The Great Gazoo
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The Great Gazoo is a character from The Flintstones animated series. He first appeared on the show on October 29, 1965. He has many similarities to Mr. Mxyzptlk of the Superman comics, and may have been inspired by him. He is a tiny, green, floating alien, voiced by Harvey Korman, having been exiled to Earth from his home planet Zetox as punishment for having invented a weapon of immense destructive power, and was discovered by Fred and Barney when his flying saucer crashed. His invention was a button which would destroy the universe if pressed, though he insists he made it on a whim with no intent of using it.
Gazoo often appears before Fred and Barney in random, often inopportune moments. He refers to Fred and Barney as "dum-dums" and constantly causes problems for them. Even when he attempts to help Fred and Barney out, he usually ends up causing even more trouble. The only people who are able to see him are Fred, Barney, and the children (because they believe in him). A running gag is that Fred argues with Gazoo while Wilma believes that he's talking to himself. Also, whenever Pebbles says "Gazoo," Wilma thinks she is sneezing.
Because Gazoo was introduced into the show midway through the final season and is considered quite an absurd character, being a futuristic alien that appears in the middle of the Stone Age, he is often cited by fans and critics of the show as being an example of the fact that the show had "jumped the shark." Indeed, the show was cancelled shortly after his first appearance, although it cannot be said that Gazoo contributed in any way to the series' conclusion.
The story arc regarding Gazoo's trying to return home was never resolved due to the cancellation of the original series, and the character did not appear (nor was he referred to) in the immediate series follow-up The Man Called Flintstone or any of the later spin-off TV series or animated movies, rendering him effectively dropped from continuity. Apart from the original TV series, he appeared in a Fruity Pebbles cereal commercial as part of a promotion for a contest where consumers would have to try and find boxes of all-orange cereal pieces, and more recently has become the mascot for Marshmallow Mania Pebbles cereal. He also had a part in the second live-action movie, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, where he was played by Alan Cumming. Charlton Comics also published a short-lived comic book focusing on the character in the mid-1970s.
[edit] References in other stories
- One episode of The Simpsons ("The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"), featured a little green alien character, Ozmodiar, a clear parody of The Great Gazoo, especially as he is used in the context of a joke about the show jumping the shark. Ozmodiar actually appears in a later episode, "HOMЯ," after Bart points out that cartoons don't have to be realistic, and then again after Homer is fired.
- An episode of Family Guy directly referred to Gazoo as well. In the appearance, Gazoo tried to help Peter Griffin at a bad time, after which Peter told him that he needed to be alone. Then, Gazoo started telling Peter that it wasn't all about him, and maybe he had his own problems.
- Butch Hartman, creator of The Fairly OddParents, has stated that Gazoo was an influence on the appearance of his show's title characters, Cosmo and Wanda. They even float up and down like Gazoo.
- In Paul Robinson's book In the matter of: Instrument of God, the main character 246 refers to The Great Gazoo as the most evil character ever created, because he was sent to earth as punishment for creating a doomsday machine, and because he's cute rather than menacing (obvious evil is easy to spot and not as dangerous; insidious or hidden evil is much worse).
- In an episode of the animated series Undergrads, Rocko, while drunk on bad clam juice, inadvertently mistakes the character Mump as the Great Gazoo.
- In the episode of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast entitled "Pavement", the Great Gazoo makes a cameo - only long enough to be introduced, say the catchphrase "Toodle-loo, dumb-dumbs!" and disappear.
- In a 1999 ESPN commercial for an earlier edition of SportsCenter, Ricky Williams says that the new, earlier Sportscenter won't ruin the original edition, unlike the way the Flintstones did, "with that little green guy!"
- The Homestar Runner character Rumble Red, whose home planet is a parody of the Soviet Union prior to its collapse, is also a parody of the Great Gazoo.
