The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons and Then Sell Computers

Here's a nifty piece of modern animation featuring Fred & Barney along with George Jetson as they pitch some new laptop computer. This short cartoon was produced for stores to play on their wall of TVs or I guess computer screens. See if you can identify the different movie clips used in this short. The last one is pretty sweet!

Baltimore Comic-Con

I've always wanted to go to a comic book or science fiction convention just for the experience of it. We've all seen them mocked in movies and television for years, but I wanted to check one out in person. Since my 6 year-old son is all about everything superhero related I thought it would be a great way for him and I to spend the afternoon together. This past weekend we headed into the big city for the 2009 Baltimore Comic-Con held at the Baltimore Convention Center.

The show took up three convention halls. The space was mostly divided between comic book vendors and comic book creators. There were numerous comic book dealers set up selling millions of books both new and old. You could really stock up on your library with the tons of 50 cents and one dollar books. I've always tended to enjoy cartoon comic books more, especially Disney and Hanna-Barbera (big shock there!). It seems all the Flintstones comics now sell for at least $20.00 an issue. I'm not that avid of a fan that I need to drop twenty bucks on one comic book.

It was also neat to see all the artists and small publishers who put out their own material. There was lots of neat artwork to look at and there were even a few artists who have been inspired by the recent Disney/Marvel buy out. Legendary Disney comic artist Don Rossa was there singing his art. I was tempted to buy a piece but never actually did. One of the "underground" comics that was represented at the show was a guy named "Dominator". He was even there, himself, to meet and greet the fans. Even though we've never heard of this guy, Elias was excited to meet a real live superhero. (You can read more about Dominator in this Baltimore Sun article.)

There was some video dealers at the show who were selling DVDs, not of the legit/legal variety. But they had complete series sets of any show you could possibly ever imagine. I was tempted to pick up The Wuzzles or Electra Woman and Dyna Girl but they were kinda pricey. After we left, It dawned on me that I should have looked for the #1 Convention Item of All Time: The Star Wars Holiday Special. But again, I didn't!

My favorite freebie at the convention was a Saw VI lollipop! Why not!?

Elias and I were both most looking forward to seeing people dressed in costume. We saw quite a few Star Wars guys and there was a really good Blade walking around. We saw more than one Joker. There was a Willy Wonka - Tim Burton style, a couple of slutty Wonder Women, and pretty cool looking Ghostbuster. Elias' favorite was...
...this guy from the new G.I. Joe movie. All these guys were so super-friendly too! My favorite fan costume was easily...

...Jane Jetson! It was nice to know that someone else also has a homemade Hanna-Barbera inspired costume. Pretty sweet, eh!?

All's Fair In Love and H-B

The York Fair (open through tomorrow) is filled with all sorts of fun things to do, good things to eat and just a bunch of other wacky stuff thrown in for good measure. As soon as we arrived at the fair I noticed a pizza vendor who was also selling soda in Jetsons' water bottles. That's kind of random, don't ya think!? They don't even make water bottles like that anymore, that's definitely and early 90's product. I joked that the Jetsons' bottles had probably been sitting around since Jetsons The Movie came out when I was in high school. Of course I bought one of these Jetsons' bottles and low and behold the copyright date under the picture of George and Astro is 1990 (the year the movie came out!) It didn't matter, I was happy as a clam walking around the fair on a cool late summer evening sipping Diet RC cola out of a 19 year old Jetsons' water bottle. Good times!

For no good reason at all, I also had to snap this picture of a giant Pebbles Flintstone doll that was a prize as some midway game. I think it was at the game where you have to toss a ball into a basket. I had to restrain myself from playing the game, not because of the Pebbles prize but because I'm pretty good at the game on Carnival Games on Wii and it's hard to remember that there's a big difference between playing a video game and doing something in real life. (Don't ask me about the time I tried to smash a giant gorilla with a mallet!)

I did other stuff at the fair too besides look for Hanna-Barbera goodies. There was a Navy recruiter who had a flight simulator ride on the back of a flatbed truck. It was just like the ones you've seen at amusement parks, a little smaller - it sat about 12-15 people. I was looking forward to riding it. I'm a big fan of flight simulators and blatant in-your-face promotions, but the ride just turned out to be about 7 very long minutes of flying around in an airplane listening to pilots mumble into their headsets. It was no Star Tours! And we didn't join the Navy.

The fair this year is also home to the World's Largest Snake, the World's Smallest Woman, the World's Largest Cow and a few other midway oddities. We didn't pay to see any of those, even though I'm a sucker for that kind of gimmick. We did, however, go inside a home that was carved out inside a giant Redwood tree. That's something you don't see everyday. We also saw a Don Knotts impersonator which would be another thing you don't see everyday.

In the Good Eats Department, I was able to cross something off my Food Bucket List - I finally got my hands on a Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. Holy Crap....oh-so-good! If you're thinking that probably took a few years off my life then the delicious Fried Cheddar I also had probably shed another year or two from my lifeline!

10 Best Movies With Robots in Them

A comment from a reader lead me to create this random list about some of my favorite robot-based movies off all-time. I'll appologize to Brian in CA in advance for not including The Transformers in this list. With so many other robots out there providing wacky hi-jinks, just turing into a car isn't enough to get you on my list!


Not Quite Human (1987) Here's the first of three old school Disney Channel movies staring Hollywood Alan Thicke who builds a life like robot and then adopts him as his son. He calls his new invention Chip...get it!? Only Thicke's daughter knows her new brother is a robot, so when Chip goes off to school you can imagine all the hilarity that ensues as Becky tries to cover up all the robot things Chip does. Great movie followed by the equally great Not Quite Human II and Still Not Quite Human. (I gotta dig out my tapes of these!)

Chopping Mall (a.k.a. Killbots) (1986) Seriously, you haven't experienced cinema until you've layed your eyes on this masterpiece. And yes, I've mentioned this movie before...you can read more on it in an October 2006 post of WWoB.

The Iron Giant (1999) This movie is crazy good! At first you think you're just watching a really good animated fantasy and then you find yourself smack in the middle of a beautiful story about humanity and fearing the unknown. All crap sensors off: this is a wonderful movie that gets overlooked.

Seeing Double (2003) Crap sensors reengaged: Seeing Double is the feature film debut of the super popular British pop group S Club 7. Never heard of them? That's because they were popular in England, although their TV series did linger around on the Fox Family Channel for quite sometime. In this big screen adventure, an evil scientist makes robotic clones of the members of S Club and attempts to cash in on their success without the groups knowledge. If you like movies where the entire cast breaks out into song for no reason what-so-ever than pull up a chair and get ready to be entertained my friend!


Star Wars (1977) Obviously at this point in time, the world of Star Wars has taken on a life of it's own. But for my money, the original 1977 version of the movie...without added special effects...without "Episode IV" plastered all over it, is pure movie goodness. There's lots of robots and droids and all kinds of things in Star Wars but you just can't beat R2-D2 and C3-PO as two of the greatest characters ever created for film!

Jetsons: The Movie (1990) There's robots all over the place in this big screen adaptation of the classic 60's television series. You got Rosie the robot maid, you got all those robot arms brushing the Jetson's teeth and getting them dressed, in the movie the Jetsons even have a family of robots as their new next door neighbors! Jetsons: The Movie came out at a time when computer animation was still new, and it was used in conjunction with traditional hand drawn cell animation. Some of the shots in this movie using (a touch of) CG are still beautiful today. The film's major drawback is the decision to replace the original voice of Judy Jetson with that of pop singer Tiffany. Yuck!

Wall-E (2008) An absolute masterpiece of a film, nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Film of the year. If you don't believe me, how good this film is, go to a place where movies are sold or rented and buy it...or rent it!

Short Circuit (1986) Any movie where a robot (or alien) learns to speak English from watching TV, you know you're in for a good time. And so, little cute robot Johnny 5 makes wise cracks and does cute un-robot like things in this 80's classic. Along with primo robot action, you'll witness Steve Guttenberg, G.W. Bailey, and Fisher Stevens all at the top of their game. This is one of those movies that alot of people my age watched a million times as it came out around the time VCR's were starting to become more common. It was so popular that Short Circuit 2 came out a few years later. It made me cry when Johnny 5 got beat up in a dark alley!

Heartbeeps (1981) OMG! This is too good a movie for words! Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Petters play two robots along with two other robots escape the robot factory for a life of freedom. Of course, the robot factory has to send out a Police robot to capture them and bring them back. So good folks! My neighbor and I used to watch this everytime it came on The Movie Channel when we were little. Then the movie disappeared for the longest time and was reissued in the late 90's when the Andy Kaufman biopic came out. I rejoiced at my purchase of this great film on video.





C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979) Ladies and gentlemen, this is a movie that is so fantastically awesome that not only does it make the top of my Robot Movie List - it's also the top spot on my Dog Movie List. A robot dog, people! A robot dog! Does it get any better than this!? He's a home security system but he looks like a regular ol' dog. Boy, does he fool the bad guys! Let's get serious here for a moment folks...if you don't go out and find yourself a copy of C.H.O.M.P.S...or Heartbeeps for that matter, you are doing yourself and everyone else in your close immediate circle of family and friends a huge disservice.

The Way Cartoons Were Meant To Be Seen

One of the many sad things about the state of the world our children are growing up in is the lack of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Saturday morning was just about the best part of the week for any child growing up in the 60's, 70's or 80's. Before the days of 24-hour Nickelodeon and 52 other channels showing cartoons half the time, Saturday mornings were the only chance kids had to watch shows made for them. If you have kids, you owe it to them to pick up at least one of these two new super sweet DVD sets coming out in May.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are two disc sets featuring some awesome shows gathered from several different production companies and studios and assembled together in one spot to recreate the pure joy of Saturday mornings of past. And these discs are gonna feature some truly great shows.

The first volume covers the 1960's. The lineup is to include Top Cat, Peter Potamus, Secret Squirel, The Flintstones, Porky Pig, Quick Draw McGraw, Jetsons, Marine Boy, Space Ghost, Herculoids (holy crap I loves me some Herculoids!), Frankenstien Jr. and the Maggila Gorilla Show. Good Stuff!


The 70's volume has got some of my all-time favorites making their DVD debut. How awesome is going to be to watch a little Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch?! Such a great cartoon! Then we'll top that off with some Roman Holidays. Classic!! Plus there's some other jems like Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy (how awesome is he?), Josie and the Pussycats (I've got the whole series on DVD...but I'll still watch it here), Yogi's Gang, and how about some Amazing Chan and the Chan Gang for ya. There's also Jetsons, The Tarzan/Batman Adventure Hour, Hong Kong Phooey, Scooby Doo and the Funky Phantom.


Can you say: Awesome!?!


As the cool kids say, these DVDs drop May 19th. They are available for pre-order on Amazon.

Still The Greatest Ride Ever

If you want to hear me drone on for endless hours about something then just bring up the old Hanna-Barbera ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. In fact, I went into great detail about the ride a couple of years ago in a rather lenghty post here on WWoB. For those of you not in the know, the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera ride was a motion-simulator style ride where guests boarded little spaceships to help Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo find Elroy Jetson while traveling through the worlds of The Flintsones, Scooby-Doo, and The Jetsons. I swear, I've never smiled harder than when I was on that ride.

Universal Studios decided to replace this awesome ride with some lame attraction staring Jimmy Neutron. (Let me just point out that Jimmy Neutron is already done and over with while the Hanna-Barbera characters remain treasured icons of American pop culture). However, now thanks to the wonders of YouTube we can all experience the complete awesomeness of this ride. I found this video of the film used in the attraction. This isn't someone's home video recording, this is a copy of the actual film. Enjoy and feel free to move your chair around while watching this film...