‘Family Guy’ Creator Seth MacFarlane Talks ‘Flintstones’ Reboot at SXSW
During a talk Sunday at the South By Southwest Festival, ‘Family Guy’ creator Seth MacFarlane confirmed that he’s working on new episodes of the legendary cartoon series ‘The Flintstones.’ Yabba Dabba Doo!
“It’s still in the early stages. I’m finishing a rewrite on the pilot,” MacFarlane explained. “We’re trying to, essentially, stay true to what that show is. There’s something cool to me about, in 2013, turning on your TV and seeing ‘The Flintstones’ and having it look like ‘The Flintstones.’”
As you can gather from the quote, the reboot wouldn’t be launched until sometime next year. It will also be on Fox, home to MacFarlane’s other shows, ‘Family Guy,’ ‘American Dad’ and ‘The Cleveland Show.’
“They invented the template that we’re using in animation,” MacFarlane continued, speaking about Hanna-Barbera, the animation greats who created ‘The Flintstones’ and ‘The Jetsons.’ He added, “We kind of want to keep it more or less the same. The stories that we tell will be a little more current.”
‘The Flintstones,’ which originally ran between 1960 and 1966, is considered the first primetime cartoon, and was intended for adults as much as it was for kids.
Of course, MacFarlane’s cartoons can get pretty racy. So, along with the excitement that he is bringing back to the modern stone-aged family, there is going to be concern that he may bring too much edge (along with his trademark random cutaway gags) to The Flintstones’ old-fashioned sensibilities.
Also, do you think MacFarlene would dare mix ‘The Flinstones’ into his other cartoon universes? Because we’ve always wanted to see Stewie and Bam Bam square off for animated baby supremacy.