User Reviews

"A Flintstone Family Christmas" is a 23-minute television special from 1993, so this one has its 25th anniversary next year and it is the last directorial effort by prolific filmmaker Ray Patterson. The title already gives away that this one takes us back into the prehistoric world of Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty and it's a special made for holidays. But sadly, I must say here that stones and spirit don't really go together. Perhaps I am a bit biased as I've never been a big fan of Fred in particular and his little buddy included here didn't do too much for me either. Then again maybe I'm not as I have nothing against the series. There is an okay moment here and there for sure, but with the Christmas message and emotional impact they were going for, the film comes really short in my opinion. If there is any reason to see it, it is the comedy, not because that area is particularly great, but because everything else is so mediocre. The voice acting is okay too. If you care about voice actors, you will see one or the other known name like Welker of course. But story is key and there it is just unfulfilling overall. It's just not working out well at all and the Emmy nomination was definitely a bit (too) much. I give this one a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

This was produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired on ABC on December 18, 1993. I can't believe it, but it was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 1994 for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour). This is the weirdest timeline of the series to me as after the events of I Yabba-Dabba Do!, Pebbles - who works for an ad agency - and Bamm-Bamm - who works in a car repair shop - get married and movies to Hollyrock so Bamm-Bamm could be a screenwriter. Two weeks before this movie, Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby aired and introduced the twin children of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, daughter Roxy and son Chip. Who appear to be Capcom palette swaps with Roxy getting white hair in her mother's hairstyle and Chip looking like his dad with red hair.

As they go to get a turkeysaurus for dinner, Fred and Barney are mugged. This points to the darkness of this version of The Flintstones. Yes, the show as originally for adults, yet jokes about drive-by stonings and Charlie Mansonrock are insane, to be perfectly open with you. I mean, do you want to think about an animated Manson Family stabbing Sharon Slate - get it, Tate, I could totally write for The Flintstones - with a dinosaur fork and it looks at the camera, covered in gore and says, "It's a living."

So yeah. They get mugged by Stoneywho Wilma decides to adopt, which leads to Fred getting brutalized in a street fight and hospitalized, causing him to miss being Santa in the Christmas Parade. Stoney responds by kidnapping Mr. Slate, which gets Fred and Stoney in jail together where they bond.

This was the last The Flintstones special to air on ABC. Its first airing was on December 18, 1993. I'm kind of not into grown-up Bamm-Bamm, but super into grown-up Pebbles. Betty and Wilma have not aged at all, nor has anyone else. Amazingly, Stoney seems to come from a street universe that this show never had before. One assumes he was to be the Stephanie to Fred's Archie Bunker but as this was the last movie in this timeline we will never know, huh?

Firstly, let me acknowledge that perhaps I am being a bit too extreme when I toss out the word 'sacrilegious' as it relates to this special. As a moderately religious person myself, I am certainly not an individual who usually goes around passing judgement on these kind of things. But I do raise this question: how on earth can a society living in the stone age celebrate a holiday that honors the birth of Christ?

I suppose we could let this slide (after all, this is not the first Christmas-themed Flintstones special), but there was one particular scene in this special that really took me aback: The Flintstones pose for a Christmas family photograph, which is taken and then shown with the following writing below it: 'Flintstones Christmas BC'. If there was ever an opportunity to use the words 'blasphemy' and 'oxymoron' in the same sentence, that's it.

That aside, this is a pretty bland, by-the-book half-hour of Christmas television viewing. As with most modern Flintstones specials, it doesn't hold a candle to the sheer delightfulness of the original television series. There are better Flintstones Christmas specials than this one.