Unearth the Surprising Secrets Behind The Flintstones That Will Rock Your Stone Age World!
The person in charge of Flintstones merchandising called Barbera and said that he heard they were thinking of adding a baby. When Barbera said that it was going to be a boy the employee responded saying “That’s too bad. I have the ideal toy. If it was a girl.” They changed the gender on the spot and sold three million Pebbles dolls in a few months.
The Voice Of Wilma Was Convinced That Fred And Wilma Really Loved Each Other
The voice of Wilma Flintstone was done by Jean Vander Pyl, who worked in the role from the first episode up until her death in 1999. Although the couple in the show may have argued a fair amount, their characters did care about each other.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Pyl said that “I loved the bum […] Sure, Fred was a yahoo and I got mad at him all the time. But we really loved each other. Our romance was one of the things that made us so popular. We were real.”
Fred And Wilma Were One Of The First Televised Couples To Sleep In The Same Bed
Although today, couples can be seen sleeping in the same bed all over television and in films, it used to be taboo. Back then, the couples would sleep in the same room, although in separate beds on different sides of the room.
Although Wilma and Fred may not have been the first couple to sleep together in the same bed on television, they were close, with the sitcom Mary Kay and Johnny being first. Yet, even if they weren’t the first on television, they surely were the first animated couple to share a bed.
The Show Wasn’t Originally Supposed To Be Set During The Stone Age
When Hanna-Barbera decided to make a primetime animated sitcom, they knew that they wanted to make the show about a family. However, they didn’t always know that the show was going to be set during the Stone Age.
The other ideas that the studio considered were a hillbilly family, a pilgrim family, a Native American family, and a Roman family. After The Flintstones became successful during the 1960s, Hanna-Barbera launched the show The Roman Holidays in 1972, about a family that was living in Rome in the year 63 CE.
Jackie Gleason Almost Sued Hanna-Barbera
If you’ve ever seen The Flintstones and The Honeymooners, you may notice that there are numerous similarities between the two shows. At one point, Jackie Gleason, the creator of the show The Honeymooners, told Playboy in an interview that he was ready to take legal action against Hanna-Barbera.
Yet, he decided against it, because he didn’t want to be known as the man who forced Fred Flintstone off of the air. On the other hand, Hanna-Barbera took the comparison as a compliment saying, “Well, if you compare Flintstones to Honeymooners, that’s the biggest compliment you can give me.”
They Even Hired Writers From The Honeymooners
To help write the scripts for The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera hired experienced live-action writers from The Honeymooners to help spruce up the dialogue on the show. The writers that they hired were Herbert Finn and Sydney Zelinka.
Barbera claimed that “I brought in a writer from the Honeymooners, […] I paid him three thousand bucks and he was terrible.” So, taking the writers from The Honeymooners backfired and the scripts turned out to be too wordy with not enough action for an animated series.
There Was A Crossover With Bewitched
In the episode “Samantha,” the sixth episode of the sixth season, there was a guest appearance by Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York. The two showed up as animated versions of their characters Samantha and Darrin Stephens from the hit television show Bewitched.
This wasn’t all that big of a surprise since the two shows had synergy to begin with, since the Hanna-Barbera production company had been charged to create the animation for the opening to Bewitched although it was a live-action show.
The Theme Song Wasn’t Used Until Season 3
While most people connect the opening of The Flinstones to the beloved theme song “Meet the Flintstones,” the song wasn’t always used in the first seasons of the show. In fact, the song wasn’t used at all until the beginning of the third season.
For the first two seasons, before the show had its iconic theme song, the opening used an instrumental piece of music that is titled “Rise and Shine.” But surely, the show’s producers knew that they needed a song that they could call their own.
Season 3 Didn’t Just Lead To A Change In Theme Song
Whenever The Flintstones’ old ads for Winston are uncovered, they always show Fred and Barney in black and white. And that’s because the show itself wasn’t presented any other way for the first two seasons, which encompassed Winston’s time as a sponsor.
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