Not the Flintstones

Forgotten on lists of Stone Age cartoons made before the invention of “The Flintstones” at Hanna-Barbera in 1960 is the Bob McKimson short “Wild, Wild World,” released earler in the year. It’s another one of Tedd Pierce’s painful TV parodies where turning the name “Dave Garroway” into “Cave Darroway” is considered funny. Ouch. The olive in Tedd’s martini must have gone down the wrong way that day.

This was the second time McKimson and Pierce got together to foist on us the plot of a lost reel of film from the caveman era being discovered. The first was in the extremely unfunny “Pre-Hysterical Hare” (1958). At least this cartoon has the benefit of a nice score by Milt Franklyn featuring a couple of tunes by Raymond Scott. Layout man Bob Gribbroek and background artist Bill Butler got together on this one (Dick Thomas had left for Hanna-Barbera by this time). Here are some of the character designs.



The stone skyscrapers are reminiscent of Tex Avery’s “The First Bad Man” at MGM a few years earlier.



Cary Granite?! What about Stoney Curtis? (“Cary Granite” is such an obvious pun, I suspect it’s a coincidence it was later used in “The Flintstones.”)

McKimson’s credited animators in this one are Warren Batchelder, George Grandpré, Ted Bonnicksen and Tom Ray.