I have a confession to make. I was once a proud member of S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. That's the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. We had a barbershop chorus in high school. I even sang with a local chorus group until other commitments kept me from continuing. I still love the music though. A well-placed D7 chord can give me goosebumps.
Bill Hanna (of Hanna-Barbera fame) was also a barbershopping fan, and that leads us to this record from 1966. "The Flintstones in: S.A.S.F.A.T.P.O.G.O.B.S.Q.A.L.T." which stands for "Stone Age Society For Aiding The Preservation Of Good Old Barber Shop Quartets...And Like That". The story is that the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes are sending their best barbershop group, the Neanderthal Notables, to a championship competition when their star bass, Honeytones Jones, has to get his tonsils out. Fred volunteers to take Jones' place, but he sings horribly. However, he finds out he can sing beautifully, but only when he's in the shower. Sound familiar? This plot bears some similarities to the episode "The Flintstones Canaries" where Barney has a similar problem. This is a lot of fun, and has a few barbershop songs spread throughout. It's a bit disappointing that they don't change any words in the songs to reflect the prehistoric setting, but it's still some awful purty singing.
Even though this album says it features the Flintstones, the only regular characters here are Fred and Barney. The odd thing is that their voices weren't done by Alan Reed and Mel Blanc. Fred was performed by Henry Corden, which sounds normal to our ears since he took over the part of Fred when Reed died in 1977. Barney was actually performed by Daws Butler, who ends up sounding a lot like Yogi Bear here, which makes sense since both Barney and Yogi were patterned after Ed Norton on "The Honeymooners". Come to think of it, I've never seen Yogi and Barney together at the same time. Hmmmm, makes you wonder, doesn't it?
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Man, only being able to sing while in the shower is probably one of the most popular sitcom issues, right behind taking a trip to a cabin on a snowy mountain and hetting avalanched in for the remainder of the episode.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really fun album man.
This was also sort of a reverse switch of the episode where Barney sings in the shower for The Hum Along With Herman episode.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had this record when I was kid and have been looking for it ever since. I thought it was an episode and once spent hours online reading every episode description and ended up just scratching my head. THANK YOU THANK YOU for uploading this. God Bless The Internet!!!
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