Bella does Comics #18 – ATOM ANT

I have a sweet spot for the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Nostalgia based for sure. The toons weren’t that good or original. The animation defines ‘limited’. The characters were derivative at best. Yogi Bear. Huckleberry Hound. Quick Draw McGraw. Corny. Yet still very funny in their own way. Maybe not ‘their own way’; they stole liberally from Disney and Warner Bros. But it had its charm. It was made-for-TV cartoons, not by-products of yesteryear’s movie houses like the best of Looney Tunes.

Hanna-Barbera perfected cheap, quick entertainment for kids at a time when the alternative was washed-up comedians and D-list actors flopping around a sound stage with hand puppets singing campfire songs. We ate it up in all its sugar frostiness.

I liked Atom Ant. He was an ant with atomic strength, atomic speed with a cool pilot’s helmet and a real sweet letter-man sweater. He was just too groovy for me. He lived in an anthil where he spent all day drinking milk and lifting weights. He didn’t have a secret life, a reporter’s salary, a firefly girlfriend. He was Atom Ant 24-7 and he was my guy.

And he still is.

• Len ‘Cruze’ Webb

Bella does Comics #15 – The FLINTSTONES

Before Adult Swim, before Cartoon Network, before Boomerang, before Toonami, Disney Afternoons and all that what-not; before The Simpsons, there was The Flintstones.

The show debuted on prime time television (probably before that term was created, too) September 30, 1960 and changed the landscape of cartoons and situation comedies forever. The simplistic art style made the adult contemporary themes of the program palatable to an audience hungry for something different. The 50s comedies of Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best were pure saccharine. It made the no-nonsense, no kids edge of The Honeymooners stand out. That proved perfect fodder for Hanna-Barbera as they modeled Fred Flintstone after the blustery, rotund Ralph Kramden and Barney Rubble after Ed Norton (with a touch of Lou Costello). Now these are some old references, I know, but this is the root from which grew George Jetson and Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin.

And I’m talking 1960-1966 Flintstones (we could lose those last 2 seasons though; The Great Gazoo. WTF?). In subsequent reboots and re-imaginings, the teeth were taken out and Fred and Barney were chewable supplements for pre-teens too young for Family Guy. And then Cartoon Network created the cartoon attic that is Boomerang and the prehistoric superstars were made all but extinct. They became Fruity Pepples; too damn sweet and mushy.

I have the first season of The Flintstones on DVD, complete with Winston cigarette commercials, and I still crack the hell up at those insane cavemen with their curvy wives. The Flintstones still feel good like a cartoon should.

Yabba. Dabba. Doo.

— Len ‘Cruze’ Webb