I haven't seen an episode of The Flintstones in many years. It was one of my favorite TV shows as a kid, and I watched them as an adult, too, but it's just one of those shows that I haven't gone back to in the past five or ten years. I've been thinking about buying the season DVD sets (there are six seasons), but now it looks like I'm going to hold off on that because there's a complete series set coming later this year!

Warner is coming out with this cool-looking set that will house all six seasons in a special box that looks like a TV set (albeit one made of rocks with rock knobs). The DVDs themselves will slide into holders that are book-shaped and contain all of the info about what's on each DVD.

No word yet on extras, but the individual sets for each season contain extras such as rare, unseen footage, original storyboards, documentaries (including a guide to raising a child in the Stone Age), promo spots, and the original pilot (The Flagstones).

There's long been a debate among certain kinds of creepy cartoon enthusiasts about which animated girls we would most like to, uh, "get-to-know better", should we ever live in a Cool World-type universe where that sort of thing was possible. Judy Jetson, teenage Pebbles, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid (with feet or without)... the list, sadly, goes on and on.

As I get older, though, I find one area of Creepyville the internet geeks have yet to explore: which animated housewife is the hottest! This being the internet, the only way to truly rectify the situation is to create a numbered list. I thus present to you my list of the seven hottest animated housewives...

That headline probably won't even make sense to many people. Boomerang? What the hell is that?

Boomerang is a cable network devoted to baby boomers. I don't get it on my cable system, though it certainly sounds like something I'd like to see if they have programming like this. The channel is going to show all 166 episodes of The Flintstones - in order and without commercials - starting on July 4. This is a show I've been meaning to buy on DVD. A lot of people thought it was lame for an animated series, but I didn't watch it for cool animation, it was really a sitcom in cartoon clothing and a lot of fun.

I wonder why they changed the name used in the pilot, The Flagstones? What made them say "let's get rid of the 'flag' and replace it with 'flint'?"

Ah, the good old days. When everyone could smoke and not get sick. You could sit on your dinosaur all day, breaking rocks, and then come home and sit around the yard smoking cigarettes with your best pal.

After the jump is a 1961 commercial for Winston cigarettes, starring Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty. Fred and Barney are just hanging out while the girls do all the yardwork and housework and decide to take a relaxing cigarette break. Not only are Wilma and Betty doing all the work, they also have no lines in the commercial.

Early cigarette ads interest me. Over at Adjab recently I posted a couple of ads that the Dick Van Dyke Show cast did in the 60s, on the set and as the characters of the show. This one is jarring because it's a cartoon (though an adult cartoon). This is probably what killed off the dinosaurs.

I also think it's weird that the cigarettes are bigger than Barney's head.