BOOTLEG FILES 938: “Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble in Songs from Mary Poppins” (1965 album mashing up the Disney and Hanna-Barbera classics).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None – but, then again, it is a spoken-word recording.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Clearing the rights to this would be nearly impossible.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It would be fun as a special feature on a Flintstones-related DVD, but that is unlikely.
This week’s entry is not about a film or television production, but instead focuses on a bootleg video that shares a rare example of cross-pollination between two rival animation studios – in this case, Hanna-Barbera characters promoting films made by the Walt Disney Company in a long-playing album.
In 1965, Hanna-Barbera Records released “Wilma Flintstone Tells the Story of Bambi.” The Disney brand name is absent from the album, but since Disney owned the rights to the Felix Salten novel that was the source for its 1942 film it was clear that Hanna-Barbera needed to license the Bambi character for its recording.
Yet rather than offer a facsimile of the Disney film, the Hanna-Barbera version had Wilma Flintstone (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl) recounting the tale of Bambi to the toddlers Pebbles and Bam-Bam. Fred Flintstone (voiced by Alan Reed) turns up briefly on the recording, and can be seen on the album’s cover staring at a deer that looks nothing like the Disney character.
The second entry in this Disney mash-up with Hanna-Barbera brought back the Flintstones characters into the realm of Disney’s then-current theatrical release, “Mary Poppins.” This album, which carried the awkward title “Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble in Songs from Mary Poppins,” was the more interesting of the pair.
The Wilma Flintstone album did not use the Oscar-nominated Disney score from “Bambi,” instead using a few new songs. The subject matter also seemed like an arbitrary subject choice since “Bambi” was out of theaters since 1957 and wouldn’t be back on the screen until 1966, one year after the album’s release.
However, the “Mary Poppins” Flintstones album was released while the Disney film was still in theaters – this is mentioned in the album’s script. Plus, it takes four songs from the “Mary Poppins” score, with new renditions by the “Hanna-Barbera Singers.” Obviously, Disney wanted to cash in on the popularity of the Hanna-Barbera characters to promote itself.
Curiously, this album decided to forego the prehistoric setting of “The Flintstones” and have Fred and Barney as contemporary characters, complete with jokey references to President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Beatles, “The Yogi Bear Show” and, of course, “Mary Poppins.”
Even more curious was the voice talent for this album. Rather than have Alan Reed and Mel Blanc repeat their voice performances as Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, the studio recruited Henry Corden and Daws Butler to fill those roles. It is unclear why this substitution was made – most likely, it was a financial decision – but the switch is very obvious from the start of the album. Rather than perfectly mimicking Reed and Blanc, the Corden and Butler versions sound a bit closer to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden and Art Carney’s Ed Norton, the inspiration for the Flintstones characters. Corden would later replace Alan Reed as the voice of Fred while Butler voiced Barney in the series’ pilot and briefly filled in for Blanc when the master voice character actor was badly injured in an automobile crash.
“Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble in Songs from Mary Poppins” opens with a vaguely rockabilly-sounding tune called “The Flintstones” about “that wacky Stone Age family.” The story kicks off with Fred Flintstone grumbling about his job at the rock quarry and abruptly deciding to quit for better work. He takes his co-worker Barney with him – of course, in the series Fred and Barney don’t work together. Once he scans the classified ads for a better job, Fred is discouraged that higher paying positions require a college degree, which he lacks. But when he spots an ad looking for songwriters, he figures that he found the perfect job.
Fred coerces Barney to use his savings to buy an electric guitar. But Barney’s savings are minimal and all he can afford is a kerosene-powered guitar. Fred’s initial attempts at playing the guitar and singing brings about a visit from an Irish-brogue police officer responding to neighbor complaints that Fred was beating his wife. (Seriously, who thought that was funny?)
Suddenly, Fred is on a roll as he instantly composes a number of catchy tunes. But Barney has to burst his creativity bubble by bringing over records featuring those songs – which happen to be tunes from “Mary Poppins.” We hear the Hanna-Barbera Singers doing mild renditions of “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “A Jolly Holiday,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” – Fred mispronounces the latter as “Supercaliflagistic” – and “Chim Chim Cheree.” Fred is confused about this situation, but Barney reminds him they recently saw a drive-in screening of “Mary Poppins” and that was where the songs came from. Barney then announces he called the rock quarry and was able to get their jobs back.
The album cover of “Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble in Songs from Mary Poppins” features the comic cavemen floating through the air holding Mary Poppins-style umbrellas with the parrot-head handles. The characters are holding their respective toddlers Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, but the children are not included in the recording. The only other characters on the recording are the previously mentioned cop, an unnamed opening narrator and a TV host that is supposed to sound like Ed Sullivan – Daws Butler voiced all of them.
For an album aimed at a 1960s kiddie audience, “Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble in Songs from Mary Poppins” is a pleasantly silly distraction that must have kept the young listeners of the phonograph era amused for its roughly half-hour-long playing time. By contemporary standards, adults listening to this can appreciate the unusual union with Disney and Hanna-Barbera, which went no further after this album’s release.
Unlike some other entries from the Hanna-Barbera Records series, “Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble in Songs from Mary Poppins” was never reissued. A compact disc version is out of the question, unless Warner Bros Discovery (which owns the Hanna-Barbera brand) can reach a deal with Disney for a reissue. However, there is a video on YouTube that has the full album – this was not an authorized upload, and I wonder how long it will be before the Disney legal department issues a cease-and-desist notice. Until they do, have yourself a Yabba Dabba Spoonful of Sugar:
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.
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