allthingsger.blogspot.com).

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  6. Harvey Eisenberg did the 10/4, 10/6 and 10/11 strips, including the lettering.

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    1. The Flintstones daily strip from October, 9, 1961 also was drawn by him, with the inking and lettering done by Roger Armstrong.


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  7. Any chance we'll ever see a collected volume of the dailies? You know, like they're doing with POGO?

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    1. I doubt it, unk. It was proposed some time ago by Scott Shaw, but the idea was turned down.

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  8. For those who don't believe in life after death, I offer this blog as evidence that it does!

    I remember my delight the day thAT first strip appeared in the Milwaukee Journal to add to the Sunday YOGI and FLINTSTONES. I recall clipping them out but since I was eight at the time, somehow they didn't survive. I've been lobbying IDW for the past five years to collect the YOGI and FLINTSTONES Sundays, as well as the FLINTSTONES daily strips and panels and the little-seen YOGI panels, and who knows--someday they just might do them. (I just hope it happens in my lifetime!)

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    1. IDW pre-2017 would have been your best shot at getting those published. Not a chance in hell would the current management even consider such a project.

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  9. Can you make a tribute post for TV channel,Boomerang?

    Without it, I wouldn't have been able to watch P&D back in 2014; the best year of my life!

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    1. Hello, Anon.
      I've never seen Boomerang. I am not in the United States.
      My exposure to these original Hanna-Barbera cartoons came 60 years ago by being syndicated.

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    2. I THINK Time/WB Media DOES have BOOMERANG Canada or something like that.

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    3. It may, but did not when I watched cartoons in the 1960s. It didn't when I last owned a TV set around 1998.

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    4. HA! There is no Boomerang in Canada. There was Teletoon Retro (which aired the crappy Turner Prints; I recall seeing a black-and-white Yogi toon in 2006)

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