The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera's, #450, A Little Golden Book Hardcover – January 1, 1961

I was so excited to see this book really DID exist (vs. dreaming it up as a memory from childhood). Seeing the illustrations was like a walk down distant-memory lane!

Before the first Flintstone cartoon aired, artist Mel Crawford created this interesting story of the comical cave folks for the Little Golden Books, which are fondly remembered by baby boomers and early gen-xers. This was produced before, but released after-the airing for the first Flintstone cartoon "The Flintstone Flyer" on Sept. 30, 1960 (the 1959 pilot THE FLAGSTONES nonwithstanding as it was not publicly aired at the time).This book is historically important to CGAs (Cartoon Geeks of America) for three reasons. 1) It shows the Flinstones as originally planned. 2) A Dino prototye named "Harvey" (seen on the cover) appears about a year before the more familiar character, and 3) It marks the only public appearance of Fred Flintstone Jr, who was planned to appear as Fred's son in the show, but was dropped before the first airing for reasons not clear today (sort of the Pete Best of the Flintstones, so to speak). One could easily imagine Walter Tetley (voice of Sherman in the Mr. Peabody cartoons) as Fred Jr.Basically, this is the story of Dino/Harvey coming to live with the Flintstones. Fred Jr. loves him as a playmate, but Fred Sr.-whose personality was well-established at this early stage- resents the beast's heavy (and expensive) appetite and wants him out. The rest of the tale deals with this struggle with an interesting plot twist near the end. Wilma has little to do here, but she sides with her son in the dilemma. The Rubbles don't appear in the book, and the later Flintstones kids Pebbles & Bamm Bamm were a few years away in the future.Overall, its a nice little story that would have made a good episode of the actual show. One blogger has described this book as an "alternative universe edition of the Flinstones." This is true, but its also an entertaining as well as important piece of cartoon history. The Flintstones as they would have been.

Pages torn, cut and folded.