Lisa Simpson [voice
of Yeardley Smith]: “Dad and Flanders friends? What’s next—A’s on
Bart’s report card?”— The Simpsons, Season 5, Episode 16, “Homer Loves Flanders,” original air date Mar. 17, 1994, teleplay by David
Richardson, directed by Wes Archer
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, annoyed that critics labeled as “children’s entertainment” their
first two TV cartoons, Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound, conceived
of this show as a way to attract adult audiences as well.
The creators
were originally inspired by a 1955 Tex Avery animated short, The First Bad
Man, on the history of Texas 1 million years ago.
But
Hanna—much to the irritation of his partner—openly admitted that Fred
Flintstone bore many than a passing resemblance to Ralph Kramden, another loud,
burly guy with an endlessly understanding wife and with a neighbor and
sidekick, from The Honeymooners.
If Honeymooners’
star and creator Jackie Gleason ever felt like suing for plagiarism, he soon
got over it, realizing that millions of youngsters would have blamed him for
driving their favorite show off the air. (Such fears did not prevent the creators
of the comic strip “Hi and Lois” from squawking that the original name of the series,
“The Flagstones,” was all too reminiscent of their own couple, the Flagstons.)
For
adults, there were winking references, throughout the series’ six-season run,
to celebrities (often guest-starring as themselves) such as “Stony Curtis,” “Gary
Granite,” “Ann-Margrock,” “Liberocki, “Arnold Palmtree,” and “Wednesday Tuesday.”
The
prototype set by The Flintstones—a jerk of a dad with a more
level-headed wife—wasn’t irretrievably lost when the show went off the air.
More than two decades later, it would be revived by The Simpsons.
The quartet
who created Fred and Wilma Flintstones and neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble
had extensive acting experience, especially of the voice kind:
*Alan Reed, who preferred radio to film work, was the voice of “Boris” in Disney’s
Lady and the Tramp before taking on the role of Fred—a character whose ample
physical dimensions were modeled on his.
*Jean Vander Pyl played not only Wilma but Pebbles, before going on to The
Jetsons, Top Hat, The Secret Squirrel Show, and The Magilla Gorilla Show.
*Bea Benaderet, the voice of many female characters in Warner Brothers
Looney Tunes, had to withdraw from her role as Betty Rubble because of scheduling
conflicts with a new series, Petticoat Junction.
*Mel Blanc, my favorite of the group—nicknamed “The Man of a Thousand Voices”
for his long and versatile career in animation—not only gave vocal form to Barney
and Flintstone pet Dino, but also to more than 40 other characters on the show.
So integral was he to the show that, after he was involved in a near-fatal accident
several months into the show’s run, his colleagues gathered at his hospital bedside
so he could participate in episodes as he recovered.
A close
relative, hearing that I’d be creating this post, said, “You can’t write about
the show without discussing the theme song.”
True
enough. I readily confess to being more than a little hazy about some episodes
and characters after all these years, but “Meet the Flintstones” is engraved in
my memory, as it is, I suspect, for more than a few baby boomers.
That
catchy tune, with lyrics by Hanna and Barbera and an irresistible melody by
composer Hoyt Curtin, wasn’t heard until Season 3. But it’s the way that everyone
has recalled ever since.
Central to
the appeal of The Flintstones are its cheerful anachronisms. Start with that “Meet the Flintstones” line
about the “modern Stone Age family. Think also of “The Barney Copter,” an experiment
in flight that Fred promptly takes control of (and dooms) as “The Flintstone
Flyer”: Dino (dinosaurs, scientists say, had disappeared well before homo sapiens
came along); and Christmas (the Stone Age was, of course, centuries before
Christ).
Oh, one
more thing you might wonder: Where did Fred’s catchphrase, “Yabba Dabba
Doo!", come from? Reed improvised it, improving on the script’s “Yahoo!”,
inspired by the Brylcreem slogan, "A little dab'll do ya."
“Well, it's 1 a.m. Better go home and spend some
quality time with the kids.”—Homer Simpson (voice
of Dan Castellaneta) in The Simpsons,
Season 8, Episode 10, “The Springfield Files,” original air date Jan. 12, 1997, teleplay by Reid
Harrison, directed by Steven Dean Moore
