Monday, May 21, 2018

Toons After Dark: Fred Flintstone as The Dabba Don (Harvey Birdman, Attorney-At-Law, 2002)

The Sopranos was one of the hottest cable shows at the time it was being parodied on Harvey Birdman, Attorney-at-Law during the latter's 1st season.

Fred Flintstone (voiced here by Maurice LaMarche) envisions himself as a Tony Soprano type, and tries to work out a business deal with Harvey (Gary Cole), while Peanut, the former Birdboy, is trying to insinuate himself with "Freddie". Archived footage from The Flintstones is used with new dialogue dubbed over.

Edit, 4/22/2020: The video was deleted. All we have now is this intro to the episode.



Why bring this up? Because [adult swim] is bringing Harvey back from the dead in an all-new special airing later this year. Cole and Stephen Colbert will return. With Colbert a little extra busy these days with the Late Show on CBS, one wonders if he'll promote the special.

One of the better episodes of the series, which from this desk isn't saying much.

Rating: B-.

6 comments:

Jeff said...

Harvey Birdman was the peak of early Adult Swim's "new shows made from animation lifted from old shows" era.

hobbyfan said...

I think there was just Harvey and Sealab 2021 in that category, and this was the better of the two. In all, it was Williams St. being lazy.

Silverstar said...

There was also Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, which started it all, its' creation led to the birth of Williams Street (formerly Ghost Planet Industries), which also gave rise to Toonami and the [adult swim] block as a whole. But yeah, while some of them provided a few chuckles here and there (early Sealab with Harry Goz as Captain Hazel Murphy had its' moments), these were a mixed bag overall.

hobbyfan said...

Not sure if SGC2C recycled any 1966 footage, though it wouldn't surprise me, as I didn't watch the show regularly.

Silverstar said...

The early eps did, as on Cartoon Planet. After the show became popular (particularly after it migrated to [as]), the artists began using original art and animation for the Ghost Planet characters alongside the recycled animations.

hobbyfan said...

I remember they did run some of the old shorts on Cartoon Planet.