{"id":32779,"date":"2020-02-28T07:56:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T12:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=32779"},"modified":"2020-02-28T17:59:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T22:59:33","slug":"the-bootleg-files-energy-a-national-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/28\/the-bootleg-files-energy-a-national-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files \u2013 Energy: A National Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 721: <\/strong>\u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d (1977 educational animated film narrated by Charlton Heston and starring Fred and Wilma Flintstone).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: <\/strong>None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: <\/strong>It seems to have fallen through the proverbial cracks. <\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Unlikely.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s column served up the worst production in \u201cThe Flintstones\u201d canon. This week, we serve up the second worst.
\n<\/p>\n

Back in 1977, the phrase \u201cenergy crisis\u201d began to seep into the American lexicon because those shmata-clad sons of fun in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to turn down the global oil spigot and drive up prices on their precious commodity. If you were around back in the day, you will remember the long lines at gas stations when automotive fuel shortages became an expensive reality.<\/p>\n

It was a complex problem, to be certain, but the good folks at Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Strategic and International Studies believed it was necessary to create an educational film to explain the miasma to children. But rather than offer a mature and serious presentation, it was decided to dumb down the facts so even the stupidest of youngsters could comprehend what was happening. As a result, the Georgetown geniuses tapped Hanna-Barbera Productions to create a short documentary using their characters from \u201cThe Flintstones\u201d cartoon series. After all, if kids would digest vitamins shaped like Fred Flintstone, why couldn\u2019t the animated caveman explain the most challenging socioeconomic problem of that era?<\/p>\n

Well, the resulting production of \u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d deserves to be ranked among the crummiest endeavors in the educational film genre. Not only did this film fail to offer a cogent explanation of the issue of the day, but it utterly trivialized it with the dreariest animated entertainment ever concocted. And if that wasn\u2019t bad enough, it hijacked \u201cThe Flintstones\u201d franchise in the crummiest manner imaginable. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d was narrated by Charlton Heston, who took this gig during a period when his career descended into the realm of campy disaster films. Heston must have believed that his narration would be a career revival vehicle, because he took himself way too seriously in reading the script given to him. Unlike Orson Welles, the era\u2019s greatest narrator of woefully stupid documentaries, Heston invested a surplus of sincerity into what he was narrating. Whereas Welles wryly used his brilliant voice to wink at the audience that his words carried little intellectual heft, Heston proceeded as if the fate of mankind depended on his enunciation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d attempts to address the issue of shortages in energy supplies by tracing energy consumption across the span of human civilization. Thus, we begin in prehistoric times when Fred and Wilma Flintstone rely on a dwindling wood supply for their thermal and cooking needs. While their pet dinosaur Dino watches, Fred begins to chip away at strange black rocks, believing they could offer a power that is not immediately apparent by their inert state. Wilma is less interested in chemistry than in cooking \u2013 she refers to herself as Fred\u2019s \u201cever-loving slave\u201d while serving him an elaborate vegetarian lunch. (He is on a diet, hence the absence of meat on his plate.)<\/p>\n

Fred tells Wilma that he encountered a traveling stranger who agreed to accept those odd black rocks in exchange for a \u201ccat gut on a stick spear thrower\u201d device. That is actually known to non-caveman as a \u201cbow and arrow,\u201d but it seems that phrase never bubbled up in Neanderthal times. Fred uses this new device as a toy, unaware of its full potential.<\/p>\n

From that shaky platform, \u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d propels Fred and Wilma across the span of post-caveman civilization. (Minus Dino \u2013 his presence would be impossible to explain.) The characters turn up in ancient Rome, the Renaissance, colonial America, post-Civil War America, and the suburban 1970s while addressing the difficulties in creating an energy self-sufficient society. Some of these unlikely interpretations are startling, especially with Wilma as a then-contemporary politician trying to appease an agitated rally crowd that is doubting her competency on energy-related issues.<\/p>\n

But, alas, too much of \u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d is wasted on stupidity, particularly when Fred Flintstone is dumped into Busby Berkeley-inspired musical sequences where he is singing and dancing about energy efficiency. (Henry Corden dubbed the singing while Alan Reed did the character’s voice performance.) If that wasn\u2019t bad enough, Fred Flintstone also engages in politically incorrect ethnic stereotyping of Japanese and Indian nationals worried about their energy sourcing.<\/p>\n

And that is why this well-intended but misdirected little film goes wrong. \u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d believes the young viewers need to be amused rather than informed. The animated antics of Fred and Wilma Flintstone don\u2019t mesh with the serious concerns that this film wants to put forward. As a result, it fails as both a serious consideration of a major socioeconomic problem and as a light entertainment. It also doesn\u2019t help that the animation is crude and ugly \u2013 the film\u2019s depiction of Bedrock is less Hanna-Barbera and closer to the hippy-dippy animation of the early 1970s features of \u201cFantastic Planet\u201d or \u201cThe Point,\u201d which is not in keeping with the classic style of \u201cThe Flintstones\u201d series.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d was offered for broadcast on a syndicated basis in November of 1977 and was distributed on 16mm to schools. To date, it has been absent of commercial home entertainment release, but a faded print has turned up on YouTube<\/a> for anyone who is devoted to viewing every piece of Flintstones-related footage. <\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to the Rondo Award-nominated podcast \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall\u201d<\/a> on SoundCloud, now in its fourth season. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 721: \u201cEnergy: A National Issue\u201d (1977 educational animated film narrated by Charlton Heston and starring Fred and Wilma Flintstone). LAST SEEN: On YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It seems to have fallen through the proverbial cracks. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely. Last week\u2019s column served up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":32780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[2223,1381,1834,2448,444,1278,1728],"class_list":["post-32779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-animated-film","tag-charlton-heston","tag-educational-film","tag-energy-a-national-issue","tag-hanna-barbera","tag-the-flintstones","tag-tv-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32779"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32782,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32779\/revisions\/32782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}