Bedrock City in Bad Decline

March 24, 2016 11:06 AM

"What happens when a cultural empire crumbles?"
posted by Iridic (49 comments total)

(Previously)
posted by Iridic at 11:07 AM on March 24, 2016

[+] for the title
posted by Rock Steady at 11:21 AM on March 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Looking at that plastic statue of Betty in the classroom, I am damn glad that my family never camped there; that's just the sort of thing that would have given me recurring nightmares.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:22 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I only have to look at those photos, and I can smell the paint, the dust, and the sun-baked fiberglass.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:26 AM on March 24, 2016 [11 favorites]

In an industry addicted to reboots, there’s no ruling out the idea that Warner Bros. might once again invest in reviving The Flintstones, just as Turner had planned in the early nineties.

Exactly what I was going to suggest! It's time for a reboot! Now, do we want dark & gritty Flintstones; supernatural Flintstones; dramedy Flintstones; or superhero Flintstones?
posted by nubs at 11:31 AM on March 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

In an industry addicted to reboots, there’s no ruling out the idea that Warner Bros. might once again invest in reviving The Flintstones, just as Turner had planned in the early nineties.

Already happening through DC.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:35 AM on March 24, 2016

Hmm, Modern Family-style Flintstone could be Interesting...
posted by Green Winnebago at 11:48 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hmm, Modern Family-style Flintstone could be Interesting...

Yeah, Fred and Barney make such a cute couple.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:50 AM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

Non-Americans: please come soon so you can see real America while it still exists.

Not New York city. Not San Francisco cable cars. This. Bedrock City. Camp Jellystone. Wall Drug. The Ingalls Homestead. The Blue Swallow Motel. The Clown Motel.

Someday this, the real America, will be gone. It will be soon. Please come see it while it's still here.
posted by GuyZero at 11:51 AM on March 24, 2016 [14 favorites]

Only one of those things is on Route 66 though.
posted by GuyZero at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

That accretion of mineral shops, general stores selling knives and arrowheads, cave tours, minigolf courses, miserable zoos, fiberglass dinosaurs, and dubious museums around every National Park entrance ought to be some kind of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
posted by theodolite at 11:57 AM on March 24, 2016 [16 favorites]

Again, if you're curious how they're planning to reboot things, here's the promo from earlier this year.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:57 AM on March 24, 2016

Stone-age Archie? Not what I expected. I was thinking more stone-age Family Guy.

It might be good to modernize Family Guy a bit.
posted by GuyZero at 11:59 AM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Author Kliph Nesteroff (whose "The Comedians" book is one I can hardly put down to go online) in his Tumblr full of random "Showbiz Imagery" has been showing pictures of when Vasquez Rocks, north of L.A., has been used as a movie setting (which is A LOT), and the most recent example shows it appearing as Bedrock in the 1994 Flintstones movie (obviously they couldn't keep the sets they built there, but fascinating!)
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:00 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

...in 1961, it became the first animated television show to nab an Emmy nomination for outstanding comedy series. (The only other animated show to earn that distinction was Family Guy in 2009.)

Wait, what?
posted by Etrigan at 12:00 PM on March 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

What upsets Olson most, he says, is that Warner Bros. wants to wipe what’s left of the park out of existence. “They want everything destroyed,” he says. Every Bedrock City sign would be trucked to the trash heap; every likeness of Barney smiling dumbly would be reduced to, well, rubble. A Warner Bros. spokesperson declined an interview request, only providing the following statement: “Bedrock City in South Dakota is an homage to the classic fan-favorite and a testament to how beloved The Flintstones property is within pop-culture. Warner Bros. Consumer Products has enjoyed its longtime partnership and we are sad to see it go. Flintstones fans who visited this site will remember it fondly as an immersive experience that delighted fans of all ages and became part of The Flintstones legacy.”

This is an unalloyed, archetypal example of bland, unthinking corporate dronespeak. Not a word mentioned about the fact that, although they are "sad to see it go," they are the reason it's going.
posted by JHarris at 12:04 PM on March 24, 2016 [12 favorites]

Well, the reason it's going is that no one wants to go there anymore and it looks terrible. If you pull the plug on a comatose brain-dead patient, the doctor isn't a murderer.
posted by GuyZero at 12:09 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Control-F "It's a living"

so disappointed.
posted by Mchelly at 12:12 PM on March 24, 2016 [12 favorites]

I live in Florida (I know, I know), right off Interstate 95. A few miles down the interstate, going south, is an orange and pecan stand of the type that was popular when people would buy oranges for their friends on trips to Florida because they were 'exotic.' There are several billboards on the interstate advertising the stand's wares and boasting of a 13-foot alligator.

When you get there, you find that there is (or was) a 13-foot alligator hide, poorly stretched over an alligator form and peeling here and there from being exposed to Florida weather for perhaps decades. It's sort of sad, really.

I get the same feeling from the pictures of this 'park.'
posted by Mooski at 12:18 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

When you get there, you find that there is (or was) a 13-foot alligator hide, poorly stretched over an alligator form and peeling here and there from being exposed to Florida weather for perhaps decades.

Someday this, the real America, will be gone. It will be soon. Please come see it while it's still here.

heh
posted by pyramid termite at 12:23 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

These days, a line of vitamins is the most potent reminder of The Flintstones’ erstwhile cultural dominance: Newsweek writes that even though kids “barely know who Fred and Wilma are” anymore, they can still choose from among eleven kinds of Flintstones vitamins.

I love imagining this as a dire warning in a commissioned report. "The US no longer leads the world in Flintstones-based competencies, Mr. President"
posted by clockzero at 12:27 PM on March 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

Well, the reason it's going is that no one wants to go there anymore and it looks terrible. If you pull the plug on a comatose brain-dead patient, the doctor isn't a murderer.

No, but if someone refuses to allow for that patient's otherwise useful organs to be transplanted, then that person is at least a dickhead.
posted by Etrigan at 12:27 PM on March 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Flinstones House linked in the article is pretty sweet, though.
posted by Mchelly at 12:29 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

OK this analogy was terrible to begin with but those statues are not useful to anyone.

I don't blame the studio for wanting this place to shut down before it looks like Walking Dead meets the Flintstones.
posted by GuyZero at 12:29 PM on March 24, 2016

The Flinstones House linked in the article is pretty sweet, though.

It's pretty clearly the Barbapapa House, it sort of bugs me that they keep calling it a Flintstone House, it doesn't look anything like Fred & Wilma's house.
posted by GuyZero at 12:31 PM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

those statues are not useful to anyone.

Warner Bros. also rejected Olson’s back-up plans to build a museum on the premises or to donate the character likenesses to another South Dakota attraction, Storybook Island. “Why not let us keep the characters in a museum?” Olson asked. “Why won’t they let us at least do that?”

posted by Etrigan at 12:36 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

OK, this was an interesting little tidbit from that Barbapapa page:

Barbamama is Barbapapa’s companion.
She likes to cook for their seven children. She loves to take care of her house and garden.

However she can also build structures, repair dams and divert the lava of volcanoes!

Barbamama does not fear action!

BARBAMAMA CRAVES ACTION

BARBAMAMA LIVES FOR THE DAY THAT LESSER BEINGS INVOKE HER WRATH

BARBAMAMA WILL ONE DAY WIPE THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH CLEAN TO BEGIN ALL ANEW
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:37 PM on March 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

“Why not let us keep the characters in a museum?” Olson asked. “Why won’t they let us at least do that?”

Disney, call me, I have an idea for the next Indiana Jones movie
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:45 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Aw, I seriously considered staying at the Arizona one during an upcoming tour of the southwest. That place looks cool! I worry that I won't make it to Wyoming and South Dakota before all the really awful stuff has been wiped clean by economic downfall and bigger companies.

Then again, I grew up just down the road from this delightful monstrosity and made my poor husband visit it once with me, because I love it. The critters haven't been repainted/re-furred since the 70s. They look like they have mange.

He likes to tell me that all my taste is in my mouth.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 12:47 PM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

Ingalls Homestead's website is surprisingly good with layout and white space.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:25 PM on March 24, 2016

Were there people of color in the Flintstones? I think it was just White people and dinosaurs
posted by clockzero at 1:27 PM on March 24, 2016

just White people and dinosaurs

AKA America on TV in the 50's.
posted by GuyZero at 1:36 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

No, but if someone refuses to allow for that patient's otherwise useful organs to be transplanted, then that person is at least a dickhead.

would you want your loved one to receive organs that had been surgically removed with a chisel and a pre-historic woodpecker?
posted by pyramid termite at 1:50 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I live in Florida (I know, I know), right off Interstate 95. A few miles down the interstate, going south, is an orange and pecan stand of the type that was popular when people would buy oranges for their friends on trips to Florida because they were 'exotic.' There are several billboards on the interstate advertising the stand's wares and boasting of a 13-foot alligator.

I swear you must mean either FLA REPTILE LAND on 301 or whatever-it's-called where the road from Palatka to Crescent Beach hits 95? That advertises the hell out of their cheap t-shirts and towels?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:54 PM on March 24, 2016

>Were there people of color in the Flintstones?

You mean like Chris Rock?
posted by AGameOfMoans at 2:20 PM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

I cannot say I am sad that kids don't remember the Flintstones. There is so much better stuff out there now for them to like.
posted by emjaybee at 2:37 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

You mean like Chris Rock?

Or Dwayne Johnson.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:11 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hm let's see if Dogpatch U.S.A. still exists. Aaand, no, it doesn't.

That's probably for the best.
posted by nom de poop at 3:23 PM on March 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

Holy shit
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:46 PM on March 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

Wow, that's nuts.
posted by GuyZero at 4:07 PM on March 24, 2016

We're so sorry your son was injured. Enjoy paying back taxes on this abandoned amusement park that you're all too aware is a massive safety hazard!
posted by Copronymus at 4:18 PM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

We're so sorry your son was injured. Enjoy paying back taxes on this abandoned amusement park that you're all too aware is a massive safety hazard!

And now we're in a Scooby Doo cartoon.
posted by nathan_teske at 4:57 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

So a teenager won an abandoned theme park because he was horribly maimed by the macabre decapitation traps set up by its absentee owner

If the FBI has like a supervillain watch list or something it might be time to put him on it
posted by theodolite at 6:58 PM on March 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Was that not an actual episode of The Venture Bros?
posted by GuyZero at 7:19 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

So a teenager won an abandoned theme park because he was horribly maimed by the macabre decapitation traps set up by its absentee owner

If the FBI has like a supervillain watch list or something it might be time to put him on it

You know, that is nothing more than archetypical profiling, he could still grow up to be an unconventional superhero
posted by clockzero at 8:10 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

GuyZero: "Someday this, the real America, will be gone. It will be soon. Please come see it while it's still here."

Oh, god no. Just looking at these pictures online makes me feel powerful morose. Going on a trip to see them in person would be like saying "Honey, how about for this year's summer trip we go to hospitals to watch people slowly die?"
posted by Bugbread at 11:13 PM on March 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

I have been to the Bedrock in Arizona, and if I can say one thing about it, Bugbread, it's definitely better than going to a hospital to watch people slowly die.

Also the gift shop was mildly amusing and the bathrooms were clean.

(This was a couple of years ago and my family were the only people there.)
posted by mmoncur at 3:42 AM on March 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hanna-Barbera was always one of those cultural artifacts that seemed aged beyond its time to me even before it got old. Somehow I never felt that way about Warner Brothers, although its modern iterations (with Lola Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil reduced to "Taz") have been a tragic shapeshifting, more so even than Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie was.
posted by blucevalo at 7:56 AM on March 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Classic" Hanna-Barbera company cartoons (that is, post-MGM) were made for television under the constraints of limited animation, which are almost more like extended, real-time comic strips than cartoons. Compared to the work done at Termite Terrace, MGM or Disney, they were laughably primitive even at the time, but it was the only way to make it work for the money involved. Back in the day HB could get away with the novelty of made-for-TV animation, but it didn't excel at any other thing, except maybe characterization. The brilliantly-written Rocky and Bullwinkle is a lot more fondly remembered now than classic Yogi Bear or Huckleberry Hound, even though it's had about the same amount of exposure.

Of course, all of these cartoons pale before the great theatricals. The thing that gets me about the classic WB cartoons particularly is that they don't need updating, generally. They are as sharp as they ever were, with the exception of some dated pop culture references (and, let's get it out of the way, some dated racial stereotypes which do need editing out for general audiences).

But at their best you don't even need to know the references to enjoy the cartoon, and sometimes the references have a way of coming back around to being relevant again. Like, there's this cartoon where Bugs and Daffy are racing each other to a TV studio in order to win a "Million Box," that could be read as a direct reference to any number of reality shows now.

(I'll say this about "Taz," The Tazmanian Devil's nickname could be taken as a reference to Taz-Mania, which I think is the best of all the WB character updatings.)
posted by JHarris at 10:03 AM on March 25, 2016 [1 favorite]