In the 1960s and 1970s, Hanna-Barbera Productions created a series of half-hour animated situation comedies that took place in all different periods of history--"The Flintstones" (prehistoric), "The Jetsons" (the future), "These are the Days" (the early 1900s), and "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" (1970s). In essence, the plots of all these animated series were pretty much the same, but with twists determined by whatever era they took place during. Humor was on two levels--both kids and adults could sit together and enjoy the show thoroughly. "Roman Holidays" was part of this genre; taking place in ancient Rome (AD 63), this show followed the adventures of the Holiday family. The characters were standard for this genre--a working middle-class family man with a strong, devoted wife, a dictatorial money-grabbing boss, a loyal buddy, even an intelligent family pet (in this case, a lion). I remember seeing this show on Saturday mornings when I was a kid and noting the similarities between its plots and that of "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons." Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, as did my parents, and I can still remember the theme song ("When in Rome, you do as the Romans do, you play as the Romans play together..."). It is a shame that there are no longer any series on TV quite like it--it showed imagination and relied on the fact that a good family show must appeal to both children and adults, and that cartoons were not supposed to be half-hour commercials for some action figures. "Roman Holidays" would be a great show to release on video/DVD.
