I Yabba-Dabba Do!

I Yabba-Dabba Do!; animated comedy, USA, 1993; D: William Hanna, S: Henry Corden, Frank Welker, Jean Vander Pyl, Megan Mullally, B.J. Ward, Jerry Houser, Janet Waldo

After Fred Flintstone lost a fortune on a bet as well as his job, he is not at all overwhelmed when his daughter Pebbles announces an expensive wedding with Bam-Bam. While trying to save as much money as possible with cheap clothes and an improvized music band featuring only Barney, Fred inadvertently causes an argument between Pebbles, Wilma and Bam-Bam. The young couple run away to Rock Vegas to get married there in peace, while Fred and Barney get in chased by a wedding gang there. In the end, Barney wins a fortune on a bet and the wedding turns out to be a success.

One of the last Flinstones animated TV films, "I Yabba Dabba Do!" is an easily watchable, though standard restructuring of "The Father of the Bride", passing the torch over to Bam-Bam and Pebbles (voiced by an almost unrecognizable Megan Mullally). "The Fintstones" were never truly laugh-out-loud funny - unlike (the early) "Simpsons" that often turned towards the grotesque and gave the family life some edge - but they always had at least two things going for them: they were honest and they were humane. This movie starts off fine, building a neat little story about Fred's and Barney's kids trying to get married, offering situations from life many can identify with, with an occasional good line ("He can wait until the dinosaurs are extinct, I am not appologizing!") a charming scene (Bam-Bam proposing Pebbles) and even an occasional daring one (the bachelorette party including Wilma, Pebbles and Betty), yet starts to get more and more contrived and chaotic in the second half, from the typical cliche that a girl will overreact and cancel the engagement over the smallest bauble up the silly misadventures Fred and Barney experience in Rock Vegas when they are chased by a "wedding gang", with the resolution towards the finale that brings a happy ending requires tolerance for five 'deux ex machina' gimmicks. Overall, a light, yet more or less amusing conclusion of a circle in the Flintstones storyline.

Grade:+