A lot of people have apparently made up their minds about time travel. They pick Star Wars. They want spaceships and robots and lightsabers and intergalactic shenanigans. They’re stoked about living someplace other than earth although there really doesn’t seem to be that much to do and there appears to be a serious shortage of chicks. I don’t pretend to understand it. I find earth to have some groovy things going for it and, this is just me, but if I was forced to pick an alternate dimension, I’d pick Bedrock.

I should admit that, sincerely, I’ve never seen a Star Wars movie from beginning to end, but the culture has been forced upon me my entire adult life so I know enough about the concept and phenomenon to authoritatively make fun of it. Star Wars is sort of silly and irrational and farfetched and redundant and a fantasy of the mind, and for my money, if I’m going to be asked to suspend disbelief and go on a fantastic journey that’s in no way believable, I’d rather take that trip with Fred Flintstone.

Star Wars and the Flintstones are basically the same show, characters go to a different galaxy, encounter unlikely obstacles and odd lifeforms and furry things that might be animals or something yet to be labeled. The only difference is that the Flintstones is more plausible, the acting’s better, the characters are smarter and more endearing and, truthfully, the storylines contain more drama, intrigue and sophistication.

To start with Betty Rubble is just way hotter than that Star Wars gal with the cinnamon rolls on the side of her head. The Great Gazoo is smarter than Yoda and Dino and Hoppy would kick the crap out of a yeti or any other animal-like creature on Star Wars. Yep, Star Wars just can’t really keep up with the Flintstones when it comes to nuance and creativity, makes you kinda feel sorry for the Star Wars franchise to tell the truth. So a flying saucer heads off into the farthest reaches of space and the Force wages epic war that is a fight for the very existence of the galaxy. That’s some boring shit. In the Flintstones, they mow the lawn with a raptor and use a wooly mammoth as a vacuum and they make bowling balls out of rocks that they use to knock down stone pins, riveting!

So we know that the basic story of the Flintstones is just better than the story of Star Wars, but where the Stone Age really beats the pants off of the future is the acting. Fred Flintstone basically embarrasses Star Wars actors like Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams. Who’s more memorable, Barney Rubble or some stupid talking robot? Shit, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm have more acting skills than Darth Vader, and they’re walking around in saber-tooth tiger diapers.

I’m glad Star Wars is popular, I think it’s great that grown adults are shoving toy light sabers down their pants, I think it’s perfectly reasonable that dudes in their sixties are calling in sick and standing in line along Sepulveda Boulevard in black capes and plastic helmets. It means that there will be less traffic and shorter lines for the things in life that emotionally-balanced people do. I just think it’s funny that there’s all this falderal about Star Wars when a cinematically-superior time travel adventure airs every night for free on TV Land … Jeez, get a load of the skinny waist on that Betty Rubble.