WILMA! Get me my smokes!

I'm not sure if I'll recover from this trauma. A bit of a lead-in: The original Flintstones in the early 1960s was a Honeymooners homage geared toward adults, not the kiddie fare it is now. The first season was sponsored by Winston, and well......*cringe.

What's next, Donald Duck putting a pinch between his cheek and gum?

 

Outstanding!

Here's something else to remind you that everyone's favourite modern stone-age family was really meant to be watched by adults - Fred and Wilma were, after a while, shown sleeping in the same bed. For the early '60s, that would have been very significant. Only a few years earlier, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had enjoyed all the creative control in the world on "I Love Lucy," and yet Lucy and Ricky were never allowed to occupy the same bed. It just wasn't done.

Plus, Pebbles Flintstone didn't just show up one day with no explanation as to how she got there - Wilma's pregnancy was depicted over a series of episodes. All on prime time.

 

Kids everywhere were just pulled from their television sets and have no idea why.

 

Also on I Love Lucy when Lucy was expecting, they were not allowed to say "pregnant".

There's all sorts of early cigarette ads that are a hoot.

I'll see your Flinstones and raise you................A DOCTOR!!

 

Or Bugs Bunny in drag and kissing Elmer Fudd?

 

Warner Brothers believed in equal rights even back then, allowing Bugs to be on top from time to time.

 

While we're busy destroying childhood images, let me pull my favorite Porky Pig clip, one I didn't discover until I went to a Spike and Mike festival in 1992.

Enjoy!

 

I laughed out loud to that one.

 

Fool me once...

 

But.....but...these are cartoons! There couldn't possibly be any adult ideas in them!

(I can't wait to get home and watch those youtube clips).