Note: I originally wrote a series of stupid TV moments years ago on That Guy With The Glasses and I won't deny I thought
about re-reviewing this thing after the death of it's creator, Steven
Bochco, but this is not to make fun of the man. This is to make fun
of a series he did that was very flawed, but it doesn't take away
both him being very passionate about it nor his skills that were
responsible for the modern police drama as well as modern legal
dramas. So please, enjoy this look as the one time a bad idea bared
fruit from a smart man. Thanks.
If it wasn't for the fact that we had stuff like Hill Street
Blues, there'd be no Brooklyn Nine-Nine. While you can
argue what changed legal dramas first, since the debuts of L.A.
Law (1986) and Law & Order (1990) were just a few
years apart, but L.A. Law focused on the human element of the
attorneys just as much, if not more than, as it focused on their
jobs. One way or another, all modern legal and police drama, as well
as comedies, that most of us have grown up on to this very day
wouldn't exist without the creative mind of Steven Bochco, who wanted
to look at the humans behind the badge, the people that defended the
people, etc.
Unfortunately, he also decided at one point they should carry a tune,
thus we were given Cop Rock.
The idea for this came when somebody had the suggestion of turning
Hill Street Blues into a musical...
(Waits for the laughing to stop)
...and those plans fell through. Well, proving that any idea, even a
bad one, can stick to you like glue, Bochco decided to go with it.
And I'm willing to bet some of you were wondering how the heck could
this idea go through, especially since I anticipated you readers
laughing at the idea of a Hill Street Blues musical, right?
Well, Bochco's shows gave any network he was on at the time the best
ratings they ever saw, be it legal dramas like L.A. Law or
medical dramedies like Doogie Howser M.D., thus giving him
enough clout to...
Only say “Cop Rock” to get the okay. Yeah. No pilot, no
trailer, not even a writer's bible, just the title and the minute his
bosses heard the first word of it, “Cop,” they thought
“Cha-ching!”
Did I mention it lasted only one season and was out before it's only
year, 1990, was over?
So, just how stupid can it be if I can write about it without seeing
an episode (Don't have the DVD from Shout! Factory...as of this
writing anyway...) but I still feel like I can write about it? Well,
for every moment of awesome that's this...
You have moments like this...
For things like a powerful opening like “Under the Gun...”
You have...whatever this is supposed to be...
Oh, and if you're wondering if the ladies get their own “Bumpy”
song, well for every moment that shows the girls ready to kick some
ass...
You get this...
To top it all off, one of the main overacing plots was about baby
kidnapping...yeah, try to process that with half the songs I showed
you, throwing in with it an entire song about how you should think of
the local sleaze ball “Baby broker” as your new best friend.
It's kinda easy to see why with all of that it lasted only one
season, but they actually went out with a bang with the entire cast
actually singing the final song, complete with the fat lady singing
because, get it?
Bochco would go on to create other successful dramas such as NYPD
Blue, and whenever he or the cast of this show are interviewed,
they have nothing but praise for the show, saying it's some of the
most fun they ever had so there's that at least. Top it all off,
some of the show's fans say that the camp value makes it more fun,
and some of the songs that I looked up for this were pretty catchy...
I SAID SOME!
For awhile, VH1, A&E, and currently defunct network Trio actually
aired this show, and most of them promoted all the eps as “Stupid
fun,” something that, via the camp value I mentioned, the fans
agree with. If you guys liked this article enough, I'll get my hands
on the DVD from Shout! Factory and review the episodes proper, but if
you wanna see this thing for yourself, Shout! released it a couple of
years ago on DVD, so chances are you can still get a copy.
Last year, I reviewed one of the comics
from DC's Hanna Barbara Beyond line, The
Flintstones. Long
story short, it was an unsubtle mess that included things like going
to a UFC event right after a war meeting that had a vet suffer
horrible flashbacks to an event that still haunts them to this day, a
message about how “civilization is bad, m'kay,” and so on.
Well, since I had a good time reviewing it...
Not so much reading it.
...and you people love seeing me in pain...
Seriously, you people love seeing me in so much pain.
This
Spring, starting with this review, I'm doing monthly reviews of the
next five issues (2-6) of The
Flintstones in
what I'm calling B-Movie
Bomb's Flintstoned. A
look at the rest of the first half of the comic that is ether a great
commentary on modern society...or as subtle as a brick to the head.
Yeah, you can guess where it falls with me.
Now, before we start, I wanna make this clear: This isn't a case of
“MY CHILDHOOD...”
Ok, SOME of it isn't.
...this
is about how a comic tries to get mature readers using a license
that's usually for families. It's not that it can't be done (Hell,
Archie Comics' horror line and Riverdale
proves
that), it's HOW they can be done. If something comes off as bashing
you over the head, it doesn't matter the property or how it's
adapted, if you have a message you need to have a def touch, do it in
a way that makes the reader draw his/her own conclusions. If you
force the message, you wind up insulting the viewer on the grounds of
“Who you callin' stupid!?”
A
good example of something as subtle as a brick is the anti-Margret
Thature ep of Doctor
Who, The Happiness Patrol, where
the main villianess has Thature's mannerisms, quotes, but a HUGE lust
for power and urge to control everybody's free will. The end result
is less a show telling you why somebody like Thature is bad for the
country and more a show yelling at you that the woman is so nuts that
she'll sick candy robots on you.
Not kidding.
So,
what does something like The Flintstones No. 2
have
in terms of social commentary and satire? TV, materialism, and
religion. And if you're groaning at the two out of three, you know
where this is going...and I'm so sorry.
So, the comic opens with a middle school aged Bam Bam getting
threatened to be punched “In the beef...”
...you wanna tenderize his stakes?
...by
a bully...until he lifts the bully and shows him off to Betty and
Barney like he's a trophy, but like most parents, they tell him that
it's nice and all but he's blocking their stories as the Rubbles have
one of the first ever TVs. Fred thinks its a wall demon until Betty
points out what it is, and I gotta say, I love how the TV is
presented here. It's gray like the rest of the stones and broad
casts in black and white, the end result being the “It's like
moving pictures” phrase taken to the next level as it looks just
like that, moving cave pictures. And the satire actually kicks off
with a bang, as the newscaster is not only new, with the rest of his
crew, to TV, but is actually shocked that kids are watching a violent
image and apologizes on the grounds that it's their first day.
So, how do they screw it up?
By having the next story be about “Crap.” No, not that kind, the
kind you buy but you don't need, spelled out as such by the news,
complete with an interview with a guy that has tons of junk in his
hands saying “I love my crap.”
Yeah, but he's got nothing on this guy.
So then the Flintstones head to the mall to buy, what else, crap they
don't need. This includes a TV for themselves, a bird with a lot of
teeth as a can opener, and a goat for weed eating, leading to
(Admittedly) a funny bit where Fred says he bought a weed whacker
prompting Wilma to ask “What's a weed?”
So, how do they screw that up?
Right after that, we go to a record store with some hint that it's
playing rap music about rump shaking, causing Wilma to freak out and
plug a middle school aged Pebbles ears right before leaving to go
home and play with their crap, including weed eating and putting the
living goat in the garage right after Fred's done.
And yes, this will hurt for future issues. And yes, you can probably
guess the symbolism already.
Well, that part's done, time to satire religion! The Flintstones
head to church to worship Morp, the God from the first issue the UFC
fighter thanked. It turns out Morp is a bird that helped guided the
first tribes across land and to water when needed, so naturally the
priest of the church comes to one conclusion...
MORP IS THE RECORD PLAYER HE SAW AT THE MALL!
Yes, in a way that the comic shouts “GET IT” to the reader, their
God is now their record player and thus tells those at the church
that what's about to come out is the word of Morp...and that record
is the rap that freaked Wilma out at the store, causing everybody to
decide they're over religion.
If you're waiting for me to make the obvious joke of buying the wrong
item, keep that in mind...it will hurt later.
While
the girls go out shopping after church, Fred decides to go to his
local VFW (The Water Buffalos for those that missed the first
issue/didn't read the review) and laments to Barney that he feels
like he can't afford everything but wants to make sure he can,
causing one of his soldier buddies to hear and con the two into
selling pep pills, which they agree to with at least Fred thinking
things will be easy from now on.
The next day, the Flintstones head back to church, to which the
priest decided “Ok, Morp's kinda not God” and pulls out a tiny
elephant named Peaches and declares it the new God. When somebody
asks what Peaches want, the priest replies “Uh, to have a good
time” causing everybody to be happy...except the other priest who
remarks that the answer was so stupid, he might as well join the
Unitarians...
Wait, there's more than one faith in Bedrock?
Anyway, the Flintstones then go to Bone Depot...
Ha, ha, ha.
...to return their lizard garbage disposal only to be told it had to
be recycled just before getting a bag of assorted...meats...
Ok, how many of you parents blindly bought this comic for your little
one had to explain somethings?
They explore the store, but then the Flintstones find the store has
their own Peaches. Several of 'em. See, turns out the mini elephant
the church wanted people to worship as God...was a vacuum cleaner.
OW! OW! UNSUBTLE THUD HURT ME! OW!
The only saving grace with this bit is that it's hinted, via one of
the preachers yelling the good things the church does like meals on
wheels and that it's giving people meaning that this wasn't a money
making scheme, that it was a way to unite people and make them feel
something other than wanting to bash each other over the head. It's
different, I'll give it that, on the grounds that most of the time,
the joke is that the church behind it are like Oral Roberts or Joel
Osteen, in it for the money and fame vs. making a difference.
But it still doesn't change the fact that in an issue that's shouting
at you “MATERALISM IS BAD, M'KAY,” that the first two Gods they
went to were a record player and a vacuum.
Despite all the positive things the church was doing, the people
leave en-mass and cause the two preachers to think about who to make
God when most of the animals are used for labor...
We'll get to that in a future issue...oog...
...and they just decide to make God invisible, calling him Gerald
because they never got to the naming yet.
I dunno, he looks like a “Bob” or a “Jerry” to me.
While all this is going on, Fred and Barney sell those pills
mentioned earlier, with Barney using his son's strength as BS to get
people to buy and Fred going door to door, able to sell one to a
hippie family...on the grounds they were looking for something to
drop before taking a bath. Seeing he was only getting paid in one
small pebble, Fred smashes the guy's desk and walks away in disgust.
I would've held out for clams, myself.
Eventually, a dejected Fred comes home and tells Wilma what's going
on. Wilma then tells Fred that all the crap around them doesn't mean
anything, that it's human contact she loves the most and whatever
Fred wants to get rid of, he can because, hey, things are things.
Awwwwwwwwwww, that's sweet and touching and really drives home why
the Flintstones are among the best pop culture family/couples out
there.
So, how do they screw it up?
Well, future issues wind up showing the animals that make up the
appliances as the sentient beings they were in the cartoon, but since
humans can't understand them, they just use them and thus the comic
makes said animals a slave allegory...
Oh, we'll get to that in the future.
...so let what Wilma said, and the “Assorted Meats” gag, really
sink in.
As for the screw up within the issue? Fred takes most of the crap
back...
Yes, calling the appliances “Crap” also applies to the whole
slavery allegory in a future issue, let that sink in too.
...but finds, due to one of them being damaged, he can only get some
of it back in store credit and must spend it in the store. The issue
then ends with Fred seeing, in a cage due to being a discontinued
line and about to be recycled, Dino and taking him on the grounds
that he does nothing.
And yes, the other appliances, because of the slave allegory, will
view Dino as an “Uncle Tom.” I already anticipating that review
to be one of the hardest and most shirt tugging to write for obvious
reasons.
Issue 2 gets the ball rolling better on what type of book The
Flintstones will be for the Hanna-Barbara Beyond line and...it's
a mix bag that swings mostly negative to me.
The main problem I have with the issue is that it wants to tell these
jokes about the modern age and all it's issues, and at first it comes
off good that way but then it has to take that one extra step that
yanks it out of being subtle and starts whaling you over the head
with it. After we see the news operate under “It's my first day”
and just flat out calling all the junk people by Crap, the comic
mixes religion into it's anti-materialism message the minute it made
Morp into a record player...then just continued it by making the new
God, Peaches, into a vacuum cleaner.
There were some unique ideas, I like that Fred and Barney aren't
morons, I love how the TV, via the image being black and white, looks
like the same stone color as the houses and taking the phrase “Like
moving pictures” to a new level, the church actually coming up with
Gods and such to make people good, and I thought Wilma asking what a
weed was after Fred buying the goat was funny.
But, again, if you're gonna have a message on how focusing on having
the next new thing is bad or hook your materialism satire into your
religious satire, you need to do it gently. If they took out the
religious stuff and just had the name “Crap” be the end result of
the town just wondering what to name all the stuff they bought and it
caught on in a positive way, it'd be fine. This at least does the
wasteful spending satire ok, but linking it with religious satire is
both a step too far and causes the reader to lose focus on what the
comic is trying to say overall.
Bottom line is that while I can see why this comic has it's fans,
there's too many moments where I could hear the issue yell “GET
IT!? GET IT!? GET IT!?” for me to enjoy it.
And the shouting is only gonna get louder, folks.
FINAL VERDICT: For not knowing when to pull back, to flat out not
knowing when to stop, this movie gets a MEGA ATOMIC DESTRUCTION
B-MOVIE BOMB! Just because the Vertigo formula works on most kids
properties, doesn't mean it works on ALL kids properties. Now, if
you'll excuse me, my folks just got back from returning the
dishwasher and decided suddenly we're having a backyard
B...B...Q...is it too late to go vegan?
