Henry Kaiser, "The Empty Set"

From henrykaiser.net

MEET THE FLINTSTONES (continued

No television in military school. No movies. Not much fun. My roommate, though, he got to go home on weekends so that his family could pretend that they were a normal "Leave It to Beaver" type American family. He got to watch TV and go to the movies when he went home. He'd always tell me about what he saw.

"Henry! I saw the most incredible movie! The Beast from Twenty Thousand Fathoms! It was about this giant dinosaur. The army had a big fight with it in an amusement park. It smashed a roller coaster! I don't know how they did the special effects. But it looked real! A real dinosaur!"

So he told me the whole story of the movie - as kids do. It sounded great! My kind of movie! You know, a few years later I got a chance to see The Beast from Twenty Thousand Fathoms and it was even better than I had imagined.

After another weekend at home my roommate came back to the military school and said:

"Henry! I saw the first episode of this new TV series called The Flintstones! It's great! It's all about a family of cavemen who live in this town called Bedrock. They live in houses made of boulders and there are dinosaurs all over the place! They drive stone automobiles that are dinosaur powered! Fred Flintstone, he's the hero, works in a construction site where they use a brontosaurus for a crane! The Flintstones even have a dinosaur for a pet. His name is Dino and he's just like a dog!"

Wow... A dinosaur for a pet. No pets in military school. And certainly no dinosaurs.