Disappointed with "The Flintstones" commercial choices?
 

I have to say this right off the bat, I love having Season One of the Flintstones in my hands finally! All 28 episodes have never looked better and they are mine forever now. The only problem is that I am spoiled because I have "The Flintstones: The First 14 Episodes" LD Box Set and there is nothing like sitting down and watching Fred and Barney light up a "cool Winston" and then get slammed by the wives! Priceless!! I had every intention of putting the LD box on eBay to purge yet some more of my wonderful LD collection but Nooooooooooo. In this "wonderful" day and age of political correctness and edited history, we can't show our children what REALLY happened when we were kids. You'd think that this editorial "cleaning" was put on by the same folks at Disney who have forgotten "Song of the South". Alas, the LD box will stay in my collection because now I can never part with it. Oh well, my wife will just have to understand that you can't purge everything.

Can you explain what you're talking about? Did they alter some of the cartoons? Did they not include certain extras on the LD?

I think he's referring to commercial advertising that was done when the show originally aired.

It was included as an Extra Feature on the LD, apparantly, and he would have liked to have seen these commercials included in the DVD set.

Can't say I blame him. It would have been a nice addition.

Re: Disappointed with "The Flintstones" commercial choices?
 

I used to own that LD set, and I copied all the extras to DVD before I sold the set. Unfortunately, I never did backup the DVD and later on, the disk got damaged. Now I really wish I had those extras from the set again. STNGMan, you should consider getting a DVD recorder, and copying those Flintstones LD extras onto DVD...I have a feeling with all the political correctness going on, that those Winston commercials may never work their way onto the DVD sets. By the way, if you ever do copy the extras onto DVD, please let me know, as I would just LOVE to get a copy from you.

Carlos.

http://www.cardhouse.com/a/flint/flintb3.gif
Nothin' like the cool taste of Winston, huh Barn?

I saw that Flintstones Winston commercial in a class back in high school....i couldnt stop laughing.

This <a href="http://www.tvparty.com/vaultcomcig.html">link</a> has the said ad in streaming video, plus a few other vintage cigarette ads as well.

Ha, that's great! :lol:

Something really bizarre about cartoon characters you watched as a kid participating in adult behavior. Only thing stranger would be footage of Fred shtooping Wilma.

"Something really bizarre about cartoon characters you watched as a kid participating in adult behavior. Only thing stranger would be footage of Fred shtooping Wilma."

Reminds me of a joke when I was a kid:
Fred and Wilma are both naked:

Wilma : "What's that?"
Fred : "That is my rock -- what it that?"
Wilma : "That's my rock crusher"
Fred: " If I put my rock in your rock crusher, we would make Pebbles"

Lame, I know -- but was funny when I was 10

I really don't think that leaving out ads constitutes political correctness or purging.

I beg to differ. There are other similar sponsor commericals on there: Alka Seltzer, One-a-Day Vitamins and Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles cereal. Only the cigarette ads are specifically omitted.

Sorry, folks, that I didn't specify the commercial spots in the body of this topic but I assumed that the thread topic (Disappointed with "The Flintstones" commercial choices?) was enough to understand my subject matter. Per the LD box set, Warner left out the Winston cigarette and Welch's Grape Jelly commercial spots. Does anyone remember the cool drinking glasses that Welch's grape jelly used to come in back in the day? My sisters and I used to fight over who got to use the glass once the jelly was gone. The lack of volume and the fact that there is no Post cereal logo in the Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles spots tells me that Warner apparently didn't get permission from Post. The same is likely the case with the deletion of the Welch's spots. I'm usually not a complainer but I was just bummed about the commercial spots since it was hyped pre-release. Wah, wah, wah....

The problem with a set such as this is that you basically have two groups buying the set:

1. Adults who enjoyed the show when they were children, and who would appreciate the historical signficance of the cigarette ad.

2. Parents buy the show for their children as harmless entertainment, and don't expect to see that kind of content.

What's the solution? I don't know. Two seperate releases?

The commercials are not part of the episodes. They are extras. As long as the actual episodes are unedited, then there is no purging.

I realize they were extras... -rolleyes- They were included on the LD set and not on the DVD set. While one can speculate that they were not included because of permission from the company, I think it would be more LIKELY that they were left out for political correctness sake (also perhaps Winston felt that agreeing to include them would be analagous to "Joe Camel"). I don't see how you are arguing any sort of reason for them being omitted just issuing a blanket disagrement. -rolleyes-

I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually the tobacco company that wouldn't allow the commercials to be put on the DVD. They don't want people to remember how they used to market to kids.

That's interesting because when the laserdisc format was released about 6-20 yrs ago, they released many titles that would be considered politically incorrect today and would probably not be released on DVD today. The Flintstones laserdisc contained the smoking commercials, and the Looney Tunes cartoon laserdiscs contained alot of cartoons that would be considered racist today, many of which probably will never be released on DVD.

I can see it now.. Flintstones Gone Wild rotfl

In light of my previous post, I think the very nature of Laserdiscs made it most everybody buying cartoons on it were adult collectors, and not parents buying for their kids.

With DVD, it's a much bigger market, and you have to tread a lot more carefully.

Sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad, I suppose.

The commercial can easily be downloaded on Kazaa. Then you can get rid of your LD!

By the way are any of the cartoons censored?

The laserdisc can be easily copied onto a DVD recorder, as laserdiscs have no copy protection.

As for the cartoons being censored, if you mean the Flintstones, no I believe they are all complete and uncut :)

CP

I don't care whether they are included or not. They are extras, and not the reason I purchase the set. My argument is that the set has not been purged nor rendered politically correct because ads were not included in the extras.

Did Warner Bros somehow lead customers to believe that commerical would be on there? I personally don't care if it's on there or not, I've seen the commerical (on VHS, unfortunately) and really have no desire to see it again, but I totally understand why somebody would want it.

I really couldn't see how parents would be worried their kids being exposed to such content. If they take up smoking becaue of a bonus feature on a DVD, they have more problems than the parents are willing to admit.

I think the reason it's not on there is corporate uptightness. But I am happy to have the season set at all, so I don't mind either way. Now if we could only get our Batman TAS sets!

Perhaps some kind soul could help those of us who would like to have this with our FLINTSTONES sets? :blush:

I have a DVD recorder as well as a laserdisc player. If anyone has the Flintstones laserdisc, and is willing to lend it to me, I would be happy to copy the extras onto DVD, and offer copies to anyone here who is interested, for just the price of the blank DVD and shipping costs.

CP