Wilma Flintstone

[Captain Bollocks]

Maybe this could have been in unanswered questions but it’s more of a production thing than a headcanon thing, and it’s something I’ve always wondered about, so… 

Is there any reason, legal or otherwise, why they’re able to have Wilma so prominently painted on Lister’s jacket? Do they have to pay a residual fee for the rights to use it? Has nobody from Hanna-Barbera clocked it? Is it something the BBC sorted out? Is a painting on a character’s jacket different enough from actually using the character? 

I know the BBC are very stringent with people not wearing any logos or branding on shows they produce, in the way that you’ll never see anyone on a game show with a Nike tick on their t-shirt, etc., and as we know in Dwarf terms, they got in a bit of bother for having the Red Cross logo on the medical cabinet. 

Over the years he’s had a Rolling Stones badge and a NASA logo on his various jackets, but they strike me as maybe being fair game as found objects? I guess what a find interesting about the Wilma thing is that it’s not a photograph of someone that they’ve licensed or a piece of art depicting a real person, but a bespoke painting of someone else’s intellectual property. 

Would love any insight into how this stuff works (maybe it’s allowed in the same way you’re allowed to show birthday cards with popular characters on?), otherwise I’ll have to badger Richard Osman about it on his podcast. 

[Renegade Rob]

There was clearly a detailed licensing deal in which Wilma was allowed to be displayed on Lister’s jacket in exchange for the free product placement of Lister and Cat talking about banging Wilma Flintstone. Classic quid pro quo. 

[tombow]

The rights holders checked some episodes and decided it was a gay old time 

[Warbodog]

I hadn’t ever noticed it, but a TOS article says about the series III jacket:

its crowning detail was an amazing painting on the back, of a woman (originally Wilma Flintstone, before concern over copyright led to the obscuring of her features) riding on a retro-futurist sci-fi rocket.

[Warbodog]

Can’t tell what I’m looking at.

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

I checked through The Promised Land and his last jacket does look more Wilma-ey. Don’t know if there’s ever a really clear shot of it.

[Dave]

[Ian Symes]

I think what happened is that the BBC and/or the production team got worried about all the copyright issues that Captain Bollocks correctly points out, and so obscured the painting on the original jacket to the point where it was just different enough.

Then they made a new jacket for the Dave era, and thought fuck it. Either the potential issues didn’t occur to anyone in the relative wild west of non-PSB television, or it did occur to them and they decided to risk it anyway.

[Podey]

It’s Wilma, alright.

https://www.indeliblemurals.com/red-drawf

[Podey]

Nice touch with the url….

[Warbodog]

Yeah, but I can’t be bothered to go through every Dave episode on the Smega-Drive to see if it’s ever clearly visible or if they’ve tried to obscure it a bit.

[Dave]

[Nick R]

[Technopeasant]

Putting the cat out has always seemed like a strange idea to me. The current recommendation is to bring your cats in during the evening not just for their own safety but to reduce their chances at catching birds.

[Moonlight]

What if I hate birds, as well as my cat?

[RunawayTrain]

Eh, it was in the 60s and dogs lived outdoors too (c.f. ‘in the doghouse’).

Though I have catsat for one whose routine was to be put out for the night, so she didn’t wake the humans with zoomies or asking to be let out at 3-4am. 

When ours was younger it just depended on what he decided to do before we went to bed – if he was out and didn’t come when called, he’d stay out, if he was in and didn’t go out when given the opportunity, he’d stay in. 

In his later years he mostly stayed in and I was able to get up in the night for him – he’d want food* at 4-5am, go out for the toilet, then maybe come back in or maybe not depending on how cold it was.  (Not sure what we’d have done if I hadn’t been able to do that though, tricky decision with an elderly cat.)

*or more accurately, to be watched eating.  He had food in the bowl, but wouldn’t go and eat without one of us.  Partly that and partly he wanted to know there was someone awake and up to let him out after eating.

[Technopeasant]

I mean, our dogs live outdoors, but they are Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs, so that is kind of their whole job.

[Warbodog]

[Jenuall]

Eh, it was in the 60s and dogs lived outdoors too (c.f. ‘in the doghouse’).

Though I have catsat for one whose routine was to be put out for the night, so she didn’t wake the humans with zoomies or asking to be let out at 3-4am. 
When ours was younger it just depended on what he decided to do before we went to bed – if he was out and didn’t come when called, he’d stay out, if he was in and didn’t go out when given the opportunity, he’d stay in. 
In his later years he mostly stayed in and I was able to get up in the night for him – he’d want food* at 4-5am, go out for the toilet, then maybe come back in or maybe not depending on how cold it was.  (Not sure what we’d have done if I hadn’t been able to do that though, tricky decision with an elderly cat.)
*or more accurately, to be watched eating.  He had food in the bowl, but wouldn’t go and eat without one of us.  Partly that and partly he wanted to know there was someone awake and up to let him out after eating.

[Podey]

What if I hate birds

[Formica]

The current recommendation is to bring your cats in during the evening

You live in a backwards society if the recommendation is not to just keep them indoors in general.

[RunawayTrain]

Perfect response.  /gen

Ah, would that it had been so simple!  (We rent.)

[Technopeasant]

 You live in a backwards society if the recommendation is not to just keep them indoors in general.

My cats I keep in town are indoors. The one’s on my family’s farm go out during the day. We built our ones a catio.

[Author]

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