Yabba D
abba (Dabba Dabba )Doo |
|
By mid-1962, after only 18 months on the air, The Flintstones were
already something of a phenomenon in 4 ways proving:
1)
not only could a studio rather shamelessly produce a rather transparent
re-working of Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners and not get sued if it was
funny enough,
2)
not only would it find a new audience in a culture that was already beginning
to feel more and more of an influence from television as a medium,
3)
not only could the new show work as a cartoon,
but
4) that you could also drop it into a major network's primetime schedule
and it would still be a hit. |
Years later The Simpsons would do
exactly the same thing, with some some thematic tweaking, and up-dates, and
a lot of people would have the nerve to act surprised. |
Before too long, well wishers and celebrity friends of the show's
production team were wanting to get in on the fun, with a large number of
celebrity guests demanding their agents to get them a spot on the show. To
be honest, the proof was in the pudding as to how applicable a lot of those
appearences were to the format that made The Flintsones work. Some
episodes involved funny walk-ons (the "Stony Curtis" show comes to mind)
that didn't draw heat from the true stars of the show, where other more elaborate
"vehicle" episodes (the "Bewitched", or "Meet Ann Margrock" episodes, for
instance) show how poorly the format fares when you get away from the simple
Honeymooner Bedrock concept of Fred and Barney trying to make a wave when
they can. This excerpt from a second-season episode called "The Hit Song
Writers" is proof of how good the pudding could taste, sometimes. Hoagy Carmichael,
composer of classic standards like "Stardust", "Ol' Buttermilk Sky
" and "Heart and Soul" threw his hat in the ring with a song and did
his own voice work for the episode to boot.
So why, out of all the songs featured on The Flintstones that have
been carved into our collective memories after 40 years of syndication, is
this one up before any others?. This is a reasonable question, given the
cultural niche a lot of the songs have assumed. A remarkable number
of people remember the if-you've-heard-it-
once-you-probably-still-know-how-it-goes"
lyrics to the "Rockenspiel Jingle" (See your Happy Hubby, Keep Your Hubby
Happy...) or "The Car-hop Song (Here We Come, On The Run With a Burger On
a Bun)". Try going to an anniversary and *not* hearing someone sing "Happy
Anniversary" to the tune of the William Tell Overture. Its inescapable, that
one... |
|
Ultimately, I
chose the sentimental front runner, remembering how, upon hearing this song
for the first time in about 10 years, it brought tears of joy to my otherwise
quite stoic friend Stuart's eyes. Although I love the way each trumpet or
horn sting in response to the lines of the lyric all the way through the
piece acts as the musical equivalent of an exclamation mark, its the middle
section that I'm particularly fond of . Between the two repeats of Betty
& Wilma joining in on the chorus, Fred and Barney engage in a "Duelin'
Pianos" session not unlike Ferrente & Teischer and we are treated to
the Hanna Barbera House Orchestra horn section throwing a Capital-Eff-Fit
. Of the many many wonderful tuneful moments featured on "The 'Stones", in
my humble opinion, this is as good as Modern Stone-Age Music ever got. |
Download
Yabba Dabba (Dabba Dabba) Doo
in MP3 format
(2.3 Mb file) |
|
|