in 1950, because of the film tv studios starting to slash their budgets. every major film studio had an animation division. suddenly by the late '50s almost none of them do. >> you've got people like henna and joe barbara winning oscars for tom & jerry cartoons, they're out of work, what are they going to do? they pitched the idea of a primetime adult-oriented sitcom. >> the flintstones, looking for something different on tv? well, here it is. >> the flintstones, that's a kids cartoon, that's not family guy. but it was in 1960. look at the first two seasons of the flintstones, they're all adult situations. the show itself is a parody of sitcoms at the time. >> don't you get it? this place is a gold mine, if we could buy it, we could get rich and be our own bosses. >> this one is different.