Gazoo: All bad or a silver lining?

[88fingers]

As mentioned in the thread (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=232156)about Pebbles, I started saying my opinion that Gazoo changed The Flintstones even more than Pebbles' birth. There had been some supernatural or fantasy elements before Gazoo, including aliens, fairy godmother-types, time travel and dream sequences. But having a recurring character from another time capable of magic generated a very different tone. Gazoo gets a lot of flack, a la Scrappy for weighing down Scooby Doo.

Still, I think some of the highlights of the sixth and final season were some of the Gazoo episodes. Maybe that's not saying much, since the sixth season is overall problematic (though I tend to feel it is a little better than the fifth season). The Gazoo episode on my mind that I enjoy is The Long, Long, Long Weekend, where Gazoo transports the Flintstones and Rubbles into the future. It's a sort of test run for The Jetsons, and a must-see for any Jetsons fan, but even putting that aside I think it's a very special episode and really fleshes out the perspective on Bedrock. We even see Slate's descendant. The episode adds a lot to the series as a whole.

How to Pick a Fight with your Wife Without Really Trying, a few episodes earlier, in which Gazoo advises Fred to treat Wilma as a child, is an example of a low point for Gazoo.

Anyone else have a Gazoo episode that you actually *like*?

[Eric B]

I like how they expanded the format to become more adventurous that season, and to some extent in the previous season (including even some of the new "action-adventure" score made for Johnny Quest). Of couse, all of these episodes did not have Gazoo.
Stonefinger Caper was a good one with him (sort of a followup to "Dr. Sinester").

Also, this last season was made three years after the Jetsons, so the Long, Long Weekend scene was not a test bed for the Jetsons, but more likely reused backgrounds from it!

[88fingers]

Thanks for the correction, I had my years mixed up in my head re: The Jetsons.

[Fibber Fox]

Anyone else have a Gazoo episode that you actually *like*?

88, I wish something would stick out. But all my memory tells me is Gazoo was a contrived idea and too much of a stretch for me to accept him as a character, let alone have any feelings toward him.

It's too bad because I love Harvey Korman. He would have been great doing wilder characters on Jay Ward cartoons.

F. Fox
http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com

[Cartoon X]

Gazoo was my favorite character in the show in season 6. Seasons 1 thru 5 it was Fred.:p

[Mr Flintstone]

I actually like Gazoo. I wish he was in more episodes. Actually, I liked all the added characters including Hoppy.

[stephane dumas]

Does episode 88 was the episode where Gazoo menaged to save Fred and Barney from a big prehistoric lion as well as one bad scientist and his 2 henchmens because they counfused Barney with a well-known scientist?

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

When I was a kid, I liked Gazoo. I imagine he was put in there for the kids, and for me it worked.

I haven't seen the Gazoo episodes in years though. I do think they add a fantasy element to the show that for the most part really wasn't there for most of the run, with the exception of the odd episode (the alien Fred clones come to mind) and the fact that it was a pseudo-prehistoric setting. I wouldn't say that's bad, but perhaps many fans would have preferred it if they did it in another show, instead of changing the one they liked.

[88fingers]

Stephane, you're thinking of The Stonefinger Caper, one of at least two episodes where Gazoo has to get Fred and Barney out of evil villains' dens. It's also one of (at least) two episodes in the last season where Barney is mistaken for some important figure. I guess they were tired of having Fred have a double, which they had done so many times by that point.

[RonDrakenfan17]

Meh I didn't mind him but than I also am one of those who didn't mind Scrappy either.

[Steve Carras]

Stephane, you're thinking of The Stonefinger Caper, one of at least two episodes where Gazoo has to get Fred and Barney out of evil villains' dens. It's also one of (at least) two episodes in the last season where Barney is mistaken for some important figure. I guess they were tired of having Fred have a double, which they had done so many times by that point.


"The Stonefinger Caper" also had Fred & Barney snubbing the Great Gazoo, for them to actually call for him was a real big event..when they were caught. Harvey "Gazoo" Korman was billed on the end credits as doing all incidental voices.. also the other one was "Royal Rubble", which also had Harvey [at least co-credited], but NO GAZOO!

[Still HowardFein]

Also, this last season was made three years after the Jetsons, so the Long, Long Weekend scene was not a test bed for the Jetsons, but more likely reused backgrounds from it!

Yes, the episode seemed almost a precursor for The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones teleflick made more than 20 years later- at least in terms of how the gang reacts to the futuristic trappings and gadgets. And of course, loads of Curtin underscore originally created for THE JETSONS was used in the episode- but that was nothing unusual, since virtually every comedic H-B cartoon made between 1964 and '67 recycled Jetson score as well.

Actually, I thought Gazoo provided some amusing interplay with his adopted 'dum-dums'- in part due to a nicely insouciant vocal performance by Harvey Korman. In the early seasons, Fred and Barney seemed to have a lot of regular bowling and pool buddies, most of whom changed from episode to episode. But by Season 6, they only seemed to have each other for companionship. So it was nice to see them have a new 'buddy'- even if he was an alien.

The series' sci-fi/adventure angle had already become noticeable the previous season, with the gang time traveling through history and two consecutive episodes set in the 'West'. (There would be another Western foray late in Season 6.) So Gazoo at least provided a reason for more ambitious storylines, although it turned out he was used more often to solve a domestic problem (Seeing Doubles, Curtain Call at Bedrock) or get the boys in and out of trouble (The Stonefinger Caper, Two Men on a Dinosaur).

Someone else in this thread stated that Gazoo's advice or assistance would often backfire. That may have been the point; 'Gaz' himself explained in his premiere episode that he's "also a bit of a kook". Hence how he could cause Fred to lose his job in The Gravelberry Pie King and nearly his marriage in How To Pick A Fight With Your Wife Without Trying.

It's also noticeable that episodes with Gazoo hardly feature the kids at all- although they became less prominent in the storylines in Season 6 anyway. One very late Gazoo-featured episode, Jealousy, completely eschews the kids and pets, concentrating on Fred's faking an illness in order to make a bowling match backfiring badly (talk about a classical series element!). That episode is also noticeable for Gazoo turning Barney into a girl so that Fred might make Wilma's dashing escort jealous. Rather daring for prime-time in 1966!;)

[Brainatra]

Thought Gazoo was OK, though did stick out in the setting in retrospect.

I enjoyed "... Weekend" as well. Nice to see Bedrock apparently is destined to last into the far-future... meaning it apparently exists in the present day, as well. ;-) (Though I do recall a "Capt Caveman" segment on the 80's Flintstones Comedy Show showing some time-traveling villain from what might've been present-day Bedrock...).

-B.

[88fingers]

One interesting aspect of Gazoo was he served as a stand-in for us, since we, also, are from the "future" and know what the Flintstones don't yet know (one of the highlights of the episode "Time Machine" in Season 5 are the gang siding with the mutineers aboard Christopher Columbus's ship that the earth is flat).

Love him or hate him, it's too bad there wasn't any closure for Gazoo by the end, and that he never showed up in a spin-off (except for the second live action movie, which as a prequel couldn't give much closure!). The last episode we see him in, My Fair Freddy, does leave off suggesting he had "at last" done a great deed--and maybe we can read into it that he finally got to go home. Too bad he didn't show up settled and comfortable in the future in The Jetsons meet The Flintstones.

[MeanMachine00]

If you are familiar with the TV term "jumping the shark" some think the Flintstones series "jumped the shark" with the introduction of Gazoo.

[Eric B]

First night of the Flintstones replacing Duck Dodgers, and they're playing the Stonefinger Caper. They just called Gazoo, as I am writing!