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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 ‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Fred Flintstone: Before and After’ is released 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:
‘Rooms for Rent’ is released 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 Roadrunner-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 ‘The Good Scout’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Good Scout’ is released 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…
Watch ‘In the Dough’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘In the Dough’ is released 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:
‘The Long, Long Weekend’ is released 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:
‘The Astra’ Nuts’ is released 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:
‘The Tycoon’ is released 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:
‘Love Letters on the Rocks’ is released 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 ‘The Hypnotist’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Hypnotist’ is released 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:
‘The Hot Piano’ is released 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 ‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter’ is released 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 wonder 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.
Watch ‘The Big Bank Robbery’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Big Bank Robbery’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: January 13, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
Wilma gets four free tickets for a big charity dance, but Fred and Barney refuse to go.
It turns out they can’t dance, and they are too ashamed to tell this to their wives. Thus they join ‘Joe Rockhead’s Fire Department’, a scam for husbands who want to go out each night, so they can go out and take dance lessons at ‘Arthur Quarry’s Dance School’.
Like many other Flintstones episodes ‘Arthur Quarry Dance School’ leans heavily on Fred and Barney’s rather depressing tendency to keep things secret from their wives, but this time it’s all for the good, and this is one of the rare episodes with a happy ending, even though Barney and Fred still can hardly dance in the end.
Highlight of the episode is the scene in which Fred and Barney meet their dancing partners at the school, two beautiful young ladies. The prehistoric gag department is limited to the mailman who uses a small Ceratopsian as a mail cart, and the bird as a record player, which by now has become a staple gag.
Watch ‘Arthur Quarry’s Dance Class’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Arthur Quarry’s Dance Class’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: January 6, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★★½
The wives are complaining that the boys never take them out, so Fred and Barney take them to an amusement park, much to Betty’s and Wilma’s dismay.
At the amusement park Fred records a song for Wilma, which he leaves behind, as Wilma clearly isn’t interested. But Fred’s record is picked up by teenagers, and even makes it to the radio. Soon, Fred becomes the bespectacled teenage idol Hi-Fye.
In his new career as a pop star, Fred is managed by a colonel, who keeps rambling about a boy from Georgia ad nauseam in a rather lame running gag. The Georgia reference is a rare occasion of a real contemporary reference within the series instead of a phony one (like ‘Hollyrock’), and belies the supposed stone age setting of the series.
Anyway, Barney, Wilma and Betty accompany Fred, alias Hi-Fye on a tiring tour, until the wives are so fed up, they spread a rumor that Hi-Fye is in fact a square, thus ending the teen idol’s career within seconds.
This episode is a nice satire on the pop music industry of the late 1950s and early 1960s with its rapid turnover of pop stars. The period between the end of rock-‘n-roll (ca. 1958) and the advent of The Beatles in 1963 was particularly depressing in that respect, with teen idols with shallow hit songs and a short product live span flocking the jukebox.
Fred Flintstone seems to be the epitome of such stardom, having only one hit: his updated version of the age old song ‘Listen to the Mocking Bird’, the origins of which go way back to 1855. Nevertheless, watching Fred doing his ridiculous ‘gimmick’ as Hi-Fye is a sheer delight. The episode also contains a short reference to Hot Lips Hannigan (the star of the episode of the same name) as being way out.
Apart from the pop music scene of the early 1960s, this episode unwillingly gives us a little insight in the depressing life of housewives of the era, who never go out of their homes and whose reason of existence seems to be to serve their husbands. True, more episodes of The Flintstones display this sobering fact, but in ‘The Girl’s Night Out’ this pre-feminist life is made the main subject of the episode.
Watch ‘The Girl’s Night Out’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Girl’s Night Out’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: December 30, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★½
There’s a prowler in town and Betty and Wilma are taking judo lessons to protect themselves.
Fred doesn’t approve and to prove that this self-defense is all nonsense he dresses up like a burglar himself to scare the wives. When he and the real prowler turn up at the same time, this causes a lot of misunderstandings.
This is a particularly slapstick-rich episode, with Fred and Barney trying to get Fred through Barney’s window, Fred repeatedly running into the real prowler, and Fred getting a beating from Betty, Wilma and the prowler.
There are also two nice prehistoric gags: Fred uses a bee in a shell for a razor, and a dinosaur lawn mower.
Unfortunately, the episode is hampered by the backward depiction of judo professor Rockimoto, a foul caricature of a Japanese, with the obligatory round glasses, big teeth, and phony accent.
Barney’s voice wavers a little during the episode.
Watch ‘The Prowler’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Prowler’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: December 23, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
Tired of their jobs, Fred and Barney decide to open their own restaurant. So they quit their jobs to obtain a drive-in so lousy, they can even buy without the necessary cash.
Fred’s and Barney’s only mistake is not telling their wives, but of course, Wilma and Betty soon find out, thus ending the business. The running gag of this episode features two annoying waitresses who sing a particularly irritating drive-in song, which is also featured in the episode’s finale.
‘The Drive-in’ is one of the least inspired of all Flintstones episodes. The all too predictable story moves at a surprisingly slow speed, and even contains a completely superfluous scene with a bird stealing Barney’s flapjacks. The only prehistory gags in this episode are the giant ribs and eggs Barney and Fred serve at the drive in.
The designs of the characters are quite unsteady in this episode, especially Fred’s.
Watch ‘The Drive-in’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Drive-in’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: December 16, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★
Both Fred and Barney and Betty and Wilma buy a sweepstakes ticket. They hide from each other, which leads to a small comedy of errors.
‘The Sweepstakes Ticket’ is not the most inspired of the Flintstones episodes: it relies heavily on tried and tested formulas. Most prominent is the ancient trope of devilish and angelic sides (typical examples include ‘Mickey’s Pal Pluto‘ from 1933 and ‘Donald’s Better Self‘ from 1938), which this time come to visit Fred. Then there is a W.C. Fields-like beggar, and Fred’s rather atypical asides to the audience.
Moreover, the episode reuses a gag from ‘The Engagement Ring’, aired only a few weeks before. At one point the story even reverts to the comedy of Tex Avery’s ‘The Legend of Rockabye Point‘ and ‘Deputy Droopy’ (both 1955) with Fred running away to a far away place to scream out his pain, and quickly singing a lullaby to the awakening Barney.
Fred’s behavior is highly questionable in this episode, burgling his very own neighbor, and it’s amazing to see his crime being unpunished.
Watch ‘The Sweepstakes Ticket’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Sweepstakes Ticket’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: December 9, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
This episode starts with a golf tournament, but turns out to be a story about a feud between Barney and Fred.
Part of the story is told as a flashback: Barney is chosen president of ‘The Loyal Order of Dinosaurs’ (first introduced in ‘Hot Lips Hannigan‘) and promises to collect overdue contributions. Because Fred is one of the late payers, this leads to a heavy and childish feud between the to neighbors, reminiscent of the one in ‘The Swimming Pool‘.
Barney even buys a vicious watchdog, with a laugh that sounds like that of Muttley from Hanna-Barbera’s future series ‘Wacky Races’ (1968). The low point is reached when Fred throws a party with people he doesn’t even like, only to provoke Barney (who turns out not to be home). In the end it’s up to the wives to settle the argument.
‘The Golf Champion’ is one of the duller Flintstones episodes. It contains some repetitive gags of Barney stealing his own stuff back from Fred’s yard. The sound of effect of Barney tiptoeing in these scenes, however, is a delight, as is the surprisingly inspired background music, which e.g. features a military version of the Flintstones theme music. Nevertheless, the opening scenes are arguably the best, with Fred having to deal with no less than two large dinosaurs occupying the golf course.
There are two stone age gags: a bird as a can opener, which informs us that he likes the food at the Rubble’s house better, and a record player, featuring a monkey and a bird.
Watch ‘The Golf Champion’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Golf Champion’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: December 2, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★½
The wives win a trip to Hollyrock with their slogan ‘Mother McGuire’s Meatballs don’t bounce’. Within two days Fred and Barney miss their wives so much they decide to follow them.
Before soon, both Wilma and Fred are asked to star in a new television series called ‘The Frogmouth’. But within a day Fred is overdoing it, and the producer makes him nervous to get rid of him.
‘Hollyrock, Here I Come’ plays on the American myth that anybody can become a star. The best gag of this only moderately funny episode comes from the guy on TV announcing the winning slogan. The timing of this gag is surprisingly sharp for the series, which is generally does not display any fast gags. Another highlight is the great wild-eyed take on Fred when Wilma tells him she won a trip to Hollyrock, and he thinks he can go.
As always the concept of a stone age television is rather puzzling, a mystery that is pushed further by the animated commercial.
Watch ‘Hollyrock, Here I Come’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Hollyrock, Here I Come’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: November 25, 1960
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★★½
Barney has bought an engagement ring for Betty and he asks Fred to keep it from him.
By chance, Wilma discovers the ring and thinks Fred had bought it for her. So Fred has to buy one himself. Unfortunately the jeweler doesn’t allow him any credit, so Fred makes Barney try to fight a boxing champ for three minutes to earn the necessary 500 bucks… All the time, the wives are way ahead of the boys.
‘The Engagement Ring’ is one the best written, most inspired and funniest Flintstones episodes, even if it doesn’t contain any prehistory gag. Especially, the cake bake scene accounts for some great slapstick, with Fred being covered in flour as a highlight.
At the same time this is also one of the sweetest of the Flintstones episodes. All four protagonists act lovingly this time. There’s none of Fred’s usual grumbling, save for one short early scene. And, for once the episode has a rare happy ending, celebrating the neighbors’ marriages. At the same time, the episode retains the basic idea of the husbands habitually lying to their wives.
The animation is funnier than usual, with more extreme poses. For example, when Barney realizes he has to fight the champ, we for once see the whites of his eyes. This episode contains a guest appearance by Bill Thompson (the voice of Droopy) as a poor bloke who finally made his 600th payment, and gets his children back.
Watch ‘The Engagement Ring’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Engagement Ring’ is released on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
