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Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: February 22, 1963
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:

‘The Dress Rehearsal’ forms the pinnacle of the continuity that had started with ‘The Surprise‘ a month earlier. In fact, the episode is the best of the whole third season, and perhaps of the whole Flintstones series.

The episode starts inconspicuous enough, with Fred and Barney practicing at a gym, owned by a phony character, but when red and Barney decide to practice the day Wilma goes into labor some really fine comedy starts, with the writers pulling all comic registers, from slapstick, via lame jokes to a great comedy of errors.

Barney looks particularly silly posing as Fred’s wife, more looking like Little Red Riding Hood. But all this is topped by a remarkable speedy sequence of rushing back and forth to the hospital. The episode ends with the coming of Fred and Wilma’s baby Pebbles. Unfortunately, her arrival also heralds a sudden drop of quality of the series, as the subsequent episodes will show.

Note that ‘The Dress Rehearsal’ knows a rare appearance of the saber-tooth cat of the title sequences. In the hospital we also see two clear caricatures. These appear to be Vince Edwards and Sam Jaffe from the television series ‘Ben Casey’ (961-1966), which is set in a hospital.

Watch an excerpt from ‘The Dress Rehearsal’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 23
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Fred’s New Job
To the next Flintstones episode: Carry on, Nurse Fred

‘The Dress Rehearsal’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season