YMMV / The Flintstones

The Cartoon

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • A few viewers have speculated that the Flintstones are actually a Post-Apocalyptic society using what it can to recreate the destroyed technology, even if it means reverting back to the Stone Age, and the supposed prehistoric animals in reality are produced by radioactive mutation. Which makes a lot more sense if you consider that they celebrate Christmas and seem to have similar cultural norms to modern Americans, and the fact that creatures of different Geologic Ages, like mammoths and dinosaurs, can coexist in the same time. Some have even joked that at the same time The Flintstones takes place on the ground, The Jetsons takes place in the sky.
  • The Great Gazoo could be the most evil character ever created. He was sent to Earth as punishment for creating a doomsday device that would destroy the universe, and he's cute, not menacing. Obvious evil is easy to spot and thus not as dangerous; insidious or hidden evil is much worse.
• Animation Age Ghetto: A bit of a meta example, but this is the reason why the infamous cigarette and beer ads are considered surprising for so many people, as the show was first created before the Ghetto even existed.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The franchise has a show where the Flintstones get new neighbors, the Frankenstones, a prehistoric version of The Addams Family or The Munsters with an unsympathetic Frankenstein's Monster as the head. Most of the episodes were about Fred having a fight with Mr. Frankenstone. Yes, in the original cartoon some monstrous neighbors were mentioned, but only episodically and never as major characters. It didn't help that the show also featured shorts that were ripping off other shows, so we could watch Captain Caveman imitating Superman (he was even Clark Kenting) with Betty and Wilma as two Lois Lanes, teenage Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm solving Scooby Doo Hoaxes with Dino, and Fred and Barney in a Buddy Cop Show, patrolling the streets with a Shmoo, which was constantly molesting Fred.
• Base-Breaking Character: Pebbles and Bamm Bamm. Some fans like them for bringing out Fred and Barney's softer sides, while others feel they were the start of the show being kidified and took the edge away from the show.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Perry Gunnite, the private eye detective from "Love Letters on the Rocks" only appeared once, but he was still popular enough to star in his own spin-off stories in the comics. He was also supposed to have his own show in the 1980s.
  • An animation fan publication listed Betty as one of the sexiest cartoon females ever created: "A prehistoric Snow White eternally betrothed to a man half her size and twice her girth. Not the brightest light on the porch, but unlike Wilma, she's not a nag when she complains."
  • Pretty much every animal character in the series especially the ones used for appliances or machinery and any work. Their commentary makes those who dislike the series love them.
• Ethnic Scrappy:
  • Despite being a show about a modernized Stone Age, The Flintstones somehow saw fit to introduce the Great Gazoo, a generic little green alien that would probably seem a lot more at home in The Jetsons. Or rather, generic except for the fact that his personality is modeled after every offensive stereotype of the British (despite being voiced by an American actor). Gazoo is stuffy, smug, and arrogant (although he is an alien, after all) and enjoys making jokes and pranks at the expense of Fred and Barney.
  • Hashimoto Rockimoto from "The Prowler". He is a stereotypical Japanese judo instructor, and his presence has led to MeTV skipping this episode in reruns.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The show and its live-action movies were very popular in Quebec thanks to being dubbed in the local vernacular (as opposed to the "international French" most movies and TV shows use even when localized in the province).
  • The cartoon's localized version was also a major hit in Hungary, as all the dialog had been rendered in witty rhymes by a famous poet. Due to the dub's success, some later dubs of cartoons and comedy movies used the same tactic. The show's later seasons and the spin-offs aren't that well known, though.
  • The same goes with the Mexican Spanish dub, since it uses lots of local references in the dub, not to mention the great quality of the acting.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The infamous cigarette ad becomes this when you remember that all four of the main voice actors (Alan Reed, Mel Blanc, Jean Vander Pyl, and Bea Benaderet) died of smoking-related illnesses and complications in the decades that followed the show's original run.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The episode Rip Van Flintstone featured Fred dreaming that he slept for twenty years, and among the things that had happened were Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm being Happily Married. Years later, along comes I Yabba-Dabba-Doo! where it actually happens.
  • The episode in which Pebbles is born has Fred be the one who inspires her name by simply saying she’s “a Pebble off the ol’ Flintstone”. Fast forward to Hollyrock-A-Bye Baby, and he’s also the one who inspires the names of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm’s twins; Roxy and Chip.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Let's see, a character named Barney who is associated with dinosaurs? Where would we later hear that?
  • One episode in the second season had a man-eating bird-fish hybrid called a "Piranhakeet".
  • Mr. Loudrock is voiced by Henry Corden, who would become the voice of Fred after Alan Reed died. So him fighting with Fred involves the two voices of Fred fighting with each other.
  • When Fred lip-synchs with "Bedrock, Twitch, Twitch", the record skips. Come a few decades later...
  • Fred's last name in the Quebec dub is Caillou, which would later become the name of an imaginative four-year-old.
  • In "The Big Move" both Barney and Pebbles say "Scooby-dooby-doo" a few times years before Hanna-Barbera would introduce the famous dog.
  • "Dino Disappears": Pebbles won't eat anything, so Barney tries to change her mind by pretending to enjoy the meal. He makes a show of taking some bites and saying, "Uncle Barney loves Pebbles' cereal," before finding that he actually does like it, much to Fred's annoyance. Little did the writers know that less than a decade later, there would be actual Pebbles Cereal and that countless commercials would depict Barney trying to swipe the goods from a frustrated Fred.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Betty's not a vitamin!"
  • The Winston cigarette ads.
  • "Braaack, it's a livin'."
  • The theme song itself is a meme, by way of Joel's exasperated remarks (FLEENTSTONES?!) when he encountered it in a bootleg version of The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy disguised as a Super Mario Bros. game known as 7 Grand Dad (which itself is a meme). A conglomerate of musicians known as SiIvaGunner have taken this and run with it.
• Older Than They Think: The idea of "Flintstones and wrestling? Those don't go together" in response to a direct-to-video animated film starring the Flintstones with stone age versions of WWE wrestlers has become a web reaction, even though, yes, an episode of the original series had a wrestling match take up most of the plot. This not counting all the times Fred and Barney watched "the fights" on TV either.
• Once Original, Now Common: It's easy to forget, but much in the same vein a modern shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy, The Flintstones was a Prime Time cartoon aimed at adults. This is what led to things like the cigarette commercial. It wasn't until later on, much like the Looney Tunes, that the Flintstones was wrongly associated as a kids-only franchise, although the introduction of Great Gazoo, the greater emphasis on Dino, and episodes such as the famous musical "Fred Saves Christmas" episode suggests the change in tone was already well underway.
• Questionable Casting: In the episode where Fred and Barney get a camera and try to make money as photographers, they try to take pictures of a baby girl. Even though there were several actresses in the cast that could convincingly voice babies (Jean Vander Pyl voiced both Wilma and Pebbles, for example), the little girl is inexplicably voiced by Mel Blanc.
• The Scrappy: The Great Gazoo, for being an annoying reality-warping alien in a series about a modern stone-age family. His introduction was a contributing factor for the show's eventual cancellation.
• Seasonal Rot: Some have noted that after Pebbles was born, the show shifted its tone to be a bit more child friendly, and think it dropped in quality as a result. While this viewpoint isn't universally accepted among fans, a way more common viewpoint is that the show's quality took a major drop when the Great Gazoo showed up.
• Spiritual Successor: Take out the prehistoric setting, and you have The Honeymooners: The Animated Series. Jackie Gleason, the creator and star of The Honeymooners, noticed this and considered suing Hanna-Barbera over it, only for his lawyers to point out that, even though he'd probably win in court, getting one of the most popular shows on television canceled would permanently tarnish his reputation.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The original theme music, "Rise and Shine", sounds a bit like "This is It", the theme to The Bugs Bunny Show. This might've been the reason the song was changed to "Meet the Flintstones" in the third season, with the first two seasons having the new theme edited in for syndication.
  • "Meet the Flintstones" was itself based on part of the "B" section of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17, Movement 2.
  • The music heard in the bowling alley scene from the first live-action film sounds a lot like the theme song for The Ren & Stimpy Show.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite being a main character, Betty is barely utilized or developed and only got one episode in the whole series. It doesn’t help that she was Demoted to Extra in terms of merchandise, apparently generated a lot of sympathy by fans wondering why she was being upstaged by, of all things, the Sabre Toothed Tiger from the end credits, a car, and even The Great Gazoo. In the end, a huge campaign to bring her to prominence was launched, and Betty finally got her vitamin, with 91% of the votes!
• Values Dissonance:
  • There were commercials for Winston cigarettes promoted by Fred and Barney. It should be noted that at the time the commercials were made a) The Flintstones was not considered a children's program and b) smoking was not a forbidden subject on TV. After a couple of seasons, when the show's popularity with children was established, the cigarette ads vanished and suddenly the show was now sponsored by products such as vitamins.
  • There are also quite a few jokes sprinkled throughout the series that would, today, be seen as sexist or misogynistic. One episode featured Native American stereotypes, and was actually banned in some parts of Canada in the 1980s as a result.
  • Relating to the questionable gender dynamics, the Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male is strong in the show, especially the early episodes.
  • "The Prowler" featured Wilma and Betty taking judo lessons to defend themselves against a burglar whose been breaking into houses around Bedrock. Their judo instructor is a Japanese stereotype that, while not as malicious as the ones in World War II propaganda cartoons, absolutely would not fly today. Because of this, it is the only episode that is skipped over on MeTV reruns.
• Values Resonance:
  • In The Missing Bus Fred becomes a schoolbus driver, and has to deal with helicopter parents who put an absurd amount of pressure on their children. Some of the lines wouldn't sound out of place in a modern Reddit thread.
  • I Yabba Dabba Do and Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby were surprisingly progressive for a movies made in the early 90s and did good jobs at modernizing the franchise than previous subsequent Flintstones media. Not only do they add prehistoric versions of then-modern conveniences (such as VCRs, microwaves, and frozen dinners) both manage to show Fred and Wilma (who have always been a 1960s) how much times have changed since the original ended.
    • In I Yabba Dabba Do, Fred doesn’t want Wilma to become a working woman, now that Pebbles is an adult and on her own. Despite this, Fred comes around and realizes that he and Wilma can both have jobs and still be married.
    • In Hollyrock-A-Bye Baby, Fred is in a rut because he misses Wilma cooking his dinner for him, now that she’s working and Wilma says that she doesn’t want to go back to being a housewife and he should stop living in the past. Later, Wilma says that Pebbles shouldn’t have a career and a be a mother at the same time, since the former never worked during Pebbles’ childhood. In the end, Pebbles does have the job she wants while being an attentive mother to her and Bamm-Bamm's twins. And speaking of Bamm-Bamm, he never once tries to make Pebbles quit her dreams or have her do all the work in caring for their kids; he's as present as Pebbles, even being a stay-at-home dad because his job allowed him to and fully supports her decisions when it comes to her career. And while Wilma still doesn’t approve of Pebbles' decisions, she ultimately respects them. In other words, this animated movie aimed primarily towards children showed a Happily Married couple with jobs they both enjoy, each one being respectful of the other, and still being good parents.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The 2001 made-for-TV movie Flintstones: On the Rocks is rated TV-G. However, the special is significantly Darker and Edgier, as it turns Fred and Wilma's cartoon bickering into genuinely real feeling marital problems, and has many instances of Does This Remind You of Anything?.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?:
  • And it actually wasn't, but was simply an animated sitcom expected to appeal to adults and younger viewers (which is one reason why the network sold advertising spots to a cigarette company early on). As such a number of episodes touched on domestic storylines not too far removed than those seen in The Honeymooners, its direct inspiration. Some episodes went rather dark, such as one of the show's Bond parody episodes in which people actually are killed. The story arc about Wilma's pregnancy was also something not associated with children's programming at the time (as fans of I Love Lucy know, even live-action shows had problems with the topic of pregnancy back in those days).
  • Speaking of which, the arrival of Bamm-Bamm is built upon the none-too-subtle indication that either Barney is impotent/sterile or Betty is unable to bear children, leading them to adopt a son. None of these topics had ever been broached in a cartoon before.
• The Woobie: A meta-example. When it came to merchandise, Betty always seemed to get the short end of the stick, having notably been left out of the Flintstones Vitamin assortment, and even being upstaged by the Sabre Toothed Tiger from the end credits for a Push Pop flavor (which was, to add insult to injury, blueberry.) Apparently, enough people complained about this, as Betty finally got her own Vitamin in 1995, twenty years after that fact. There is even an FAQ on the official website, the last two questions asking about her presence in the Vitamin lineup.

The 1994 Live-Action Film

• Awesome Music:
  • The licensed SNES game based on the 1994 movie is nowadays mostly remembered for the "Unused Song 2" in its sound test. It sounds like it has absolutely nothing to do with the Flintstones, but it's a beautiful, soothing, yet somewhat dark track. Not bad, considering how it was added simply to fill up spare cartridge space.
  • The B-52's cover of the theme song. While the film didn't wow audiences, this cover was pretty catchy.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Some viewers might remember it for having Halle Berry as a sexy secretary.
• Cant Unhear It: John Goodman as Fred Flintstone.
• Critic-Proof: The film was panned by critics (it has a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 38 out of 100 "generally unfavorable" score on Metacritic), but was a huge box office success. It spent its first two weeks at #1 in the United States, and ended up grossing $130.5 million domestically (and selling more than 31 million tickets). It performed even better overseas, grossing another $211.1 million, for a total worldwide gross of $341.6 million, more than seven times its $46 million budget.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Sharon Stone is seen as a well written Canon Foreigner who oozed sex appeal.
• Fair for Its Day: Sharon Stone is the only prominent woman of colour in the film and a Ms. Fanservice at that. But it was notable in that Halle Berry won the part over several white actresses after the original choice turned it down, the first time she had done so after years of being turned down solely because of her race. In her words, "Bedrock should be integrated".
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Disney-own Freeform has broadcast rights to the film, so the value of the Dictabird's remark about signing with Disney being safer is nullified, making it even funnier.
  • A music video was produced of The B-52s cover of the iconic theme song featuring the cast performing with the band, including Halle Berry. On the line "Then the cat will stay out for the night" the video cuts to Berry, who mouths the word "cat". The Flintstones ended up being something of an Old Shame for the Oscar-winning Berry, along with a later film, Catwoman (2004).
    • Bonus points that Halle Berry acted alongside the real Sharon Stone.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people only watch it just for John Goodman's performance as Fred Flintstone.
• Magnificent Bitch: Miss Sharon Stone is assigned by Cliff Vandercave to be Fred Flintstone's secretary after he is promoted to the position of Vice President at Slate & Co. Working with Vandercave to embezzle the company, she identifies Fred as the perfect scapegoat due to his low intelligence, and uses her seductive charm to trick him into signing forms that would incriminate him. After Wilma catches her and Fred flirting, she apologizes to him for nearly ruining his marriage, and eventually comes to genuinely like him. After she discovers that Cliff intended to abandon her and flee the country himself, she helps the Flintstones and Rubbles defeat Cliff during the climax. Despite being arrested for her crimes, she parts on good terms with Fred, with the latter promising that he will try to make sure that she receives a lighter sentence as a gesture of gratitude for her help.
• Moral Event Horizon: Cliff Vandercave easily crosses this when he kidnaps Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and places them on a conveyor belt leading to a giant mining machine, then starts the machine with the intent of shredding and grinding them alive, even though Fred and Barney had given him the Dictabird before. Then he attempts to shoot the Dictabird, but not before Sharon knocks him out with a money bag.
• Never Live It Down: Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble; it continues to raise eyebrows even among the film's strongest defenders to this day. It was one of three roles that "won" her that year's Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress. It's quite telling that the sequel downgraded her to a minor voice role.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Rosie O'Donnell's casting as the live-action version of Betty got a mixed reaction. She was apparently given the part because of her perfect imitation of Betty's giggle despite not being as slender, in contrast to cartoon and movie Wilma being a closer match. Leaving aside the whole debate as to whether or not she was physically suited to the role, O'Donnell was typically known for playing tough, loud-mouthed women, whereas Betty had been typically shown as the more placid one between her and Wilma. Some also felt that her performance was too broad even for a movie based on an animated series.
  • A bigger confusion goes to Elizabeth Taylor as Wilma's mother Pearl, since the famously beautiful Hollywood legend would be just about the last person you'd think would be cast in the role of a grumpy stout battle-axe as Wilma's mom was in the cartoon.
  • Rick Moranis raised a few eyebrows in being cast as Barney too, due to not nearly being as stocky, so it looks like he was mainly chosen for his height difference with Fred's actor, and he and Betty sort of get their contrasting body types reversed (though he was generally well-received in the final movie). About the only actor whom virtually everyone agreed was perfect for his role from the start was John Goodman as Fred Flintstone.
• So Okay, It's Average: Few would call the film an unsung gem, but on sheer nostalgia and Narm Charm, not to mention the commitment to its silly aesthetic, it's not considered a bad watch. And with the competition to come in the following years regarding live-action animation adaptations, you could certainly do much worse.
• Special Effect Failure: Some of the animatronics weren't that great at the time, and haven't aged that well since. The Dictabird is particularly obvious.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Everyone knew they were in a live-action cartoon and heightened their performances accordingly. But when Fred and Wilma's marriage breaks down, John Goodman pours his heart and soul into one word ("please") to show Fred's bravado breaking as sadness and regret takes over.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Translating Dino's overtly cartoonish design to live-action was bound to cause this reaction. Especially with those uncomfortably realistic eyes.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: One of the primary criticisms of the movie (including from Roger Ebert) was that its main storylines (embezzlement, office politics, and Fred being tempted into an extramarital affair) were at best hard to follow and at worst highly inappropriate for the kids in the audience. The irony, though, was that the show was likewise rather mature for its time^note It was after all in the US during its initial run it was a primetime sitcom primarily aimed at older audiences hence initially sponsored by a cigarette company. and really only got more kiddie in the late 70s and 80s. So in a way, the movie was Revisiting the Roots.

The Comic

• Anvilicious: The series wears its social satire on its sleeve and gets a lot of mileage for the sheer blatancy to which its ideas are presented as befitting a group of Cavemen trying to piece society together. Depending on the reader and depending on the subject it tackles the comic works because of this, in spite of this, or it doesn't work.
• Author's Saving Throw: The comic does quite a lot to save The Great Gazoo as a character, by turning him from a wacky and out-of-place Genre Refugee whose only purpose was cheap gags to a competent and well-intentioned "game warden" whose people are more integrally tied to the plot.
• Broken Base: The comic's tone and its Darker and Edgier take on everything. On the one hand many readers are surprised at how well the story turned out, with the prehistoric setting used to good effect and the comic's lessons balancing optimism and cynicism in a mature way. Others can't get past the whole "It's the Flintstones, but edgy now!" premise and feel the comic tries too hard in places, like trying to tie Yabba Dabba Doo into PTSD.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Adult subject matter and heavy-handed political commentary is, well, going to evoke a strong emotion. When it's delivered by the Flintstones cast, not infrequently paired with one of its classic recurring jokes or some kind of Mythology Gag, it can become downright hilarious.
  • As just one example: Joe, a war veteran with PTSD, calling the suicide hotline, is not funny. Joe calling the veteran's suicide hotline and being put on hold goes so far beyond wrong that it circumnavigates the Earth and returns in the space of a single panel.
    Joe: (fuming) Okay, but this hold music better be pretty damn good.
  • After Joe is killed by vacationing aliens, we think that he's finally going to get some respect when a memorial is announced... for Sergeant Grumbles, the test monkey whose fault it was that the aliens invaded in the first place. It's heartrendingly cruel and rage-inducing at the sheer injustice of it all, and yet the whole thing is so comically stupid and completely in-character from the people of Bedrock that it becomes hard not to laugh in spite of one's self.
• Jerkass Woobie: Mr. Slate's been reimagined into a crass capitalistic Bad Boss. In spite of this, issue 6 affords him the same glum humanity as everyone else when he gives everyone the day off and confesses a fear of Dying Alone, knowing he's made no lasting friendships and only has his business to his name.
  • To his credit, Slate becomes progressively nicer as the series goes on, culminating in the final issue of the series, where he gives Fred a promotion despite being angry at Fred for costing their bowling team a tournament.
• Memetic Mutation: "We participated in a genocide, Barney."^note One part of the comic details how Fred and Barney, during their time in the army, wiped out a tribe of tree-dwelling cavemen under the pretense of self-defense, only to learn that they were actually offing them to clear out land to develop Bedrock. Flash forward years later, and Fred and Barney see history repeating itself when a presidential candidate rallies Bedrock against the lizard people. After Barney points out how familiar this all feels, Fred then states the infamous line, which even in context comes completely out of left field. Consequently, it became a popular subject for parody, often to mock the comic's Darker and Edgier tone and its dissonance with the family-friendly image of The Flintstones.
• Narm: Say it with us, now: "we participated in a genocide, Barney." The line's already fairly absurd out of context, to the point where more than a few internet-goers who actually saw the panel out of context assumed it was an edit, but even when placed into the context of the actual comic it just seems so blunt and outlandishly-worded that it makes one step back a bit.
• Never Live It Down: Yes, Fred does in fact do more than talk about participating in genocide in this comic, including quite a lot of jokes, classic Flintstone Theming gags, and other lighthearted moments, but you'd never hear otherwise from this comic's detractors.
• Older Than They Think: While it was NOWHERE near the level of this comic, the Flintstones were always pretty subversive and not afraid to touch some deep issues for a cartoon like infertility and (in a TV movie made years later) marital problems.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Great Gazoo is a stern but compassionate cop instead of the wacky trickster from the show, and actually ends up saving the Earth from the Neighborhood Association.
• Spiritual Successor: To Prez (2015), given that it's written by the same writer.
• Tear Jerker:
  • In issue 1, when everyone ignores Wilma's hand print paintings and she laments that no one gets it, not even Fred. Then she explains their hand prints' importance as a reminder of her family.
  • In issue 4, Fred's speech about how he worries that Wilma will stop loving him someday, and that their marriage is just a attempt to keep her from leaving him.
  • Mr. Slate's soliloquy about dying alone.
  • Vacuum Cleaner dying just before he could hear a joke for the first time.
• Too Good to Last: Despite getting glowing reviews from critics and attracting major buzz from fans, the comic wrapped after just 12 issues.

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