BOOTLEG FILES 907: “A Weighty Problem” (1980 educational filmstrip featuring characters from “The Flintstones”).
LAST SEEN: A restored version is on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Educational filmstrips have no perceived commercial reissue value.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely, unless a documentary on the subject is made.
If you were a K-12 student in American schools during the 1960s and 1970s, you probably remember the use of filmstrips in your classes. Filmstrips were a spool of 35mm film that featured still photographs on each frame. The filmstrips were shown via a hand-operated projector, with one frame at a time projected on a screen while a soundtrack recording on either an album or a cassette tape provided narration or character dialogue to match the images. The soundtrack recording would offer a beep or a ding, which was the cue to the projector’s operator to turn the spool to the next image.
The animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions had an educational film division, and between 1977 and 1980 it produced a series of filmstrips for distribution to American schools. Most of these filmstrips used the popular characters from the Hanna-Barbera television series to offer cursory lessons on topics including history, science, math, health and wellness, driving, fire safety and writing.
Filmstrips were less expensive than 16mm films, which were also used in classrooms back in the day, but both became obsolete once low-cost video cassette recorders became ubiquitous in the early 1980s. Most schools disposed of their filmstrips in favor of video cassettes – and with no aftermarket for these items, the entire medium seemed doomed to oblivion.
Mercifully, an entity known as Uncommon Ephemera is rescuing these filmstrips and restoring them for online presentation. This is no mean feat – as Uncommon Ephemera warns in its presentations, “Because filmstrips have been so forgotten, specialized tools do not exist and all restoration is being done by hand.”
Today, we’re going to look at the 1980 filmstrip “A Weighty Problem” that features characters from “The Flintstones” – Fred Flinstone, Barney Rubble and the teenage version of Fred’s daughter Pebbles. This title is a two-part presentation, which each half running roughly 12 minutes.
The first part of “A Weighty Problem” is subtitled “The Problem” and it finds Barney agitating Fred over his weight – to which Fred reminds Barney that he is also a bit on the chunky side. The two men go the library where Pebbles works as a librarian – they are interested in taking out books on dieting and losing weight, but she informs them that it helps for them to have basic knowledge about the subject. She then offers an overview of what causes weight gain and how the body veers into becoming overweight.
The second part of this endeavor is subtitled “The Solution” and Pebbles provides tips on how Fred and Barney can shed pounds through dietary and lifestyle changes. By following her advice, the duo can slim down and fit into dapper tuxedos.
For an elementary school presentation in 1980, “A Weighty Problem” is a cute and effective introduction to the subjects of nutrition and weight management. It certainly came at the right time, as fast food and unhealthy eating habits were permeating the culture. Of course, the students of 45 years ago have children and even grandchildren of their own – and in view of the current dilemma with childhood obesity, it would seem Pebbles’ wise lessons are more valuable today than ever before.
Fans of “The Flintstones” will quickly recognize that the voices of Barney and Pebbles in “A Weighty Problem” do not sound like their television counterparts. That’s because John Stephenson and Pat Stevens stepped in to replace Mel Blanc and Sally Struthers for the filmstrip production. Henry Corden, who was hired to voice Fred after Alan Reed’s death in 1977, was tapped to play the character in this effort.
Both parts of “A Weighty Problem” are on YouTube. But while I appreciate the work that Uncommon Ephemera put into this restoration, I am uncertain whether this filmstrip and the others under the Hanna-Barbera banner are still copyright protected – Warner Bros. Discovery owns the rights to the Hanna-Barbera intellectual property, but that company is doing nothing to preserve the old filmstrips. Hopefully, this YouTube posting will not fall victim to a cease-and-desist notice.
For more information regarding Uncommon Ephemera, please visit https://uncommonephemera.org/ – not only is this entity preserving filmstrips, but it also has a remarkable collection of rare and odd video recordings.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
Listen to Phil Hall’s award-winning podcast “The Online Movie Show with Phil Hall” on SoundCloud and his radio show “Nutmeg Chatter” on WAPJ-FM in Torrington, Connecticut, with a new episode every Sunday. His new book “100 Years of Wall Street Crooks” is now in release through Bicep Books.