A Flintstones Christmas Carol is probably the best Flintstones feature length movie. It is full of charm, a good sense of humor and complete respect for both the TV show and the classic Charles Dickens story.
Possibly taking a note from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962), this made for TV movie has the characters put on a play based off A Christmas Carol. This allows the filmmakers to tell two different stories. One of them is of course the Dickens story and the other is a more typical Flintstones story. In the non-Dickens story, Fred is becoming too involved in rehearsing for the play and too taken in by his own ego to notice that he is not being the best father and husband he could be. He forgets to do Christmas shopping for Wilma and Pebbles and worse he forgets to pick up his own daughter at cave care. The two stories perfectly intertwine as Fred himself has to learn the same lesson that Scrooge does. This movie does what the show often did so well. That is to make Fred a very faulted character that needs to learn a lesson without ever making him too unlikable. Fred is never a malicious character, but rather one who is too caught up in his own concerns to worry about those of others. This is something all of us can relate to and understand.
The play portion of this film really surprised me the first time I watched it as an adult. Though there are naturally some cartoon gags thrown in there, it is never a parody of A Christmas Carol. The heart and spirit of the classic Christmas tale are fully on display here. In fact many of the lines from the original book are quoted exactly here. When watching this part of the movie we don't see Fred or Barney versions of Scrooge and Bob Cratchit. Instead we see the characters as talented actors who get completely lost in the roles of the characters. We are essentially watching a faithful play of A Christmas Carol only the actors are famous cartoon characters. Only towards the end of the movie do we see Fred get out of the Scrooge character while on stage. However this is perfectly set up and works extremely well.
This movie successeds so well because it gives us both what we love about The Flintstones and A Christmas Carol.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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