The Flintstones

***The Flintstones*** is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the title family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the Rubbles (who are also their best friends). It was originally broadcast on ABC from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, and was the first animated series to hold a prime time slot on television.

The continuing popularity of *The Flintstones* rests heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting. *The Flintstones* was the most financially successful and longest-running network animated television series for three decades, until *The Simpsons*, which debuted in late 1989, outlasted it. In 2013, *TV Guide* ranked *The Flintstones* the second-greatest TV cartoon of all time (after *The Simpsons*).

## Overview

The show is set in a comical version of the Stone Age but has added features and technologies which resemble mid-20th-century suburban America. The plots deliberately resemble the sitcoms of the era, with the caveman Flintstone and Rubble families getting into minor conflicts characteristic of modern life. The show is set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock (pop. 2,500). Non-avian dinosaurs and other animals are portrayed to co-exist during the time of cavemen, saber-toothed cats, and woolly mammoths.

Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman considers that the series draws its humor in part from creative uses of anachronisms. The main one is the placing of a "modern", 20th-century society in prehistory. This society takes inspiration from the suburban sprawl developed in the first two decades of the postwar period. This society has modern home appliances, but they work by employing animals. They have automobiles, but they hardly resemble the cars of the 20th century. These cars are large wooden and rock structures and burn no fuel. They are powered by people who run while inside them. This depiction is inconsistent, however. On some occasions, the cars are known to have engines (with appropriate sound-effects), requiring ignition keys and gasoline. Fred might pull into a gas station and say, "Fill 'er up with Ethel", which is pumped through the trunk of a woolly mammoth marked "ETHEL." Whether the car runs by foot or by gas varies according to the needs of the story. Finally, the stone houses of this society are cookie-cutter homes positioned into neighborhoods typical of mid-20th-century American suburbs.

## Characters

### The Flintstones

* Fred Flintstone - The main character of the series. Fred is an average-height (5' 10" for men in the 50s and 60s) accident-prone bronto-crane operator at the Slate Rock and Gravel Company and the head of the Flintstone household. Typical of blue-collar men of the period, he is overweight and likes to eat copious amounts of marginally-healthy or unhealthy food. He is quick to anger (usually over trivial matters), but is a very loving husband and father. He is also good at bowling and is a member of the fictional "Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes" (Lodge No. 26), a men-only club paralleling real-life fraternities such as the Loyal Order of Moose. His famous catchphrase is "Yabba Dabba Doo!"

* Wilma Flintstone - Fred's wife and Pebbles' mother. She is more intelligent and level-headed than her husband, though she often has a habit of spending money (with Betty’s and her catchphrase being "Da-da-da duh da-da CHARGE IT!!"). She often is a foil to Fred's poor behavior, but is a very loyal wife to him. She is also a very jealous woman who is easily angered if there's even a hint of another woman (especially a pretty one) having anything to do with Fred.

* Pebbles Flintstone - The Flintstones' infant daughter, who is born near the end of the third season.

* Dino - The Flintstones' pet dinosaur that acts like a dog. A running gag in the series involves Fred coming home from work and Dino getting excited and knocking him down and licking his face repeatedly.

* Baby Puss - The Flintstones' pet saber-toothed cat, which is rarely seen in the actual series but is always seen throwing Fred out of the house during the end credits, causing Fred to pound repeatedly on the front door and yell "Wilma!", waking the whole neighborhood in the process.

### The Rubbles

* Barney Rubble - The secondary main character and Fred's best friend and next-door neighbor. Nearly six inches shorter and also overweight, his occupation is, throughout most of the series, unknown, though later episodes depict him working in the same quarry as Fred. He shares many of Fred's interests such as bowling and golf, and is also a member of the "Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes". Though Fred and Barney frequently get into feuds with one another (usually due to Fred's short temper), their deep fraternal bond remains very evident.

* Betty Rubble - Barney's wife and Wilma's best friend. Like Wilma, she, too, has a habit of spending money and also is highly jealous of other pretty women being around her husband.

* Bamm-Bamm Rubble - The Rubbles' abnormally strong adopted son, whom they adopt during the fourth season; his name comes from the only phrase he ever speaks as a baby: "Bamm, Bamm!"

* Hoppy - The Rubbles' pet hopparoo (a kangaroo-dinosaur combination creature), which they purchase at the beginning of the fifth season. When he first arrives, Dino and Fred mistake him for a giant mouse and are frightened of him, but they eventually become best friends after Hoppy gets help when they are in an accident. He babysits the kids as he takes them around in his pouch, which also serves as a shopping cart for Betty.

### Other characters

Over 100 other characters appeared throughout the program.

* **Mr. George Slate** - Fred and Barney's hot-tempered boss at the gravel pit. Mr. Slate fires Fred on several occasions throughout the series, only to give him his job back by the end of the episode. A running gag is Slate's ever-changing first name, which was revealed to be Sylvester, Nate, Oscar, and George as the series progressed. In the episode "The Long, Long, Long Weekend" which originally aired on January 21, 1966, he is shown as being the founder of "Slate Rock and Gravel Company"; still in business two million years later, the company is operated by his descendant, "George Slate the Eighty-Thousandth". Note, in the early Flintstones episodes, the more recognized "Mr. Slate" character was known as "Mr. Rockhead" and was a supervisor of Fred's. Mr. Slate was a short character. During the course of the cartoon, the two men switched identities and the shorter character faded away from existence.

* **Arnold** - The Flintstones' paperboy, whom Fred absolutely despises, mainly because Arnold is frequently able to best and outsmart Fred at a number of tasks and also because he often ("unintentionally") throws the newspaper in Fred's face. Arnold's parents are mentioned in the series, but his mother Doris, a friend of Wilma and Betty's (as evidenced in the episode "The Little Stranger", which originally aired on November 2, 1962), is referenced in name only, never actually appearing onscreen. Arnold's father, however, did appear in the episode "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", which originally aired on April 27, 1962, though his name is never mentioned.

* **Joe Rockhead** - A mutual friend of Fred and Barney. Usually, when Fred and Barney have some kind of falling out, Fred mentions doing something (such as going to a baseball game) with Joe. Joe was, at some point, chief of the Bedrock Volunteer Fire Department as shown on the episode "Arthur Quarry's Dance Class", which originally aired on January 13, 1961. His appearance varied throughout the run of the series, but his appearance in the episode "The Picnic", which originally aired on December 15, 1961, was the one most commonly used.

* **Pearl Slaghoople** - Wilma's hard-to-please mother, Fred's mother-in-law and Pebbles' maternal grandmother, who is constantly disapproving of Fred and his behavior. Their disastrous first meeting was recounted in the episode "Bachelor Daze", which originally aired on March 5, 1964. They briefly reconciled in the episode "Mother-in-Law's Visit", which originally aired on February 1, 1963. That is, until, she found out that she became Fred's "nice fat pigeon" when he suckered her out of money that he needed to buy a baby crib for Pebbles. They reconciled again at the end of the TV movie *I Yabba Dabba Do*.

* **The Great Gazoo** - An alien exiled to Earth that helps Fred and Barney, often against their will. The Great Gazoo is actually from the future, and is quite dismayed when he realizes he has been sent back to "the Stone Age". He can only be seen by Fred, Barney, Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm, other small children, Dino, and Hoppy. Gazoo appeared in the final season only.

* **Uncle Tex Hardrock** is Fred's maternal uncle and a member of the Texarock Rangers. He constantly holds Fred's future inheritance over his head.

* **Sam Slagheap** - The Grand Poobah of the Water Buffalo Lodge.

* **The Gruesomes** - A creepy but friendly family that moves in next door to the Flintstones in later seasons.
	+ **Weirdly Gruesome** - The patriarch of the Gruesome Family who works as a reality show host.
	+ **Creepella Gruesome** - The tall wife of Weirdly.
	+ **Goblin "Gobby" Gruesome** - The son of Weirdly and Creepella.
	+ **Uncle Ghastly** - The towering brother of Weirdly and uncle of Gobby who is mostly shown as a large furry hand coming out of a well or a wall. His shadow was also seen in their debut episode.
	+ **Occy** - The Gruesome Family's pet octopus.
	+ **Schneider** - Gobby's pet giant spider.

* **The Hatrocks** - A family of hillbillies that originally feuded with the Flintstones' Arkanstone branch in the style of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Fred and Barney reignite a feud with them in "The Bedrock Hillbillies" when Fred inherits San Cemente from the late Zeke Flintstone over who made the portrait of Fred's great-great-uncle Zeke. The Hatrocks later returned in "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes" where they bunk with the Flintstones during their trip to Bedrock World's Fair and their antics start to annoy them. The Flintstones, the Rubbles, and the Gruesomes were able to drive them away by performing the Four Insects song "She Said Yeah Yeah Yeah." When they found that the Bedrock World's Fair was having the Four Insects performing, the Hatrocks fled back to Arkanstone.
	+ **Jethro Hatrock** - The patriarch of the Hatrock Family. He had brown hair in "The Hatrocks and the Flintstones" and taupe-gray in "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes."
	+ **Gravella Hatrock** - The wife of Jethro.
	+ **Zack Hatrock** - The oldest son of Jethro and Gravella.
	+ **Slab Hatrock** - The youngest son of Jethro and Gravella.
	+ **Granny Hatrock** - The mother of Jethro and grandmother of Zack and Slab.
	+ **Benji Hatrock** - The son-in-law of Jethro.
	+ **Percy** - The Hatrock's pet Dogasaurus.

## Voice cast

* Alan Reed - Fred Flintstone, Uncle Ghastly
* Jean Vander Pyl - Wilma Flintstone, Pebbles Flintstone
* Mel Blanc – Barney Rubble, Dino, Zack Hatrock
* Daws Butler - Barney Rubble (season 2; episodes 1, 2, 5, 6, and 9 only)
* Bea Benaderet – Betty Rubble (seasons 1–4), Gravella Hatrock
* Gerry Johnson - Betty Rubble (seasons 5–6), Granny Hatrock (in "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes")
* Don Messick - Bamm-Bamm Rubble, Hoppy, Arnold, Gobby Gruesome
* John Stephenson - Mr. Slate, Joe Rockhead, Sam Slagheap
* Verna Felton - Pearl Slaghoople (first time)
* Janet Waldo - Pearl Slaghoople (later appearances)
* Harvey Korman - The Great Gazoo

### Additional voice cast

* Henry Corden
* Walker Edmiston
* June Foray - Granny Hatrock (in "The Bedrock Hillbillies")
* Sandra Gould
* Naomi Lewis - Creepella Gruesome
* Allan Melvin
* Howard Morris - Weirdly Gruesome, Schneider, Jethro Hatrock, Slab Hatrock, Percy
* Hal Smith
* Ginny Tyler
* Doug Young - Benji Hatrock

## Voice actor details

Fred Flintstone physically resembles both the first voice actor who played him, Alan Reed, and Jackie Gleason, whose series, *The Honeymooners*, inspired *The Flintstones*. The voice of Barney Rubble was provided by voice actor Mel Blanc, except for five episodes during the second season (the first, second, fifth, sixth, and ninth); Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler filled in and provided the voice of Barney while Blanc was incapacitated by a near-fatal car accident. Blanc was able to return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. Blanc's portrayal of Barney had changed considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a much higher pitch to the point of portraying Barney as a smart-aleck. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper voice, quite similar to the voice of the Abominable Snowman he performed in other cartoons and was shown as somewhat dopier than before.

Reed based Fred's voice upon Gleason's *Honeymooners* interpretation of Ralph Kramden, while Blanc, after a season of using a nasal, high-pitched voice for Barney, eventually adopted a style of voice similar to that used by Art Carney in his portrayal of Ed Norton. The first time the Art Carney-like voice was used was for a few seconds in "The Prowler" (the third episode produced).

In a 1986 *Playboy* interview, Gleason said Alan Reed had done voice-overs for Gleason in his early movies and that he had considered suing Hanna-Barbera for copying *The Honeymooners* but decided to let it pass. According to Henry Corden, a voice actor and a friend of Gleason's, "Jackie's lawyers told him he could probably have *The Flintstones* pulled right off the air. But they also told him, 'Do you want to be known as the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air? The guy who took away a show so many kids love and so many parents love, too?'"

Henry Corden's voice became Fred's after Reed's death in 1977, starting with *A Flintstone Christmas*. Corden had previously provided Fred's singing voice in *The Man Called Flintstone* and later on *The Flintstones* children's records. Since 2000, Jeff Bergman, James Arnold Taylor, and Scott Innes (performing both Fred and Barney for Toshiba commercials) have performed the voice of Fred. Since Mel Blanc's death in 1989, Barney has been voiced by Jeff Bergman, Frank Welker, and Kevin Michael Richardson. Various additional character voices were created by Hal Smith, Allan Melvin, Janet Waldo, Daws Butler, and Howard Morris, among others.