Henry Kaiser, "Joaquin (Twenty-Four Eyes) Miller"

From henrykaiser.net

MEET THE FLINTSTONES (continued)

Well, for the next seven or eight weeks my roommate would come back to the barracks after each weekend at his home and tell me the story of all the Flintstones episodes that he had seen. Especially he'd tell me about every dinosaur and all of the dinosaur-powered machines. This sure sounded like my kind of TV show.

Suddenly I had a chance to see The Flintstones myself. My father was feeling a little better and his doctors decided to let him spend one last weekend in the house that I grew up in. And I was allowed to come home from military school be with him. I really loved my father a lot and it was great to see him again! I think it was about the last time that I did see him. He died a few months later. We had a wonderful time that weekend. We did all sorts of things together. After dinner one night I explained to him that I really wanted to watch this new TV program about some cavemen called The Flintstones. I'd heard that it was full of really cool dinosaurs. I realized that it was on at eight o'clock, a half-hour past my bed time, but couldn't we make a special exception and stay up and watch it? He said it was OK! So we got ready to watch The Flintstones. We made some popcorn. My father rolled his wheel chair over in front of the big old RCA television set. I climbed up into his lap. He picked up the remote control and turned on The Flintstones!

The Flintstones came on and The Flintstones was not at all what I had expected. Oh no. To actually see The Flintstones was a terrible, terrible shock. For my roommate had neglected to tell me one essential fact about The Flintstones. He had never told me that The Flintstones... ......WAS A CARTOON.

Dino copyright Hanna-Barbera Studios, 2001.