Saturday, August 2, 2014
Then That Cat Will Stay Out For The Night
Here's some summer-type fun. The Flintstones featured a number of rarely-seen cast members and despite his appearance in the opening and closing titles, Baby Puss is chief among them. For Baby Puss fans, it's heartwarming to see this prehistoric pet numbered among the Flintstone family members on this fun-at-the-beach Gold Key comic-book cover (issue # 29) cover dated September 1965.
Who doesn't love Baby Puss? If Hanna-Barbera hadn't succumbed to Ideal Toy's merchandising dollar-signs and turned The Flintstones into a baby-makes-three sitcom, they might have gone in another direction. Having stories with a dialogue-less pet cat that can outsmart its owner would have been funny.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favorite Flintstones comic book covers. Too bad there wasn't a story inside that matched the cover, although the stories were very good. This is one of the best issues from the Gold Key run. And yes, I agree it is very gratifying to see Baby Puss occupying an important role in this picture.
ReplyDeleteBaby Puss was very under-represented in the Flintstones universe, despite considerable merchandising that included the character. There seems to be some ambiguity as to whether Baby Puss was male or female. In the Tell-a-Tale book, "The Flintstones and Dino," Baby Puss is referred to with masculine pronouns. But in the one comic book story that focused a bit on Baby Puss (I have never found any other story that did so), Baby Puss is referred to by Barney and Wilma as a "she" and as a "him" by Fred. The cat that puts Fred out for the night in the closing credits definitely looks more masculine than feminine. Baby Puss makes rare and subtle appearances in the TV series, besides regularly appearing in the credits sequence. Interesting character, appealingly drawn. Too bad that more wasn't done with him (her?).
Thanks for posting this picture! I'm glad you're back to blogging.
Thank you, scarecrow, for being a follower of this blog--although there often isn't much to follow. I appreciate your loyalty and I will reward it by *trying* to blog more regularly. (Pesky things like paying work seem to get in the way!) And thank you so much for all the info on Baby Puss! More than I knew for sure... and I agree with you that he (or she?) is appealingly drawn!
ReplyDeleteJim:
ReplyDeleteLet me add my voice to the “Baby Puss Boosters”! He (at least that’s what I always believed) may have been underrepresented, but he appeared in the end credits of every episode (both earlier and later versions) and, before Bamm-Bamm, appeared in the opening theme sequence as well.
And, there was that reference to him “staying out for the night” in the later seasons end theme.
That cover is an all-time favorite of mine, that I trot out whenever I wish to illustrate a great example of a FLINTSTONES comic book art. And I’m glad Baby Puss was an unexpected part of it.