The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show the Complete Series(2008).
© Turner Home Entertainment

Mania Grade: B-
Rating: Unrated
Starring (Voices): Sally Struthers, Jay North, Lennie Weinrib, Mitzi McCall, Alan Reed, Jean Vander Pyl, Mel Blanc, Don Messick
Written By: Neal F. Barbera, Walter Black, Larz Bourne
Directed By: Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Charles A. Nichols
Distributor: Turner Home Entertainment
Original Year of Release: 2008
Extras: 4 bonus episodes of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show that aired on The Flintstones Comedy Hour, Trailers

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The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show

Back in the hay day of Saturday morning cartoons one could sit from 6:30 a.m. all the way to noon and be entertained. Watching Dungeons and Dragons, Thundarr the Barbarian, Blackstar, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and Pac Man were weekly rituals. Ideally these shows should have been on back to back to back but they were not. What played in between were the likes of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show. Something I never watched. With the release of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show on DVD I thought a viewing might be fun and why not? Joseph Barbera and William Hanna are two masters of their craft. Getting into my pajamas I sat in front of the TV to watch some cartoons on a Saturday morning.

There are a total of twenty episodes to The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, sixteen regular episodes and four that came from The Flintstones Comedy Hour. The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show which originally aired in 1971 was a teen sitcom based on the late sixties. “Groovy” being the catch phrase of the show and celebrities like Mick Jadestone and the Rolling Boulders, Arnold Palmrock, Jack Webbrock and Col. Starrock also solidified that the Flintstones may have lived in the fifties but their children were now in the sixties. 

The title characters are Fred Flintstone’s (Alan Reed) and Barney Rumble’s (Mel Blanc) kids in high school and dating each other. Unfortunately for Bamm-Bamm (Jay North) it appeared as if Pebbles (Sally Struthers) was a prude and nothing more than a tease that constantly gets him into trouble. What was amazing was that the plots and their devices mirror The Simpsons in a lot of ways. When the stories began they seemed like episodes of Three’s Company however, they usually ended nowhere near where they started. I’m not saying that The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show is the lost gem of Saturday morning cartoons but it did have some surprises in its storytelling abilities. 

Shockingly enough “Frog for a Day” is a story that would never be on TV today. Pebbles is studying to be a real witch in the hopes to add to her performance as a witch in the school play. There are wizards and witches populated in pop culture but a story that deals with learning witch craft on whim to get even with the school beauty queen? Such a story would not air in today’s uptight culture.

On a grander scale The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show also gave an interesting look into another TV classic. The Flintstones (1960) had been based on The Honeymooners (1955) which featured Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) and Ed Norton, (Art Carney) the Fred and Barney of their day. The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show is a glimpse into what could have been in the cards for those characters if they would have had children. 

The show was still fun even though it felt dated. More often than not I found myself counting how many times there were talking animal appliances (8), wondered why Penny (Mitzi McCall) always called Moonrock (Lennie Weinrib) a creep even though he never did anything creepy and cheered every time Schleprock (Don Messick) appeared leading to the inevitable destruction of everything around him. Sitting through it again will never be an option but for one Saturday it was great to relax and watch some retro cartoons.