The Birthday Party

Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: April 5, 1963
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
Review:

In ‘The Birthday Party’ Wilma organizes a surprise party for Fred at Barney’s and Betty’s house. Barney is to stall Fred until everything is ready, but he does his job a little too good.

‘The Birthday Party’ wraps off the third season of ‘The Flintstones’. Unfortunately, this last episode feels like a letdown after the great continuity of the coming of Pebbles. Small Pebbles isn’t even in sight. But worse, ‘The Birthday Party’ belongs to the more cartoony Flintstones episodes, high on slapstick and low on more sophisticated types of comedy.

After Fred returns home, the episode starts to drag considerably, and the end scene is anything but funny. Particularly annoying are no less than five talking tool animals, all having incredibly lame lines: a kitchen knife lizard, a shaving brush bird, a car horn bird, a golf cart Ceratopsian and a balloon pump bird.

Despite all the slapstick mayhem, the episode’s most enjoyable scene is that of all Fred’s friends waiting in the dark at Barney’s and Betty’s house.

Watch an excerpt from ‘The Birthday Party’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is the 28th and last episode of The Flintstones Season Three
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Swedish Visitors

‘The Birthday Party’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’