Alan Reed -- Christmas is My Fav'rite Time of Year/Dino the Dinosaur

 

Last week's Reminiscings of Youth article was on Shirley Bassey's immortal "Goldfinger" which was released in the United States on December 22nd 1964. Three days later on Xmas Day itself, this special episode of the famous cartoon "The Flintstones" came out known as either "Christmas Flintstone" or "How the Flintstones Saved Christmas". 

I never knew the title of the show or even when it first aired. I only know that the episode lines up with my memories of Christmas animation which includes any of the Rankin and Bass classics and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" which wouldn't air for the first time until a year later. "Christmas Flintstone" was something that we watched every year since we got to see good ol' Fred Flintstone actually use his loud personality for something that wouldn't actually get him into trouble. He got to be Santa Claus for about 24 hours.

Original Fred Flintstone voice actor Alan Reed was also behind the two songs used in "Christmas Flintstone". The overarching one was "Christmas is My Fav'rite Time of Year" which is about as sugary and as Christmas as any Yuletide cookie and has remained in my head since I was a little kid, always to pop up during this time of year. According to blog "YOWP: Stuff About Early Hanna-Barbera Cartoons", a fellow named John McCarthy was the one behind this song which is the highlight of the episode.

McCarthy was also behind the other song performed by Santa Freddie, "Dino the Dinosaur" which actually has the Flintstones' pet painted in a heroic light instead of comic relief, albeit anecdotally, as the lizard gets a Christmas tree for some kiddies and somehow has the wherewithal to trim it correctly, too. Good ol' Fred and Dino! Saving the day for Xmas...in the prehistoric age.

So, that was the final Xmas-based ROY article for 2023, but this will be a continuation of the Flinstones' saga on KKP. I already have an article out for the famous theme song and I've realized that there are a few more songs from the original series alone that deserve mention as a ROY. Anyways, as with last week's "Goldfinger" article, I will be picking a couple of more prize winners from the 1964 Japan Record Awards to display as what was getting the accolades at around the same time when the Flintstone Christmas special was out.

Best New Artist: Teruhiko Saigo -- Kimi dake wo（君だけを）

Best Songwriting: The Peanuts -- Una Sera di Tokyo （ウナ・セラ・ディ東京）

The Randy Van Horne Singers -- Meet the Flintstones

 

Before "The Simpsons", there were "The Flintstones", that modern Stone Age family. It was a daily ritual for me and my brother as kids to watch the antics of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as they got through the daily grind in Bedrock while sometimes taking on side gigs which would usually end badly in front of their long-suffering spouses, Wilma and Betty respectively. Fred and Barney's favourite pastime of bowling wasn't lost on me since my father was also a fan of hitting the pins.

I always got a kick out of the snarky comments out of the animals that were used as appliances. Hanna & Barbera wouldn't get anywhere near the toilet though.

Of course, the other running gag on "The Flintstones" was how they brought on the celebrities and named them in their own hilarious way. The first time that I got to actually see Ann-Margret was through her appearance on the show as Ann-Margrock. And there were Stony Curtis and Cary Granite. If I had got onto the program, maybe my name would have ended up as J-Canucklestone.

A good chunk of my childhood was spent watching "The Flintstones" and I had assumed that I pretty much knew everything there was to learn about this program. But I was wrong. It was only in the last decade that I discovered "The Flintstones" had been the first animated program to get a prime-time slot on ABC; that's quite something considering that I had only seen Fred and Barney as afternoon cartoon characters.

On top of that, I only found out in the last few months that there had been a very different opening and closing sequence and a different theme song for "The Flintstones" in the first two seasons of its 1960-1966 run. The theme song used for both the opening and the ending was "Rise and Shine", a jazzy and upbeat instrumental by Hoyt Curtin. It was actually a song that I had heard as background music in the episodes but I never knew that it was the first theme. I also have to give thanks to YouTube and the uploader Steven Brandt for showing me the opening and ending credits for the very first time in my life.

Ah, as of Season 3, this was the opening credit sequence that greeted me after getting home from school or finishing off lunch. It was the swing jazz orchestra by Curtin and the Randy Van Horne Singers behind one of Western animation's most famous theme songs "Meet the Flintstones" right when Fred happily screams "Yabba-dabba-doo!" when work is done and it's time to head home. 

Although "Meet the Flintstones" wouldn't become the official theme until late 1962, Wikipedia has reported that its composition by Curtin along with Hanna & Barbera had taken place in 1961 so for this ROY, I'm gonna go with that latter year and find out what were the big hits in Japan during that time.

Kyu Sakamoto -- Ue wo Muite Arukou (上を向いて歩こう)

Mari Watanabe -- Tokyo Dodonpa Musume （東京ドドンパ娘）

Sachiko Nishida -- Coffee Rumba （コーヒー・ルンバ）