5 years after The Flintstones had ended production, Hanna-Barbera decided to return to Bedrock, but time apparently moved even faster there, as Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm were now teenagers, the idea being that CBS wanted to load up on teen-oriented cartoons as much as possible, with Pebbles joining H-B stablemates Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (3rd season) and Josie & the Pussycats (2nd) and Filmation's Archie's TV Funnies & Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Sally Struthers (All In The Family) was heard as Pebbles, while Jay North (ex-Dennis the Menace, Here Comes The Grump) voiced Bamm-Bamm. Due to her Family commitments, Struthers left the series after the first season, as Pebbles was rebooted as part of the Flintstone Comedy Hour.
Here's the intro:
Pebbles did inherit one trait from her father, Fred (Alan Reed). A penchant for outlandish ideas and schemes that, despite the best of intentions, always seemed to fall apart at the most inopportune of times.
Despite a series of prime time specials in recent years that followed Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm all the way to the altar, advertisers seem to prefer them to remain eternal toddlers, as witnessed in recent ads for the Pebbles line of cereals from Kraft's Post division. As The Flintstones marks its 50th anniversary today, you wonder if or when WB will finally do the right thing and restore Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm to adulthood and create a new series around them as a sort of Flintstones: The Next Generation, if you will. The format change in '72 suggests that despite the lineage, viewers didn't feel the kids could carry a show on their own, even with their parents around.
Rating: B.
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