Limelight · Cirque & spectacle

Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue (1978)

This is a 1978 CBS television special combining live ice-skating variety entertainment with animated Flintstones segments, produced by Hanna-Barbera to mark the studio's twentieth anniversary. It stages a celebrity roast of Fred Flintstone, hosted by Roy Clark and Bonnie Franklin, with costumed Hanna-Barbera characters mixing into a conventional American ice-show programme of musical numbers and skating acts.

What is danced

The article's synopsis describes the show's live entertainment as a run of ice-arena set pieces: 'musical numbers, ice displays including a comedy team, precision skating, disco-on-ice, jazz skating and an acrobatic number with fiery torches.' The Ice Capettes, a skating precision troupe, perform 'We're in the Money'; Bonnie Franklin sings 'You Are My Lucky Star'; The Sylvers perform 'Disco Showdown'; and Roy Clark performs a guitar solo of the 'Theme from Love Story'. None of this is described in terms of steps or technique beyond these category labels, so the article supports only that named skating disciplines occurred, not their specific vocabulary.

Context

By the late 1970s, network variety specials routinely paired animated cartoon properties with live novelty entertainment, and ice-show spectacle (precision skating troupes, disco-themed skating, acrobatic display acts) was a staple format for CBS and its competitors in that period, distinct from ballet or theatrical dance programming. The special sits in that lineage: an anniversary showcase for Hanna-Barbera's characters built around a rented ice-arena entertainment troupe (the Ice Capettes) rather than a dance company.

Staging history

The article records no restaging, revival, or company history: it states the special 'has never been rebroadcast on television' after its single CBS airing on January 13, 1978, and was later issued on VHS by Worldvision Home Video in November 1986.

How to watch it

Watch it as a hybrid variety broadcast: the animated Flintstone-and-Barney narrative frame is intercut with unrelated live ice-arena turns (skating comedy, precision formations, a disco number, an acrobatic torch act), so the 'dance' content is really a sequence of period ice-show acts rather than a through-choreographed work. Attend to the Ice Capettes' precision-skating formation and the disco-on-ice segment as period-specific spectacle conventions.

Structure

  1. You Are My Lucky Star
    Performed by Bonnie Franklin as part of the celebrity-roast musical programme.
  2. We're in the Money
    Performed by the Ice Capettes, a precision ice-skating troupe.
  3. Disco Showdown
    Performed by The Sylvers as one of the live musical numbers.
  4. Theme from Love Story
    Performed by Roy Clark as a guitar solo.

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Questions

Is this an animated special or a live-action one?
Both: it is a live-action/animated hybrid, with Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble appearing as animated characters watching and eventually arriving at a live ice-arena celebrity roast.
What kind of dancing or skating is in it?
The article describes ice displays including precision skating, disco-on-ice, jazz skating, a comedy skating team, and an acrobatic number with fiery torches, performed alongside musical numbers.
Has it ever been rerun or released again?
According to the article it has never been rebroadcast on television, though it was released on VHS in November 1986 by Worldvision Home Video.
This entry was written from “Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue” on English Wikipedia (revision 1364461366), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. The link points at the exact revision this text was written from, so it shows the words we actually used rather than whatever the article says today. Credits and premiere data come from Wikidata (CC0), cited per field.
← Back to Limelight