The Flintstones on The MaP

Four million years in the making!! Okay Chief, would you believe three weeks?

Yabba-Dabba-Dooooooo! Here's a project I've been wanting to do for a v-e-r-y long time. 'The Flintstones' was television's first cartoon to debut during prime time and I remember it well and have been a fan ever since, even having received Marx Flintstones playset during Christmas of 1962. Although my original set is long gone, the past ten years or so have been spent re-acquiring the set along with many other Flintstones toys and props from the movies. This video represents a long overdue project - bringing Bedrock to life in toy form. After many hours scouring the Internet I've found - NOTHING! It appears that no one has done a similar project using the various Flintstones toys. You can see still photos of this set-up on my blog:

http://toyconnect.blogspot.com (Specifically the entry for Apr 10, 2011)

Now, on to the video itself. Followers of The Marxville and Plateau (The MaP) know that the Plateau portion is deliberately designed to accommodate changes in theme. For this set-up the 3-rail O-gauge track was removed and in its place track was laid from Empire of North Carolina's Flintstones train sets. Empire made two sets - a large and a small. Both sets contained the same amount of track and a 4-piece battery operated train. The difference lay in the amount and type of accessories included. The large set included a plastic and lithographed heavy-cardboard train station and tunnel. It also contained plastic dinosaurs, 'Dinasaur' (Empire's spelling) crossings - aka train crossings - and plastic trees and cactus. The smaller set had lithographed cardboard trees, dinosaurs and a smaller all-cardboard version of the train station. It took four sets to make this layout and I left out the two switch sections as they just didn't fit in to my scheme. It's a good thing I had four sets because NONE of the engines worked! I had to tear apart every engine, cannibalize, solder, and generally issue forth a slew of invectives, to get one working engine.

The buildings are from a variety of sources: Original Marx Flintstones playset buildings; repo Marx buildings from the later Marx Toys Inc., Ruby Edition playset; Burger King kids meals; McDonald's-USA happy meals, and McDonald's-UK happy meals. The figures and vehicles used on the layout and in the various 'studio' stills are from all over: USA, UK, Germany, Mexico. There are also a couple of large, 1/18 scale toys: the Ertl Flintstones Joyride, and McFarlane's 'The Flintstones at The Drive-In' mini-diorama. This is an interesting toy. Supposedly one presses a 'rock' on the base and the Flintstones Flivver tips over - easier said than done. Pressing the rock too hard may cause the lever action to break so it needs a little help. Also, there's no mechanism to lock the car in the 'tipped-over' mode for display. I was lucky enough to get the car to stay put just long enough to take photos.

Working on it for three weeks involved shooting many videos and a whole bunch of stills. I wanted to document it as much as possible because, like all the other set-ups on the Plateau, this too will be temporary. Gosh, I wish I had room for a permanent Bedrock diorama but it just ain't gonna happen in this life I'm afraid.

So, for you, and for me, and for posterity without further ado, sit back and enjoy your tour of Bedrock!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Map
• Marxville and Plateau
• toy train
• toy train layout
• Flintstones
• Bedrock
• Marx
• railroad

[Trainbrain1949]

The Bedrock railroad. Quite a novel idea! The late HO modeler John Allen had a dinosaur on his railroad. He had a number painted on the side using the premise that it was used a a local switcher. Too bad one of the big train makers doesn't do a Flintstones train.

[marxtoynut]

@Trainbrain1949 I grew up modeling HO and remember John Allen well. His Gorre and Daphetid is still the single best train layout ever in my opinion. Now my eyes just can't handle the small detail and I play with bigger trains :-) I'm surprised no one has done either a toy Bedrock and posted it somewhere. Lionel and MTH have both made novelty trains before, why not a Flintstones themed train? (I don't think K-Line ever did something one could classify as 'novelty') Ed

[marxtoynut]

Many Thanx Guys!! Ed

[kae4466]

There is a lot of time and creativity gong down in bedrock,bedrock. This is the beauty of having nothing tied down on the playa of ones model train layout in bedrock , bedrock. I do not have anyting tied down on my playa in bedrock, bedrock. Great and fantastic job sir!!!!!(grins, chortles)

[chiconian49]

Great layout. Marxist really do have more fun!

Chuck

[tedprince1]

very cool!!!!!

[johnnyt521]

Fantastic!Thank you!I love it!