The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show

Set in the Stone Age, the series follows Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as they face problems with growing up in the town of Bedrock. Together, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm form a musical band called the Bedrock Rockers, which was considered an attempt to be the "Stone Age" version of the Archies by one critic. Unlike The Flintstones, it centers on the children of the family, rather than parents Fred and Wilma Flintstone, and Barney and Betty Rubble. These characters continue to appear in the series, albeit in reduced roles. ==Cast and characters==

The series features the following seven main characters throughout its run: • Sally Struthers as Pebbles Flintstone, Fred and Wilma's daughter, Bamm-Bamm's best friend/girlfriend, Barney and Betty's honorary niece and a beautiful, social teenager. • Jay North as Bamm-Bamm Rubble, Barney and Betty's muscular, adopted son, Fred and Wilma's adopted nephew and Pebbles' best friend/boyfriend. This marked North's second role as a voice actor for Hanna-Barbera (outside of Arabian Knights; he also voice acted in DePatie-Freleng's Here Comes the Grump), having previously acted on series like Dennis the Menace, Wanted Dead or Alive and My Three Sons. • Mitzi McCall as Penny, the small intelligent friend of Pebbles who often worried about her weight. ==Production and continuation==

The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show was the first spin-off TV series derived from The Flintstones, following the theatrical film The Man Called Flintstone in 1966. Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, creators of Scooby-Doo, Where are You!, served as story editors on Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, and several individuals wrote episodes for the series, including Joel Kane, Woody Kling, and Howard Morganstern. Executive produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Charles A. Nichols served as the director and Iwao Takamoto was the creative producer and key character designer. The main title theme and musical directors for The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show were made by Hoyt Curtin and Ted Nichols. Elliot Lawrence wrote songs for the series, with music arrangements by Lanny Meyers. The songs were recorded by Regent Sound Studios. Author Christopher P. Lehman wrote that the success of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show inspired Hanna-Barbera to create The Flintstone Comedy Hour in 1972. It combined previously broadcast episodes alongside new cartoons and shorts. Serving as a continuation, the new series featured newly-produced vignette versions of The Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm Show, as well as reruns from the 1971–72 season, during each of its sixteen episodes. The Flintstone Comedy Hour also included musical interludes performed by The Bedrock Rockers, similar to the original series. Fred Flintstone and Friends (1977), a later anthology series compiled for syndication, included reruns of segments from both The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and The Flintstone Comedy Hour. ==Episodes==

Broadcast history The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show was broadcast on CBS as part of their Saturday morning children's lineup between September 11, 1971, and January 1, 1972. The reruns of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show were incorporated into the 1972 hour-long show The Flintstone Comedy Hour as the second half-hour of the show. When the Comedy Hour first started airing, four new Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm cartoons were produced for this position, but episodes were now shortened to two 11-minute segments in one 30-minute episode. After a few weeks, the new episodes stopped and the reruns of the original series began. Those new episodes were included in The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show DVD as bonus episodes. The noticeable difference is Mickey Stevens as Pebbles's voice in the new episodes, concurrent with Stevens's voice appearing as Pebbles anytime Pebbles is seen in the shorter cartoons that comprised the first half of The Flintstone Comedy Hour. Boomerang has broadcast The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show on several occasions since its initial launch in 2000. Reruns on the network would occasionally air alongside interstitial cartoons, such as Barney Bear's The Unwelcome Guest or Tex Avery's Hound Hunters for example. As part of the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television Distribution's "Hanna-Barbera Classic Collection", the complete series was made available on DVD as a two-disc set. Critical reception Author Derek Tait wrote in his book 1970s Childhood: From Bell-Bottoms to Disco Dancing that the cartoon was one of the popular Hanna-Barbera productions of the 1970s. In a retrospective view of older cartoons, the staff at MeTV included the show on their list of "15 Forgotten Cartoons from the Early 1970s You Used to Love". Regarding the musical aspects, Tom and Sara Pendergast felt that both The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and Josie and the Pussycats incorporated contemporary rock music to attract a larger audience. On The Christian Science Monitors list of "the five dumbest moments" of The Flintstones, writer Chris Gaylord listed the series at number two. He called it "the most curious" of the various spin-offs and wrote, "Mercifully, these misadventures at Bedrock High School only lasted one season". ==References==