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Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: November 2, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘The Little Stranger’ starts with a Fred so grumpy Wilma sends him to a doctor to get examined. On the way Fred and Barney repeatedly meet a paper delivering little boy called Arnold, who gets the better of Fred each time. However, we have to wait until the 11th minute before the story really begins.
As with some of the best Flintstones episodes ‘The Little Stranger’ is a comedy of errors, and it is a delight to watch Fred’s sweet side, as well as him running back and forth when he thinks Wilma is expecting a little baby any minute. The best sight gag however, is when the doctor makes Fred inhale and exhale, a breath so powerful it moves Barney, who’s reading on a chair, through the office.
‘The Little Stranger’ feels like a prequel to the continuous story of the Flintstones getting a baby, which makes the third season so unique. It’s the first episode in which the baby idea comes up, and Fred’s reaction indeed is inviting to make the character deal with the real thing.
The stone age gags, meanwhile, are modest, and include a dish washing pelican, the now almost regular mammoth vacuum cleaner, and a bizarre bag-crocodile. Notice that for once, one of the windows is glass-covered, to get a gag with Arnold along.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Little Stranger’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 8
To the previous The Flintstones episode: The Buffalo Convention
To the next Flintstones episode: Baby Barney
‘The Little Stranger’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: October 26, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
Review:
It’s Wilma’s birthday and Fred buys her a doozy dodo, a talking bird, from a seedy street vendor. At home it first seems the bird doesn’t talk after all, but when Fred and Barney are conspiring to go a three days convention of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes in ‘Frantic City’, the bird reveals all to their wives.
This episode follows all familiar tropes existing since the Laurel and Hardy feature ‘Sons of the Desert’ (1933) and is utterly predictable from start to end. The stone age gags bring some light into this listless episode, and involve a sneezing mini mammoth as a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner, a dinosaur bus, and best of all, a monkey-operated traffic light.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Buffalo Convention’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 7
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Here’s Snow in Your Eyes
To the next Flintstones episode: The Little Stranger
‘The Buffalo Convention’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: October 19, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
Here’s Snow in Your Eyes’ starts with Wilma grouching over housework. Then she hears that Fred and Barney are invited to a state convention of the Royal Order of Water Buffaloes in Stone Mountain, a luxurious ski resort, and naturally she assumes she and Betty can go, too.
Unfortunately, Fred has to talk her out of that idea, as there wasn’t enough money for the wives, so the girls stay home. But when Betty and Wilma discover there’s a beauty contest at the very place, they change their minds, and go anyway to keep an eye on their husbands.
‘Here’s Snow in Your Eyes’ knows a quite complicated plot, which also involves a diamond theft, but for once the guys have nothing to hide, and the episode is one of two happily married couples. Unfortunately the beauty contest subplot ends abruptly, and one gets the feeling there’s was more to the story material than what finally materialized in this episode. Nevertheless, this is one of the more enjoyable Flintstones episodes from the third season, with fun little scenes, some nice takes on all four main characters, and an enjoyable final scene.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Here’s Snow in Your Eyes’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 6
To the previous The Flintstones episode: The Twitch
To the next Flintstones episode: The Buffalo Convention
‘Here’s Snow in Your Eyes’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: October 12, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘The Twitch’ is the Flintstones’ answer to Chubby Checker’s huge success with ‘The Twist’ (1960).
In this episode Fred promises Wilma to get ‘Rock Roll’ (voiced by Hal Smith) to play for free at her auxilliary show. Rock Roll’s big hit is ‘The Twitch’, a catchy parody song, which is accompanied by the familiar twist gestures, as well as Chuck Berry’s duckwalk.
The fun is further enhanced by the final scene (a twist in itself), a series of terrible vaudeville acts and several stone age gags, like a horned crocodile-like potato peeler, a nail-polishing bird and a weird massage device. Also note the caricature of Fred Sullivan. All these aspects make ‘The Twitch’ one of the more enjoyable episodes of the Flintstones’ third season.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Twitch’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 5
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Bowling Ballet
To the next Flintstones episode: Here’s Snow in Your Eyes
‘The Twitch’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
5
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: October 5, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
Review:
In this appallingly unfunny episode Fred secretly takes ballet lessons to restore his bowling skills.
This episode starts with a long morning routine in which Wilma tries to wake up Fred. This part contains two stone age gags: Fred shaving himself with a clam containing a bumble bee, and Wilma frying a humongous dinosaur egg. Later we watch Wilma and Betty trying to swap a giant fly, and Wilma’s gigantic Brontosaur ribs dinner for Fred.
These gags are fair, at best, but much better than the main story, which drags on, despite the deadline of a big game Fred hopes to win and its stakes being high. Why Fred doesn’t tell anyone he is taking ballet lessons in the first place is never explained, and this secrecy is as puzzling as discomforting, given the fact that Fred and Wilma are supposed to have a happy marriage.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Bowling Ballet’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 4
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Barney the Invisible
To the next Flintstones episode: The Twitch
‘Bowling Ballet’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: September 28, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
Review:
This Flintstones episode starts with Barney having the hiccups, while Fred Flintstone is trying to invent a new soda drink in his garage. When Barney drops by, Fred tries to cure Barney’s hiccups with his potion no. 412, which does the trick and renders Barney invisible.
The rest of the episode fails to cash in on this premise, with all invisibility routines being rather lazy and uninspired. Fred even wins a bowling contest using Barney’s invisibility, without any repercussions.
There are a few prehistoric gear gags, like a mammoth and a seal acting like a washing machine, and birds functioning as clothes pins, but for the most part this is a lackluster affair.
‘Barney the Invisible’ is noteworthy, however, for being the first episode starting and ending with the new title song ‘meet the Flintstones’, which is a great improvement on the earlier intro. The accompanying images, too, are much more fun, luckily dumping the rather questionable images of Fred eating dinner for the television without Wilma, which accompanied the original intro.
Watch ‘Barney the Invisible’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.topcartoons.tv/cartoons/barney-the-invisible
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 3
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Fred’s New Boss
To the next Flintstones episode: Bowling Ballet
‘Barney the Invisible’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: September 21, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Although this episode starts with Wilma and Betty watching an add on television and going to the barbers to get a new haircut, it is really centered on the friendship of Barney and Fred.
When Barney is laid off, Wilma forces Fred to ask his boss to get his friend a job. Fred fails, but does not to dare tell Barney. But when Barney reports himself at Fred’s Boss, Mr. Slate, he turns out to be the director’s nephew, and is promptly promoted to executive vice president. Unfortunately, this means he has become Fred’s boss, and this puts a strain on their relationship.
The best scene may be Wilma joining Fred in bowling to make up for Barney’s absence, even though this feels like a missed opportunity for more gags. Meanwhile Barney tries to blend in with other executives, in an all too short scene, which also fails to deliver on its potential.
In fact, the whole episode is low on gags, and the few prehistoric creatures that act as garbage bins and parking meters get some really lame lines. The animation, too, is sometime ridiculously poor. Watch for example the reaction of Barney, Betty and Wilma when Fred returns from his boss’s house. The trio looks more like a mechanical device than as human beings.
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 2
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Dino Goes Hollyrock
To the next Flintstones episode: Barney the Invisible
‘Fred’s New Boss’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: September 14, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
Review:
The third season of The Flintstones kicks off with an episode devoted to Dino, Fred and Wilma’s purple pet dinosaur. The dog-like dinosaur appears to have a favorite television program called Sassie, starring a female dinosaur with a wig.
When Fred discovers that the show looks for a new star, he goes on an audition with Dino. Dino, however, only shows to be a great performer after discovering he will be in a love scene with Sassie. After one scene, Dino is hired, and Fred paid off and sent home, much to his own regret, but then Dino discovers something…
This episode has a rather slow start and is surprisingly low on gags, but its finale has a nice emotional touch. The cheap and old-fashioned melodrama of the tv show is fun, but the highlight of the episode is Dino’s reaction to his manager’s and director’s plans with him.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Dino Goes Hollyrock’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 1
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Take Me Out to the Ball Game
To the next Flintstones episode: Fred’s New Boss
‘Dino Goes Hollyrock’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: April 7, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ starts with a television studio in search of a ‘before man’ for their commercial for ‘Fat Off Reducing Method’.
B.J., the president of the company picks Fred from the street. An outrageously proud Fred invites all his friends to watch him on television, only to realize afterwards he was the ‘fat guy’, not the muscular after guy…
In a very unlikely follow up scene the studio offers Fred $1000 if he can reduce his weight with 25 pounds. It remains completely mysterious what the studio would gain with this bet. In any case, Fred sets out to eat less, only to discover that it’s much, much harder than he thought. So, he seeks help from ‘Food Anonymous’….
‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ suffers from a rather weak and implausible story, and rather repetitive scenes of Fred not dieting at all. For a while it seems that the $1000 reward doesn’t play any role, at all. Nevertheless, Fred’s wild looks when begging for a burger are priceless and belong to the best pieces of character animation on the whole show. However, the episode’s highlight is in the beginning, when Fred thinks he’s on camera, and goes berzerk.
‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ rounds up the first season of The Flintstones. Five seasons would follow, lasting until 1966. In the first season the series had shown to be an original mix of sitcom, slapstick comedy, sight gags and cartoon humor. Moreover, the series proved that cartoons could be prime time material, although that lesson would only get a real follow up when The Simpsons started airing in 1989.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is the 26th and final episode of Flintstones Season One
To the previous Flintstones episode: Rooms for Rent
‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: March 31, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
‘Rooms for Rent’ starts with Fred calculating his and Wilma’s expenses.
Because the couple is overspending, Wilma decides to take in some boarders. Promptly she and Betty (who has the same financial problems) are visited by two music students. Unfortunately, the two jazz cats don’t have any money, so Wilma and Betty let the two youngsters stay for two weeks in exchange of help with their own act they want to perform at the Loyal Order of Dinosaurs. Despite Fred and Barney wanting some boarders, too, these prove two very long weeks for the husbands, as the two students practice their modern jazz at home, and eat the lion’s share of their meals.
‘Rooms for Rent’ is a rather weak entry within the Flintstones series, offering inconsistent designs, mediocre animation and few laughs. The episode also is one of those Flintstones entries showing the inequality of man and woman in the early 1960s: when contemplating how to earn some money, Betty and Wilma never contemplate working themselves, as “the boys won’t let us go out and get a job” (Betty) and “A woman’s place is in the home” (as Wilma quotes Fred). This episode is typical for its many shots of people addressing the camera. Also featured is a prehistoric subway, the working of which is never explained…
Watch the subway scene from ‘Rooms for Rent’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9WMZDu-ufM
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 25
To the previous Flintstones episode: In the Dough
To the next Flintstones episode: Fred Flintstone: Before and After
‘Rooms for Rent’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: March 24, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★½
In this episode Fred takes on a job as scout leader of the Sabre-Toothed Tiger Patrol, consisting of three little boys.
Fred and Barney go camping with the three kids. This main part of the episode consists of four rather unrelated and mediocre blackout gags: Fred encountering a sabre-toothed bear, Barney and Fred clearing the camping area by removing boulders in a few rather Road Runner-like gags, and the scouting team playing baseball. The trip abruptly ends, when their tent floats down a stream and straight to the obligatory waterfall at night.
In the opening scenes Fred has acquired a new walking cycle. The night scenes feature some beautiful and very stylish background art work. Also beautiful is the shot of the scouting team marching in silhouette. However, highlight of the episode is the late double-take on Wilma when Fred tells her he has joined the boy scouts.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Good Scout’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OL3yGPG1Yk
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 24
To the previous Flintstones episode: The Long, Long Weekend
To the next Flintstones episode: Rooms for Rent
‘The Good Scout’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: March 17, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★½
Wilma and Betty enter a baking contest with their recipe for an upside down bubble cake.
Fred ain’t too enthusiastic, until he hears of the prize money of $10,000. Indeed, Betty and Wilma get to the finals. But they get the measles, and cannot leave home. Enter Fred’s lunatic plan to take their place, impersonating Mrs. Rubble and Flintstone.
Following Betty’s and Wilma’s recipe, Fred and Barney even manage to win, but as Barney had used flour brand B instead of the sponsor’s Tastry Pastry flour, they never get the $10,000. Even worse, their plan only backfires on them, with the wives blackmailing them to tell their friends of their temporary womanhood.
‘In the Dough’ is a rather run of the mill episode, with the most inspired gag being a throwaway gag at the start of the show: Wilma packing Fred’s enormous lunch box. Moreover, this is another episode unwillingly revealing the plight of 1960s housewives: they pack their husbands’ lunchboxes, and only by using blackmail they can make their husbands doing the dishes…
‘In the Dough’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: March 10, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
This episode starts with Fred complaining that none of his old pals ever writes him.
Promptly he gets a letter by old pal Smoothy, who runs a seaside hotel, so Fred gives old Smoothy a ring. Unfortunately, Smoothy just has had a major problem: all his staff has walked out of him, as Smoothy couldn’t pay them. So Smoothy invites Fred and his neighbors to come over and stay for free, only to make them work at his hotel with more than 200 guests coming to a convention. Of course, his plan doesn’t succeed.
‘The Long, Long Weekend’ is a rather badly scripted episode: Smoothy’s plan is laid out in advance; at no point his plan sounds feasible, and indeed it works for only a couple of minutes. A lot of screen time is wasted on Fred and Barney going swimming, fishing and skin diving – all without success. The fishing episode at least features a beautiful painting of Fred and Barney in a boat, silhouetted against an orange sky.
The episode is most important for introducing the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, the order Fred and Barney would join in the future.
Watch ‘The Long, Long Weekend’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6pamff
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 23
To the previous Flintstones episode: The Tycoon
To the next Flintstones episode: In the Dough
‘The Long, Long Weekend’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: March 3, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
When Betty gets an address wrong, Fred and Barney line up at the army recruitment office instead of the physical examination for an insurance company.
Before they realize it, the neighbors have joined the army, for three years… Inside the army Fred and Barney volunteer for a space program lead by a German-sounding professor without realizing it. After the professor has conducted some weird experiments on them, Fred and Barney are shot away in a wooden rocket by a giant slingshot, only to land some yards further, in an artillery range, which they think is the moon.
‘The Astra’ Nuts’ has one of the weakest plots of all Flintstones episodes. The whole series of events which lead to the boys joining the army for no less than three years is very unconvincing. One suspects all these plot twists are only introduced to get Fred and Barney inside a rocket.
When the four realize Fred and Barney have enlisted, we get a series of rather poorly drawn double-takes. Much better are the bizarre tests, but the best gag is when we’re set up to expect an enormous band only to see the conductor conduct just one trumpet player. This episode features a sergeant with the same voice as the Snorkasaurus had in ‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter‘.
Watch ‘The Astra’ Nuts’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.topcartoons.tv/the-astra-nuts/
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 22
To the previous Flintstones episode: Love Letters on the Rocks
To the next Flintstones episode: The Long, Long Weekend
‘The Astra’ Nuts’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: February 24, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★½
This episode has an unusual narrative structure. It immediately starts differently, using a narrator, who first introduces bedrock and its inhabitants, before focusing on Fred Flintstone. Moreover, the episode uses a flashback, and ends inconclusive, much unlike all the other Flintstone episodes.
The story is an example of a classic mistaken identity, when Fred Flintstone is mistaken for business tycoon J.L. Gotrocks, and vice versa. The problems start when Gotrocks flips his wig, resigns and goes out on the street, and his employees convince Fred to take Gotrocks place. Surprisingly Fred does an amazing job by saying “whose baby is that?”, “What’s your angle?” and “I’ll buy that” only.
Nevertheless, the comedy hardly comes off, as the lookalike plot never gets convincing. The best prehistory gag involves a bird voice recorder, which repeats the message when thrown a cracker.
Watch ‘The Tycoon’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6pam6m
‘The Tycoon’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: February 17, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
The plot of this episode gets in motion when Wilma discovers an old love letter from Fred in a box full of memories. When Fred discovers his own poem in the drawer, he thinks it’s by somebody else, and suspects that Wilma has a secret lover.
What follows is a classic comedy of errors, also involving roller skates, a watch, and a private eye with a funny walk and the voice reminiscent of that of Tony Curtis as a millionaire in ‘Some Like It Hot’ (1959). Fred’s dramatic stances are priceless.
The episode is further uplifted by some amusing prehistory gags: a giant dinosaur from ‘Mastodon Motor Inc.’ full of cars on its back, a photo camera with a little bird drawing a picture in it, and a taxi you have to walk yourself. We also discover that Fred’s job, which already had been depicted in ‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter’, is being a “dino-operator”.
Watch ‘Love Letters on the Rocks’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ttnkr
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 21
To the previous Flintstones episode: The Hypnotist
To the next Flintstones episode: The Tycoon
‘Love Letters on the Rocks’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: February 10, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
‘The Hypnotist’ is one of the silliest of the Flintstones episodes. The nonsense starts when Fred brags about being able to hypnotize himself after seeing one Mesmo on the television.
Betty and Wilma play along, but Fred really manages to hypnotize Barney, making him think he’s a dog. Unfortunately, Fred cannot make his friend snap out of it, and seeks the assistance of Mesmo. This leads to several slapstick gags, ending in a dog pound. In the end Mesmo turns Barney into human again, and two dogs, as well…
‘The Hypnotist’ is pretty gag rich, but few of the gags come off, due to poor timing and trite dialogue. Worse, in many scenes Fred’s designs are quite off, and the animation often is subpar. Most interesting may be the cash desk at the supermarket and the crazy veterinarian. This fellow is designed more stylistically than the other characters, recalling classic UPA modernism.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Hypnotist’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN9808DWTSE
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 20
To the previous Flintstones episode: The Hot Piano
To the next Flintstones episode: Love Letters on the Rocks
‘The Hypnotist’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: February 3, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★½
It’s Fred an Wilma’s tenth anniversary, and Wilma thinks Fred has forgotten the day, as usual.
On the contrary, Fred is buying a piano for her, at least he was until he discovers a piano costs $1500 instead of his $50. Yet, Fred manages to buy a ‘hot piano’ from a sleazy guy on the corner for just that sum.
A lot of screen time of this episode is devoted to Fred and Barney trying to get the piano in Fred’s house at night. This is a long string of slapstick gags, ending with Fred riding the piano on the street. Like ‘The Sweepstakes Ticket‘, this part has some throwback gags to Tex Avery’s ‘Deputy Droopy’ (1955) with Barney running to a mailbox to yell in it.
Much better though is the scene in which Barney and the shop owner play an elaborate, quasi-classical improvisation on the 1880 song ‘The Fountain at the Park’ at the Stoneway piano. This is one of the most delightful scenes within the complete series, greatly enhanced by the genuinely delightful music. Almost as good is the short’s finale, in which Barney and a quartet of policemen sing ‘Happy anniversary’ to the tune of Gioachino Rossini’s overture to William Tell over and over again, much to Fred’s chagrin.
Watch the anniversary song from ‘The Hot Piano’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 19
To the previous Flintstones episode: The Snorkasaurus Hunter
To the next Flintstones episode: The Hypnotist
‘The Hot Piano’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: January 27, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
The story of this episode is set in when Fred gets angry about meat prices in a supermarket. So he decides to use his vacation to hunt the meat himself.
Thus the four neighbors are off with a trailer to the mountains where Fred and Barney try to clobber a ‘Snorkasaurus’ to death, while their wives experience all kinds of camping annoyances, like mosquitoes and ants. The Snorkasaurus turns out to be a wise-cracking, refined talking animal with a suave voice (according to Wikipedia imitating comedian Phil Sivers).
In the end the episode turns out to give us the origin of Dino, Fred and Wilma’s pet. This is a weird turn of events, as Dino has been seen before as a four-legged yelping dinosaur, behaving like a dog, not the two-legged suave and talkative animal as shown here. Indeed, this is this the only episode in which Dino talks.
‘The Snorkasaurus Hunters’ is the first episode to show Fred working as an excavator machinist at ‘Rockhead and Quarry’s Cave Construction Company’. In ‘Love Letters on the Rocks‘ Fred says he’s a ‘dino-operator’. Both his work and the supermarket lead to several prehistoric gags. The camping episode is particularly slapstick rich, and has surprisingly much in common with earlier Warner Bros. cartoons. For example, Barney chops an enormous redwood tree, which crashes on Fred’s car and trailer. Later, Barney goes fishing, but gets swallowed by a large fish himself. The best gag, however, is when the four dream what they could do with the money they save by hunting their meat themselves. Barney’s dream in particular is a delight.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 18
To the previous Flintstones episode: The Big Bank Robbery
To the next Flintstones episode: The Hot Piano
‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: January 20, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
This episode starts with two bank robbers (voiced by Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg) followed by a police car.
The robbers get rid of the loot, which lands on Fred’s head. When the wives convince Fred and Barney to return the money to the police, the boys are quickly seen as the robbers themselves. Fred and Barney flee into the wild Meanwhile, Wilma thinks of a rather unhealthy way to attract the real bank robbers, posing as sleazy gals (“Shirl” and “Myrt”) with too much dough on their hands. It remains a miracle that they only attract the original bank robbers to their house, and not the complete criminal scene of Bedrock with their act.
Anyway, in the end Fred accidentally knocks out the real crooks, earning the reward. But his bragging about it makes him all too vulnerable to blackmail, and in the end it’s the other three who spend all the money, leaving Fred only with his story as a conquering hero.
This episode features a gas station using a mastodon, but the best gag may be the police sketch, which is much more inspired than the tiring and completely superfluous scene in which Barney ends up in a pterodactyl nest. Moreover, this pterodactyl looks more like a bird than the real thing.
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 17
To the previous Flintstones episode: Arthur Quarry’s Dance Class
To the next Flintstones episode: The Snorkasaurus Hunter
‘The Big Bank Robbery’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 