Thursday, December 26, 2019

Toons After Dark: No Biz Like Show Biz (The Flintstones, 1965)

The Flintstones opened its final season on ABC with a left-handed look at the burgeoning bubblegum pop movement.

As we know, Fred (Alan Reed) has a dream in which Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm become unlikely pre-school pop stars. Here's "No Biz Like Show Biz":

Edit, 2/18/21: The episode has been deleted. In its place is a key scene we've used before, as Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm are discovered doing "Open Your Heart (& Let The Sunshine In)":



While Fred & Barney are channel surfing, trying to find the right station for a game that they soon learn is cancelled, you hear "Roses & Rainbows", written & recorded by Danny Hutton, four years before Three Dog Night took off. Hutton recorded for Hanna-Barbera's music division. Some say it wasn't Hutton heard in the brief clip in this episode. Judge for yourselves, kids.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

magicdog said...


It went over my head at the time I first saw this episode, but the character, "Eppie Brianstone" was obviously a stand in for Brian Epstein - the Beatles' manager.

That definitely sounds like Danny Hutton singing that song, although it does sound like an alternate take. I spoke to Hutton (via the president of his fan club) about his time with HB and said he had left by 1966 since his tunes had stalled on the charts (no doubt due to the glut of great songs that were released between 1964 and 1966). At least once Three Dog Night was formed, he never looked back. Strange though that the image on TV was of a clean shaven Hutton, as he had a mustache at the time (unusual as most rockers at the time were clean shaven), but then again, the animators drew The Beau Brummels to look vaguely Beatles-ish!

My personal favorite pre-TDN song of Hutton's is "Big Bright Eyes". That song is pure pop perfection and deserved a higher place on the charts! If it weren't for the great tunes it had to compete with in 1965, it could have done better.

I can't help but sympathize with Fred over the state of rock music these days! I can't stand Top 40 and find much of today's tunes to be unlistenable. I even have proof!
I recommend The Truth About Popular Music by Paul Joseph Watson on YT. He spells out exactly what went wrong with music today.

hobbyfan said...

There are some live action clips from the same period of Hutton with a 'tache, and you may be right about the alternate take. I have a clip of Cory Wells and his old band, the Enemys, appearing on Beverly Hillbillies, over at The Land of Whatever, so I'm trying to cover as much ground as possible.

I listen to an oldies channel these days on the radio. Ah, the memories.