The Great Gazoo

The Great Gazoo

Infobox character
colour = #DEDEE2
colour text =
name = The Great Gazoo
series = The Flintstones


caption = The Great Gazoo
first =
last =
creator = Hanna Barbera
gender = Male
species = Alien
residence = Bedrock

The Great Gazoo is a character from "The Flintstones" animated series. He first appeared on the show on October 29 1965. He has many similarities to Mr. Mxyzptlk of the "Superman" comics, and may have been inspired by him. The Great Gazoo was voiced by Harvey Korman.

Biography

Gazoo is a tiny, green, floating alien who was exiled to Earth from his home planet Zatox as punishment for having invented a "doomsday machine," a weapon of immense destructive power, and was discovered by Fred and Barney when his flying saucer crashed. His invention was a button which would destroy the universe if pressed, though he insists he made it on a whim with no intent of using it.

Gazoo often appears before Fred and Barney in random, often inopportune moments. He refers to Fred and Barney as "dum-dums" and constantly causes problems for them. Even when he attempts to help Fred and Barney out, he usually ends up causing even more trouble. The only people who are able to see him are Fred, Barney, and the children, because they believe in him. It is also possible that Dino and Hoppy can also see Gazoo, which means that Wilma and Betty are the only ones who cannot. A running gag is that Fred argues with Gazoo while Wilma believes that he is talking to himself. When their daughter, Pebbles, says "Gazoo," Wilma thinks Pebbles is sneezing.

Gazoo's name actually derives from the 1909 hit song, "King of the Bungaloos," by Charles Straight and Gene Greene. In it, the narrator explains, "I just received a cable 'spatch from my ancestral home. It tells me I'm the great Gazoo, successor to the throne." [Greene, Gene, and Straight, Charles, "King of the Bungaloos" (Music House of Laemmle: Chicago, 1909), p. 1.]

Because Gazoo is introduced into the show midway through the final season and is considered quite an absurd character, being a futuristic alien that appears in the middle of the Stone Age, he is often cited by fans and critics of the show as being an example of the show having "jumped the shark." Indeed, the show was cancelled shortly after his first appearance, although it cannot be said with any certainty that Gazoo contributed in any way to the series' conclusion.

The story arc regarding Gazoo's trying to return home is never resolved because of the cancellation of the original series, and the character does not appear, nor is he referred to, in the immediate series follow-up "The Man Called Flintstone" or any of the later spin-off TV series or animated movies, rendering him effectively dropped from continuity. Apart from the original TV series, he appears in a Fruity Pebbles cereal commercial as part of a promotion for a contest where consumers would have to try to find boxes of all-orange cereal pieces, and more recently has become the mascot for Marshmallow Mania Pebbles cereal. If you look closely you will find he is a character in the popular Flintstones vitamins.

Later appearances

* In the Duck Dodgers cartoon "Attack of the Drones", Gazoo appears in a parody of the Jedi Council.

* The Great Gazoo also appears in "" NES game.

* The Great Gazoo also had a part in the second live-action film, "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas", where he is played by Alan Cumming and, instead of being sent to Earth as punishment, he has to study humanity's mating habits because he is the most expendable of his people. Charlton Comics also published a short-lived comic book focusing on the character in the mid-1970s.

* In the episode of "" entitled "Pavement", the Great Gazoo makes a cameo - only long enough to be introduced, say the catchphrase "Toodle-loo, dum-dums!" and disappear.

* One episode of "The Simpsons", "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase", features a little green alien character Ozmodiar, a clear parody of The Great Gazoo, especially as he is used in the context of a joke about the show jumping the shark. Ozmodiar actually appears in a later episode, "HOMЯ," after Bart points out that cartoons do not have to be realistic, and then again after Homer is fired.

* The Great Gazoo appears in the "Family Guy" episode "Wasted Talent" voiced by Seth MacFarlane.

References in other stories

* Butch Hartman, creator of "The Fairly OddParents", has stated that Gazoo was an influence on the appearance of his show's title characters, Cosmo and Wanda. They even float up and down like Gazoo.

* In an episode of the animated series "Undergrads", Rocko, while drunk on bad clam juice, inadvertently mistakes the character Mump as the Great Gazoo.

* In a 1999 ESPN commercial for an earlier edition of "SportsCenter", Ricky Williams says that the new, earlier "Sportscenter" won't ruin the original edition, unlike the way the Flintstones did, "with that little green guy!"

* The "Homestar Runner" character Rumble Red, whose home planet is a parody of the Soviet Union prior to its collapse, is also a parody of the Great Gazoo.

* In the fifth episode of the first season of "Bones", Zach Addy refuses to use the Thermal Imager based on the objection that it makes him look like the Great Gazoo. Brennan's response is her typical catch phrase "I don't know what that means."

* In the webcomic Sluggy Freelance one of the Alien Aylee's transformations resembles Gazoo.

* NBC's Keith Olbermann commented on the Philadelphia Eagles' throwback uniforms worn in Week 3 of the 2007 season (which the Eagles won over the Detroit Lions) by referring to the helmets worn as the "Great Gazoo" helmets.

* In the "Venture Bros." episode "Now Museum, Now You Don't", the large-headed villain Brainulo is referred to as "The Great Gazoo" by an old nemesis.

References


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