Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: October 28, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★½
In this episode Fred accidently knocks himself out with a bottle. When he wakes up he has turned into a suave gentleman who loves opera and poetry.
Wilma, Barney and all other husbands soon get really fed up with this new ‘Frederick’ character, so Barney thinks up a scheme to get the old Fred back.
This is one of the more inspired Flintstones episodes, especially the scene in which Fred comes home, growling is a delight. Moreover, this episode finally features no less than three stone age gags: some birdlike creature is Wilma’s waste disposal, Betty’s shower is a mammoth, and Fred’s pick-up is a little bird with a will of his own.
Nevertheless, the episode’s message is rather dubious: one of Frederick’s new habits is his willingness to do some of the house cleaning himself. Such progressive, feminist ideas were clearly out of the question in this era…
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Split Personality’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 5
To the previous Flintstones episode: No Help Wanted
To the next Flintstones episode: The Monster from the Tarpits
‘The Split Personality’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 
3 comments
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May 13, 2020 at 16:30
SJC
I read about that..very good episode, one of the very original FLINTSTONES episode.
I have this on video.
I read about the Oppenshaw conneciton. The voice of the doctor that appears (won’t give his REAL specialty away), is none other than Howard MacNear, then on the ANDY GRIFFITH show… he also played two other FLINTSTONE roles, another in the same season’s THE HYPNOTIST (same field as in THE SPLIT PERSONALITY) and the third season’s INVIISBLE BARNEY, also BARNEY THE INVISBLE. BTW That was where the open/closing themes and visiuals originated.
May 12, 2020 at 04:29
wotppaper@aol.com
The inside joke here viewers over about the age of 20 would have gotten in 1960, but that almost nobody gets 60 years later, is that Frederick was a take off on the personality Alan Reed used as the erudite Falstaff Openshaw on the Fred Allen radio show during the 1940s.
May 12, 2020 at 07:35
Gijs Grob
Thank you – I indeed didn’t know that!