Before the Flintstones

What does this…



…Have in common with this?



Other than they’ve about cavemen who wear orange leopard skins, the correct answer is that they were both designed by Ed Benedict.

The top drawing is, of course, of Fred Flintstone. The bottom is from the Tex Avery cartoon “The First Bad Man” (1955). The writers on “The Flintstones” came up with household item/Stone Age transposition gags. Avery and writer Heck Allen tried a bit of a different approach. A couple of these are classic Avery gags; the “long distance” one goes back to Avery’s days at Warners.







The animators are Walt Clinton, Ray Patterson, Mike Lah and Grant Simmons, and Johnny Johnsen drew the backgrounds. Clinton worked on the original Flintstones series as a layout artist. June Foray provides an uncreditted voice.

And if you wondered where all those clothes came from, Avery and Allen provide the answer.