"Yabba Dabba Don't," being the obvious headline

On top of producing his twelve TV shows and working on his foul-mouthed teddy bear movie with Mark Wahlberg, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane will soon be “rebooting” The Flintstones as a TV and movie project.  The Hanna-Barbera (both dead, by the way) cartoon earned $340 million worldwide as a live-action feature starring John Goodman and Rick Moranis in 1994, and later tanked as a sequel with Stephen Baldwin and Jane Krakowski in 2000.  With the rights now secure, MacFarlane will finally be able to tackle a project even more boring-sounding than The Cleveland Show.

I’ve just learned that [MacFarlane has] finally realized one of his life’s ambitions: to reboot The Flintstones as a TV and film property. My scoop today follows years of very complicated negotiations between 20th Century Fox TV, where McFarlane is based, and Warner Bros Television, which owns the rights to the series after absorbing The Flintstones‘ famed producer Hanna-Barbera. Not only did the suits have a ton of deal points to work through, but I hear the “Yabba Dabba Doo” prehistoric family sitcom’s rightholders were somewhat concerned how the classic series would be interpreted given MacFarlane’s brand of raunchy comedies like Family Guy. So here are all the Hollywood players who had to unentangle this mess: MacFarlane’s attorney Jim Jackoway, WME’s Ari Emanuel and Greg Hodes; 20th Century Fox TV’s Gary Newman, Ira Kurghan, and Howard Kurtzman; and Warner Bros Television’s Peter Roth, Brett Paul and even Bruce Rosenblum. There’s no broadcast date as of yet, but the reboot will air on Fox. [Deadline]

Thank God she mentions them by name, or else these modern-day heroes might not get the recognition they so richly deserve. I hear at one point, negotiations were so contentious they almost didn’t have time for catered lunch.  The Flintstones, of course, was essentially a ripoff of The Honeymooners, a family sitcom later reinvented by Married with Children and The Simpsons, which in turn was ripped off by Family Guy, who added a talking dog, and spun off into two other shows that were basically the same.  I doubt I’ll watch the reboot, but maybe I’ll send a mannequin who looks like me.  (*slides down back of brontosaurus, dismissively wanking with both hands*)

I bet Kevin James is already preparing his trough full of brontosaurus burgers.

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This isn’t the first time I’ve told you about Teddy Bear, Seth MacFarlane’s $65 million, hard-R film about a man and his perverted teddy bear sidekick. But today, our favorite nerds at Pajiba are reporting that Mark Wahlberg is considering the lead role. The project would be a bit of a departure for MacFarlane, what with the Simpsons not having done it first.

Mark Wahlberg — of all people — is considering the lead role in Seth MacFarlane’s Teddy Bear, a comedy about a 33 year old man whose Teddy Bear comes to life and poses problems for him as an adult when it gets in the way of a relationship with his girlfriend. The Teddy Bear is described as something that, I sh*t you not, likes to party, pick up women, smoke pot, and play video games. Note, too, that there are roles in the movie for a racist homosexual, a woman obsessed with talking about men shaving their assh*les, and a “Jewish-looking” person who makes anti-Semitic remarks. In other words: Typical MacFarlane.

“Teddy Bear”?  Why not just “Drop Dead Ted”?  Seems like the obvious choice. Anyway, if you’re in the market for a racist homosexual, there’s always Liam Neeson.  That fruit cake’s always spouting off about how much he hates N-words.  It’s always “n-word this,” and “n-word that.”  It’s like, jeez, Neeson, give it a rest, did you not get enough c*ck or something?
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Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has signed a deal with Universal to make his feature film directorial debut on Ted, a $65 million “hard-R” picture about “a man and his teddy bear.”

MacFarlane will also co-star and provide the voice for the CG-generated title character. MacFarlane wrote the script with Family Guy cohorts Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, and he will produce with MRC, Scott Stuber and John Jacobs.  I’ve heard that the intention of Universal, MRC and MacFarlane is to get the film into production this year.  MacFarlane will work the film around his exhausting duties supervising the animated Fox shows Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad!, and providing a majority of the voices. Fox and MacFarlane have long wanted to make a Family Guy theatrical feature, but Ted will come first. Fox apparently was reluctant to embrace the teddy bear movie because of its  R-rating. [Deadline]

I’m picturing an adult version of Gooby that sneaks you whiskey and you jerk each other off.  Because if not that, what are imaginary friends for?

I don’t know why, but I like Seth MacFarlane.  I mostly liked the old Family Guy, meaning I like about 35% of the total Family Guy episodes. It’s okay, but you want to hate it when you see guys like the guy on MacFarlane’s right in the video laughing as hard as they do at it. Shut up, dork, you’re ruining this for me. But American Dad! is meh and The Cleveland Show is essentially unwatchable.  But for some reason, I still see Seth MacFarlane and imagine a guy I wouldn’t mind hanging out with.  I’m just glad this hasn’t happened with Jerry Bruckheimer.  Praying for his fiery death is all that gives my life meaning.

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A Hollywood insider and avid (belligerent?) FilmDrunkard has informed me that the studio who made the Anaconda sequels is developing a buddy heist movie called Safe Bet, with Gary Busey and Adam West attached.  Now, this sounds very much like an unverified AICN rumor, but… uh, so’s your face.

I’m sure the movie will go straight to DVD if it ever even makes it to production, but I don’t think it’s too much to hope for a trailer at least as good as this one.  It’s an interesting pairing, because real-life Busey is at least as colorful as Adam West’s Family Guy alter ego (funnier, too).

Busey facts of the day: Gary Busey was breast fed until the age of 25 by a mysterious Chinese woman he later killed and ate.  Gary Busey had to remove the batteries in his smoke alarm because it would go off every time he orgasmed.  Later he burned his house down, just to prove a point.   

This is Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s contribution to the ongoing writer’s strike negotiations.  

My first concern about it, when I discovered that the premise was that the movie producers were represented by a group of puppets, was how this one joke was going last all three minutes and 27 seconds.

But hey, who better to milk a joke than the Family Guy guy?  And you know what, he almost won me over with the Jew arguing with a monkey-squirrel. Though I think if I were to let a species hybrid represent me at a board meeting, I’d go with a rhino-badger or a shark-falcon.  No one can hold his own against a Jew like a shark-falcon.

^{(Thanks to "RoboPanda" for the tip, and apologies on the shortage of posts today. We’ll be back on track tomorrow.  You’ll be able to tell by the back-on-track marks.)}