Part of this memoir is about my time at the larger studios. Eventually trying my hand at creating stories with my own characters. But then there’s the part about the struggle of life. To believe in myself. To choose a path. To find work, the inner doubts of whether or not I could succeed always haunting me.
Growing up we lived on the corner house right next to the primary, middle and high schools I attended. All through high school I would run across the street at lunch time. My mother would make me a grilled cheese sandwich and for 30 minutes I got lost in the voices and Hoyt Curtain rifts of music of the Flintstones. I knew the dialogue by heart.
I knew the stories by heart.
The Hot Piano with '88 Fingers Louis' Dripper about a seal that follows Fred home from an aquarium, and 'the New Neighbors' starring the Gruesomes . Oh and another favorite 'Giggles Flintstones' with Fred and Barney spending the night in a haunted mansion, only to find out it was all a prank.
I found the characters charming and relatable, because I often saw them dealing with the same issues my mother and father did. Much funnier. Getting a new pet, adjusting to new neighbors, camping disasters, money class structures to name a few.
In getting a pet, Dino was originally a Snorkasauras that Fred and Wilma brought back from camping. I brought home a black cat from a camping trip we took to Algonquin park,
In one episode, Fred and Wilma trade jobs, so Fred stays home to cook while Wilma goes to work. Fred puts too much rice in the rice cooker and floods the backyard. That happened in our family except for the rice part. While my mother went to work in a sewing factory, my father stayed home and didn’t allow me to eat my grilled cheese sandwiches in the living room. Which meant I couldn’t watch the Flintstones. Luckily for me, my mother was treated so poorly at the factory that she quit and came back home after a week.
- Money, class structure. Fred and Wilma go to a fancy ball and realize that money doesn’t buy you friends, and to be yourself.
The times during my life that I thought “that happened in the Flintstones” I loved watching and listening to the charming sincere characters caught in relatable situations every weekday at noon.
High school - the art award. Wanting to take drama and tap but I was never being allowed to. Choosing to go to Uni because of my grades.
I wanted to do art and I LOVED animation. Growing up I’d spend hours sitting at the kitchen table at my parents house, designing my own cartoon characters, drawing and painting. I even added drawings and characters to my school projects. (Find the “I speak for the trees one”)
I'd heard about an animation program at Sheridan College, about 30 miles from where I lived in Hamilton Ontario. I’d heard that this program had teachers that had come from Disney.
The advice I got from the counsellor in high schools was that a community College (like Sheridan) wasn’t going to give me a good career. My grades were too high (they were not high compared to today’s standards) I also love animals and thought about becoming a vet “Look at the vet courses in college, they’re cage cleaning (assistant) courses” - not becoming an actual vet.” Guidance councelor Westmount high school.
All the time I wondered, “Who are those lucky people that get to make cartoons for a living?”
Even so, I decided to leave for Guelph to pursue becoming a vet, and ignore my dream of working in animation.
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