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Fractured Flickers

Fractured Flickers

Fractured Flickers is a live-action syndicated half-hour television comedy show that was produced by Jay Ward, who is otherwise known for animated cartoons, most notably The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. The pilot film was produced in 1961 (hence the date on the animated main title), but the series wasn't completed until 1963. Twenty-six episodes were produced; they were syndicated by Desilu Productions and played for several years on local stations.

Joel Hodgson has indicated that Fractured Flickers was an influence on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Premise[]

Host Hans Conried introduced short "flickers" pieced together from silent film footage and from other older movies, overdubbed with newly written comic dialogue, music, and sound effects. The voices for these were provided by fellow Ward mainstays Paul Frees, June Foray, and Bill Scott, with Conried occasionally providing narration. The earliest episodes have careful dubbing, with the actors and writers taking pains to synchronize the new dialogue with the actors' lip movements. Once the series had deadlines to face, however, the time-consuming dubbing was abandoned, and the later episodes don't bother with exact synchronization.

True to the Jay Ward brand of humor, the dialogue was loaded with puns and one-line jokes. Many segments satirized television commercials, with a typical "word from our sponsor" having the announcer extolling the virtues of a product or service, accompanied by darkly humorous clips. Other regular features were the "Minute Mysteries", featuring Stan Laurel as master detective Sherman Oaks (using scenes from his 1925 short comedy Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde), and the weekly "tributes" to some American city.

The show made a practice of mocking early melodramas with "hip" reinterpretations, such as presenting Lon Chaney, Sr.'s The Hunchback of Notre Dame as "Dinky Dunstan, Boy Cheerleader." This became the subject of (unsuccessful) legal action by Lon Chaney Jr., who was not amused by the frivolous take on one of his father's most noted roles.

Each episode also featured a celebrity guest whom Conried would interview. Most were popular personalities of the 1960s such as Fabian, Bob Denver, Deborah Walley, Rod Serling, and Rose Marie. Many of them caught the spirit of the show, and gave tongue-in-cheek answers to Conried's questions.

DVD Release[]

The entire series is available on a DVD set from VCI Entertainment

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