The Flintstones

The Flintstones
Premiere	September 30, 1960
Finale	April 1, 1966
Airs	Sundays at 10 AM, 10:30 AM and 11 AM on MeTV
Creator	William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Dan Gordon
Network/Provider	ABC
Style	30-minute animated sitcom
Company	Hanna-Barbera Productions, Screen Gems Television
Distributor	Screen Gems Television (until 1974) Columbia Pictures Television (1974–1980) Worldvision Enterprises (1980–1988) Great American Broadcasting (1988–1991) Turner Program Services (1991–1996) Telepictures Distribution (1996–2003) Warner Bros. Television (2003– )
Seasons	6
Episodes	166
Origin	USA

The Flintstones is an animated sitcom that aired on ABC. After the show's successful run, it produced a number of spin-offs. For a complete list, see The Flintstones franchise.

The original pilot presented to ABC for The Flintstones, running a mere two minutes, had Daws Butler voicing Fred and Barney and was immediately paralleled to Jackie Gleason's show The Honeymooners. In fact, upon seeing the finished product, Gleason threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera for plagiarism.

Taking place in the small community of Bedrock, Fred Flintstone is your average nine-to-five guy working at a rock quarry. His wife, Wilma, can be loving and understanding one moment and then nagging and cuckolding the next. The Rubbles, their next door neighbors, are comprised of happy-go-lucky Barney and his wife Betty. Early episodes had Fred and Barney coming up with schemes to either go out for a night on the town without their wives' suspecting or Fred's cockeyed schemes to make a fortune.

The show rose as high as 25th in the ratings, and during this peak time, it was decided to make Fred and Wilma a father and mother. In the third season, Wilma announced to Fred she was pregnant (the word not actually being used) and several weeks later on February 22, 1963, Wilma gave birth to Pebbles, their daughter. This broke the usual mold in cartoons where a stork delivers babies. Early in the fourth season, the show broke more ground dealing with adoption--a bundle is left on the Rubbles' doorstep and within was a baby boy with the strength of a wooly mammoth. He was named Bamm-Bamm, and the Rubbles had to go to court to fight for him when social services found a party more fit to raise him. Bamm-Bamm was awarded to the Rubbles anyway as the other litigant announced his own wife was expecting.

In the final season, a new semi-regular cast member was introduced. The Great Gazoo was a futuristic alien exiled to Earth. In order to return to his home planet, he had to show he could use his powers to help others on other worlds, and he would be the subservient of Fred and Barney (who are the only people who could see Gazoo).

The Flintstones was originally produced in color but for two years was telecast in black and white as ABC did not have color telecines at the time. In 1962, episodes of The Flintstones and sibling H-B show The Jetsons were delivered to NBC where they were transmitted in color to ABC who then broadcast the episodes to affiliates.

The year The Flintstones left prime time, a theatrical animated feature was released by Columbia Pictures, The Man Called Flintstone. The original series would concurrently run in replays on NBC's Saturday morning line-up and in syndication.

On September 30, 2010, Boomerang (Cartoon Network's sibling channel) screened the very first episode, "The Flintstone Flyer" at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, 50 years to the date and time of the show's debut on ABC. On that same date in 2019, "The Flintstone Flyer" was the first episode to air when the show began airing on MeTV.

Cast

Actor	Character	Duration
Main Cast		1	2	3	4	5	6
Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone	*	*	*	*	*	*
Mel Blanc	Barney Rubble	*	*	*	*	*	*
	Dino	*	*	*	*	*	*
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone	*	*	*	*	*	*
	Pebbles Flintstone			*	*	*	*
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble	*	*	*	*
Gerry Johnson						*	*
Supporting/Recurring Cast		1	2	3	4	5	6
Daws Butler	Additional voices	*	*	*	*	*	*
Don Messick	Additional voices	*	*	*	*	*	*
	Bamm-Bamm Rubble				*	*	*
	Hoppy					*	*
Hal Smith	Additional voices	*	*	*	*	*	*
John Stephenson	Additional voices	*	*	*	*	*	*
	Mr. Slate		*	*	*	*	*
Jerry Mann	Additional voices	*	*
Doug Young	Additional voices			*	*	*	*
Howard Morris	Additional voices			*	*	*
Janet Waldo	Additional voices			*	*		*
Allan Melvin	Additional voices				*	*	*
Henry Corden	Additional voices					*	*
Harvey Korman	Gazoo						*

Seasons

Season	Premiere	Finale				#
ABC
Season One	September 30, 1960	April 7, 1961				28
Season Two	September 15, 1961	April 27, 1962				32
Season Three	September 14, 1962	April 5, 1963				28
Season Four	September 19, 1963	March 12, 1964				26
Season Five	September 17, 1964	March 12, 1965				26
Season Six	September 17, 1965	April 1, 1966				26

Theatrical Film

Title			Release Date
The Man Called Flintstone			August 3, 1966

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series

DVD Releases

Title			Release			Discs
Complete Series  (Region 1)
The Complete Series			October 28, 2008			24
Season Sets  (Region 1)
The Complete First Season			March 16, 2004			4
The Complete Second Season			December 7, 2004			4
The Complete Third Season			March 22, 2005			4
The Complete Fourth Season			November 15, 2005			4
The Complete Fifth Season			March 7, 2006			4
The Complete Sixth Season			September 5, 2006			4
Feature Film  (Region 1)
The Man Called Flintstone			December 2, 2008			1
Episode Collections - Various Series  (Region 1)
1960s Volume 1			May 26, 2009	purchase		2

External Sites

• The Flintstones on IMDb