The Great Gazoo

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The Great Gazoo
The Great Gazoo

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 Zatox as punishment for having invented a doomsday machine, 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). It is also possible that Dino and Hoppy can also see Gazoo, which means that Wilma and Betty are the only ones who can't. A running gag is that Fred argues with Gazoo while Wilma believes that he's talking to himself. When their daughter, Pebbles, says "Gazoo," Wilma thinks Pebbles is sneezing.

Gazoo's name actually derives from the 1909 hit song, "King of the Bungaloos," by Charles Straight and Gene Greene. In it, the narrator explains, "I just received a cable 'spatch from my ancestral home. It tells me I'm the great Gazoo, successor to the throne."[1]

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 show having "jumped the shark." Indeed, the show was cancelled shortly after his first appearance, although it cannot be said with any certainty that Gazoo contributed in any way to the series' conclusion.

The story arc regarding Gazoo's trying to return home was never resolved because of 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 to find boxes of all-orange cereal pieces, and more recently has become the mascot for Marshmallow Mania Pebbles cereal. If you look closely you will find he is a character in the popular Flintstones vitamins. He also had a part in the second live-action movie, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, where he was played by Alan Cumming and, instead of being sent to Earth as punishment, he had to study the humanity's mating habits because he was the most expendable of his people. Charlton Comics also published a short-lived comic book focusing on the character in the mid-1970s.

The Great Gazoo also appears in The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy NES game

[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.
  • 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 device that would destroy the entire universe, 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, dum-dums!" 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.
  • In the fifth episode of the first season of Bones, Zach Addy refuses to use the Thermal Imager based on the objection that it makes him look like the Great Gazoo. Brennan's response is her typical catch phrase "I don't know what that means."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Greene, Gene, and Straight, Charles, King of the Bungaloos (Music House of Laemmle: Chicago, 1909), p. 1.

[edit] External links

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