You don't often expect George Jetson and Fred Flintstone to be "Separated at Mirth" with the same cover gag but, when The Great Gazoo is involved, anything goes... I suppose!
And, while they may be "Separated at Mirth" they are "united by numbering", as this gag occurs each time on an "Issue Number 2"!
If it were anyone but Charlton, I'd say it was on purpose!
At least by the Jetsons' time, we've advanced from "GAS" to (hopefully non-fossil-fuel, carbon-footprint-decreasing, completely synthetic and wholly made from recycled consumer waste products) "JET JUICE"!
One final question... why does George need a "ball of cotton", or a tiny bit of the CLOUD he's standing on (!), as a spout-stopper?
Only Charlton knows for sure!
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And the concept of a rocket comically out of fuel, stranding its passengers who see it as just a mild annoyance, would, of course, recur in Don Rosa's Rocket Reverie…
…but was the Great Gazoo ever genuinely popular in his own right? Let alone popular enough to trump the Flintstones as the title character of the book! Was the marketing department insane?
As for the "bit of cloud" which you read as the stopper on the "jet-juice sprinkler", I think it more likely that it is smoke escaping from the tank — fantasy acids and chemicals have a history of emitting ill-defined fumes for dramatic effect, and I see no reason why the same might not be true of Jet Juice.
Achille:
In my view, The Great Gazoo was more “controversial” than “popular”, enjoyed by some and blamed for ending the six-season prime-time run of THE FLINTSTONES by others.
While the character was well-performed by Harvey Korman (as a young reader, I imagined that’s what Gyro Gearloose would sound like) and could be enjoyable, I tend to fall into the latter category. He was very likely the first “Poochie-type” character, in an odd attempt to have THE FLINTSTONES mimic another contemporary TV series; MY FAVORITE MARTIAN!
In the one Gold Key Comic in which he appeared, he returned home at story’s end (and, perhaps that’s what “Poochie’s return his home planet” was based upon).
Maybe he should have done that at the end of his first TV episode as well but, like him or not, The Great Gazoo would seem to be here to stay, as his appearance in SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP might indicate!
As far as the existence of a GREAT GAZOO comic book title, we must remember that we are discussing CHARLTON – and Charlton didn’t just “walk (or publish?) to the beat of a different drummer”, sometimes I felt as if the “drummer” were “eschewed for a kazoo!” (…which rhymes with “Gazoo”!)
As the early-1970s began to transition to the mid-1970s, it would seem that Charlton’s (honestly and quite charitably “mediocre”) FLINTSTONES title was selling well. Apparently much better than HUCKLEBERRY HOUND, QUICK DRAW McGRAW, and MAGILLA GORILLA (which ended after 8, 8, and 5 issues respectively) as well as TOP CAT and even THE JETSONS (which lasted 20 issues each)!
In contrast, Charlton’s FLINTSTONES title lasted 50 issues (only TEN fewer than the combined run of DELL and GOLD KEY!), and its YOGI BEAR title ran for 35 issues (only SEVEN fewer than the combined run of DELL and GOLD KEY!) …And those only ended when they did, because Marvel then acquired the Hanna-Barbera comics license! While the Marvel versions were good (primarily written and edited by Mark Evanier – and drawn by a host of artists (many from the earlier Gold Key H-B comics), they didn’t last very long.
And so, mindful of its success while they still had the publishing rights, Charlton exploited its FLINTSTONES line, expanding it to include individual titles for BARNEY AND BETTY RUBBLE (23 issues), the teenaged PEBBLES AND BAMM-BAMM (which was a popular animated series at the time – 36 issues), DINO (Yes, really… DINO! - 20 issues), and THE GREAT GAZOO also coming in at 20 issues!
And, to really put a rock-cherry atop this tale, while I never read the PEBBLES AND BAMM-BAMM title (because, to me, they should be eternal toddlers) the other titles most often exceeded the main FLINTSTONES title in quality… especially BARNEY AND BETTY RUBBLE, as I will post on someday!
…Go, rock-figure!
Yeah, I suppose that COULD be smoke or “Jet Juice vapor”, or some such residual material leaking from the can. Still, in terms of the gag itself, I don’t get why it’s there… but, that’s Charlton!
…Go, future-figure!
Oh, I do get that there's reasons to like the Gazoo… but even then, what I meant is, could there have been interest in a book about him? Inasmuch as he worked, it was as an interesting disruptive element to throw into Bedrock to see what would happen; it's not that you couldn't imagine a premise that would recenter the stories around him, but it doesn't appear that this is what those stories did. Yet here he is, getting top billing as though the book were about him?
Achille:
As I said, this was Charlton… and, whatever “rules” they “played by” were never written in any book of conventional wisdom… any time… ever!
To them, I can only imagine, THE GREAT GAZOO was “just another FLINTSTONES title” they could throw out to the newsstands!
This sort of thing was done far more extensively – and far more obnoxiously – by Harvey Comics, during that same 1970s period, with RICHIE RICH. It was apparently their best seller (though, for the life of me, I’ll never understand why – as well as why there was never an ongoing HERMAN AND KATNIP title to compete with TOM AND JERRY and TWEETY AND SYLVESTER), and so they exploited the ever-lovin’ holy-hell out of it!
Looking through my Overstreet Guide, I find there to be about 47 (!) individual RICHIE RICH titles, most of them crammed into that small and anomalous period, with titles such as RICHIE RICH DOLLARS AND CENTS, RICHIE RICH PROFITS, RICHIE RICH GEMS, RICHIE RICH GOLD AND SILVER – and the like! The title I kept waiting for, in my singularly-warped, creatively-active mind was RICHIE RICH FAMILY JEWELS… but, alas, that never happened!
Compared to that, I can’t fault Charlton for a few (admittedly oddly chosen) ancillary FLINTSTONES titles! And THE GREAT GAZOO was a better choice to head a title than DINO, because at least Gazoo could SPEAK!
To the extent that I am familiar with it, the stories in THE GREAT GAZOO title were centered around Gazoo being sentenced by his superiors to secretly serve the prehistoric dum-dums Fred and Barney – just as in the TV series. Other recurring themes were Gazoo reacting to, or coping with, life on “Earth-Flintstone”, Gazoo’s usually unpleasant interactions with his superiors as his progress is closely monitored, and the occasional breaks he is allowed to temporarily return to his home planet – not unlike a soldier on temporary leave.
Charlton actually does this stuff reasonably well, in that it goes to some places the TV series might have gone had it lasted another season or two… but they still manage to screw it up by calling Gazoo’s home planet “ZILTOX”, rather than “ZETOX”! This ongoing error was never corrected over the run of 20 issues! Oh, well…
Around the end of Gladstone’s run, they were all set to exploit Uncle Scrooge the way Charlton did The Flintstones by adding “Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck” and “The Adventurous Uncle Scrooge McDuck” to their list of books including “Uncle Scrooge” and “Uncle Scrooge Adventures” just before the books became too expensive for Bruce Hamilton to turn a profit on them (at least that was the reason given in their subscriber’s newsletter).
Deb:
Yeah, I think ol’ Bruce was on his way to exploitation city at around that time! Who knows HOW MANY Uncle Scrooge titles there might have been had he continued to run unchecked? At least his choices in unnecessary ancillary titles were a smidgen more “classic” than something like RICHIE RICH CASH MONEY (…an ACTUAL title, look it up) which was really scraping the bottom of the title-barrel!
But, to a comic-book traditionalist like me, the WORST thing about that period was his use of PAPER WRAP-AROUND COVERS in place of industry-standard cover stock! (…Oh, dear… You’ve started him up again! Look out!)
And, the WORST thing about the PAPER COVERS is that he switched to this embarrassingly cheap format DURING the ORIGINAL AMERICAN RUN of Don Rosa’s “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”!
It’s LAST THREE CHAPTERS were released in this inferior format… and (believe it or not), because of that, “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck” - for ALL it’s various printings and collections over the years – has NEVER had a complete run in the “standard comic book format” that I treasure above all other forms (hardcover, softcover TPB, digest, etc.) in the USA!
Thank you for that, Unca Bruce!
To think that even a travesty like the American version of “Uncle Scrooge My First Millions” has a complete run in the traditional standard comic book format… and a true modern classic like “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck” does not!
If only The Great Gazoo could fix THAT situation!
We at the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids certainly know a thing or two about standing on clouds - our whole home dimension is made of them, after all! In fact, we feel that George Jetson ought to forego the ship all together - and travel about on the cloud! Now that's the way to travel in comfort and style!
I can’t argue with ya there, Cupie-Crowd!
In fact George has already bought (will eventually buy?) into your philosophy, apparently using some futuristic tech, with results both GOOD, and “maybe a little less so”!
…Now, if only there was a way for me to do this in OUR TIME, without falling through the cloud to my death!
…Of course, another interpretation might be that, by George’s time, the clouds have become so full of pollutants that anyone can stand on them!
…Naw, let’s not think that!
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