Today’s two A Christmas Carol adaptations are animated versions meant for a juvenile audience. This is not only the second time I’ve included A Flintstones’ Christmas Carol and A Jetson Christmas Carol, but also watched. Both are productions of the prolific Hanna-Barbera company.

A Flintstones’ Christmas Carol is from 1994 and was originally a syndicated U.S. television broadcast. It later become available on DVD. A Flintstones’ Christmas Carol is surprisingly better than it may appear before viewing. Done as a story within a story, the town of Bedrock’s local theatre group is doing A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve and Fred Flintstone has the starring role as Ebonezer Scrooge. As per tradition of the Flintstones’ “stone-age” naming conventions, most of the ACC names are altered. Ebenezer is Ebonezer; Cratchit is Cragit; Marley is Marbley.

Fred becomes stage struck as he rehearses for his role as Scrooge. His wife, friends, and co-workers see the change it has brought on him and note that he has become like Scrooge off-stage, too. In his self-centered zeal for the role, he forgets to pick up his daughter, Pebbles, at daycare and forgets to buy Christmas presents for his family. When the show gets to the performance of A Christmas Carol, we are given a full, long performance of the story that is generally faithful to ACC. There is backstage action between scenes of their play. This helps drive the exterior story of Fred Flintstone learning a lesson along with his Scrooge character.

It’s hard to deny this special isn’t partially a homage to the classic 1962 Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol – an animated special where an established character is performing in a stage version of A Christmas Carol! This can be enjoyable viewing, more so as family watching, and a good introduction to ACC for a young audience.

Next, we go from the Stone Age to the Future.

A Jetson Christmas Carol was not a stand-alone special. It was a Christmas episode of The Jetson’s animated series from 1985. In the 1980’s there was a resurgence of interest in The Jetsons (1962-63) resulting in a new mid-80’s syndicated series.

George Jetson, working at Spacely Sprockets, is told by his boss, Mr. Spacely, that he has to work overtime on Christmas Eve. This puts George into a Bob Cratchit-like role while Mr. Spacely is obviously Scrooge. George actually makes a specific reference to A Christmas Carol, saying Mr. Spacely is “worse than Scrooge” and he should be visited by some “weird ghosts.” While George’s family all go Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, the family dog, Astro, becomes ill and requires a veterinarian but none is to be found on Christmas Eve. Astro becomes the story’s Tiny Tim. Mr. Spacely is visited by the past, present, and future ghosts in the forms of robots. So, will Mr. Spacely reform and allow George to go home and prevent Astro from dying? The show is just “okay” viewing; it’s not really made for adults and is best left to younger watchers.