Harvey Korman’s Alternate Legacy: The Great Gazoo from The Flintstones

Media outlets (and even the late Harvey Korman himself) probably didn’t consider Korman’s voice work of the Great Gazoo from “The Flintstones” to be one of his top credits. Nevertheless, his work doing the voice of that famous green alien should be right up there with his other legendary comedic stints on “The Carol Burnett Show” and as Hedley Lamarr in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” It’s sort of ironic that he was mostly known for his physical comedy when his voice work was really undervalued and never really utilized effectively again other than a few times. The reason Korman was so good at it was from his ability to shift his tone of voice into just about any type of character from the snootiest individual to the crassest husband (i.e. Ed Higgins from “Mama’s Family”).

Well, the Great Gazoo fit the snooty vocal side of Harvey Korman and subsequently created one of the most famous cartoon aliens in TV history. Gazoo is also the topic of unfair derision in pop culture for dragging “The Flintstones” down into a temporary cancellation.

When the Great Gazoo was first introduced on “The Flintstones” around the beginning of the 1965-66 season of the show, it brought a sense of Sci-Fi and futurism to the show that it only explored on rare occasions and may have been inspired by its Hanna-Barbera counterpart, “The Jetsons” or (according to rumor) based on Mr. Mxyzptlk from “Superman.” It’s amazing, isn’t it, that grown adults found the Great Gazoo to be a detriment to “The Flintstones” when there must have been a realization that season they were watching a cartoon. Although adults were apparently smart enough already then in realizing that cartoons could be made effectively for adults. And the domestic/pop culture issues the show dealt with only helped make it “The Simpsons” of its day.

Perhaps Fred and Barney dealing with an alien took away any sense of quasi logic the show seemed to have for adults back before logic was apparently still expected in a prime-time show, even if it was animated. But based on the reruns of the original series I’ve seen over the years, the repartee among Fred, Barney and Gazoo the minute they meet is a lot of fun and holds your attention as well as never failing to make you laugh. If ever there was a better combination of voice actors, it was Alan Reed (as Fred), Mel Blanc (as Barney) and Harvey Korman throwing witty lines around.

The most fun was in the obvious disparity of intelligence with Gazoo and the stone age world he’s found himself in. Just the visual design of Gazoo showing him with a giant head (or is it just the size of his helmet he never removes?) gives you the impression that he’s a fish out of water. And the intelligent fish out of water idea hadn’t really been explored extensively in TV yet during the 1960’s, let alone in animation. Gazoo’s endearing put-down of calling Fred and Barney his “Dum-dums” pretty much set up the comedic possibilities of that genre. Harvey Korman’s snarky voice work for the character really couldn’t have been done any more effectively by another voice artist. You’ll notice, too, that Harvey Korman’s likeness was incorporated into Gazoo’s face, which is pretty much a standard in animation today to give a chance for the voice actors to essentially act as themselves through an animated representation of their facial features or characteristics.

Well, just before that fish (or alien) out of water theme could be explored further, “The Flintstones” were canceled in 1966. Of course, we all know it was revived myriad times, mostly for the Saturday morning kids market starting within five years after the original went off the air. None of the series revivals (even the first early 70’s revival featuring Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm as teens) featured Gazoo either…leaving a mystery and more intrigue behind the character…

The Great Gazoo as an unresolved character and his entrance into pop culture…

According to all the history behind “The Flintstones”, it was every intention that the series would be back for another season in the fall of 1966 and eventually resolve Gazoo’s desire to get back home. Not that it really mattered in the bigger world of television, but the character was intriguing enough where Gazoo could have been given his own cartoon series to get him back home and let the public see what life is like on his own planet. After all, his home planet of Zatox sounded intriguing along with that doomsday machine Gazoo built and was punished for (hence being sent to Earth as a prison sentence). Giving some snarky satire to something so contrived, overdone, yet ultimately nefarious, would have been fun.

Whether that intriguing element to Gazoo helped him become a favorite cult cartoon figure isn’t really known other than taking the obvious idea that unresolved characters who had an intriguing appeal always ending up as cult figures. Harvey Korman did voice Gazoo once more in a 2000 Flintstones video game called “Flintstones Bedrock Bowling”, despite it possibly being archived voice work from the 60’s instead. Other than that, he never voiced Gazoo again while enjoying his other successes, even though Gazoo was used in a couple of TV ads for Fruity Pebbles during the 1970’s and having a cameo in the train wreck 2000 live-action sequel “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas” where Alan Cumming, of all people, voiced Gazoo.

Amazingly, Gazoo even had a short comic book series produced around 1975 produced by Charlton Comics who had a licensing agreement with Hanna-Barbera to produce short comic series based on those characters. That series never resolved the story of Gazoo going back to Zatox either as far as I’m aware.

Thanks to Screen Gems syndicating the original 1960’s “The Flintstones” all through the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, several generations were able to see the Great Gazoo and place him right into the consciousness of every kid who loved the Flintstones universe. I think anybody who grew up with the reruns would admit that they actually looked forward to the time when they’d show the final season and the episodes with Gazoo. Yet, you still hear people today make references to Gazoo disparagingly as being a tool in bringing a series down as the result of an otherwise good series going in a strange direction (known affectionately as “jumping the shark”). I beg to differ and say that it added something fresh to “The Flintstones” in its final season. It needed to have an intelligent character to put some more irony into the plots and time period it was taking place in.

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Yes, Harvey Korman was really an outstanding voice actor who only used his talents in limited places later on in his career when his TV and movie career slowed down. While “The Carol Burnett Show” and his classic film comedies are really his biggest legacy, Korman arguably brought the first true intelligent cartoon character to television who seemed to be smarter than anybody else in the show’s universe or perhaps even watching at home. While Korman didn’t usually make a lot of comment about the popular character, the public still had enough brains to make Gazoo stick with them for life.

As Harvey Korman would probably voice it:

“Toodle-oo, dum-dums…I mean you smart people…”