The Flintstones as children, and yet others featuring Fred and Barney encountering Marvel Comics superhero The Thing and Al Capp's comic strip character The Shmoo – have appeared over the years. The original show also was adapted into a live-action film in 1994, and a prequel, "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas", which followed in 2000. Unlike its sister show "The Jetsons" (the two shows appeared in a made-for-TV crossover movie in 1987), the revival programs were not widely syndicated or rerun alongside the original series. In 2011, it was announced "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane would be reviving "The Flintstones" for
Animation in the United States in the television era life, and he became as recognizable to the TV audience as his studio's cartoon characters. The first major animation studio to produce cartoons exclusively for television was Hanna-Barbera Productions. When MGM closed its cartoon studio in 1957, Hanna-Barbera began producing cartoons directly for television, finding an audience in the evening "family hour" time. The first animated series from Hanna-Barbera were NBC's "The Ruff & Reddy Show" and the first-run syndication entry "The Huckleberry Hound Show". However, the studio hit its stride in 1960s with ABC's "The Flintstones", the first half-hour animated sitcom. Like many of its immediate successors it was