Fred Flintstone

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Fred Flintstone
Created by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Portrayed by Alan Reed, Henry Corden, John Goodman, Mark Addy, Jeff Bergman, and James Arnold Taylor
Information
Aliases Frederick F. Flintstone
Species Human
Gender Male
Age 48
Date of birth February 2nd
Occupation Crane Operator
Family Ed Flintstone (father), Edna Flintstone (mother), Rocksy Rubble (granddaughter), Chip Rubble (grandson), Bamm-Bamm Rubble (son-in-law)
Spouse(s) Wilma Flintstone
Children Pebbles Flintstone

Frederick J. "Fred" Flintstone (middle initials occasionally changed to F. and W.) is a fictional character who originated in the animated sitcom The Flintstones on ABC. He is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles Flintstone. His best friends are his next door neighbors, Barney and Betty Rubble, who have a son named Bamm-Bamm.

Fred lives in the fictional prehistoric city of Bedrock, a world where dinosaurs coexist with modernized barefoot cavepeople and the cavepeople enjoy "primitive" versions of modern conveniences such as telephones, automobiles, and washing machines.

Fred has since appeared in various other cartoon spinoffs, live action adaptations and commercials.

Contents

[edit] Fictional character biography

Fred Flintstone's biography has changed significantly throughout the show and its subsequent spinoffs. He is the only son of Ed and Edna Flintstone. In the original series episode, "Love Letters On The Rocks", it is stated that Fred and Wilma attended Boulder High School together, where Fred was a baseball player. Fred asked Wilma out when he was sixteen by romancing her with a love letter. This is contradicted in a later episode, "Flintstone Of Prinstone", where it is revealed that Fred went to Rockyville High School, was a football player, and graduated in seven years instead of four. His first meeting with Wilma has also been retconned in "Bachelor Daze" where it shows them meeting as young adults during the summer.

In The Flintstone Kids Fred and Wilma's first meeting has been retconned all the way to their childhood, having them know each other as children and having attended Bedrock Elementary.

[edit] Family relations

  • The Flintstone clan came from "Arkanstone" (Arkansas) where they had a long feud with the "Hatrocks." The feud ended when Fred saved both Pebbles and a Hatrock baby from drowning in the local river. However, at the celebration of the end of the feud, Fred makes the same comment about a portrait of a Hatrock matron that originally started the feud, ("I don't know what the artist got for painting that picture, but if you ask me, he shoulda got life!) which restarts the feud.
  • His last Arkanstone relation was "Zeke Flintstone."
  • He had a rich eccentric uncle, "Giggles Flintstone," whose practical jokes drive Fred into a maddening rage.
  • He also had two Texas relatives-Uncle "Tex" and sister Aunt "Jamina".
  • His birthday is February 2nd; it's mentioned when Barney mentions that it's Groundhog Day.
  • Both the first and last episodes were about aviation. In the first, Barney invents a hand powered helicopter; in the last, one of Fred's relatives and his sidekick are still trying to bring down their Red Baron enemy-50 years after World War IV.

[edit] Personality and occupation

Fred's personality was based on that of Ralph Kramden of the 1950s television series The Honeymooners and Chester A. Riley from The Life of Riley. Thus, much like Ralph, Fred tends to be loud-mouthed, aggressive, and constantly scheming ways to improve his family's working class lot in life, often with unintended results.

Fred is a typical blue-collar worker, who works as a "bronto crane operator" at Slate Rock and Gravel Company (also known as Rockhead and Quarry Cave Construction Company in the earliest episodes).

Fred's interests include bowling, playing pool, poker, lounging around the house, and playing golf. At the first two of these, he is very skilled, as seen in one of the episodes where he plays against Wilma's unsuspecting mother. Also, Fred has won championships with his incredible bowling skills; in one episode, he goes so far as to take ballet lessons in order to improve his game which led to his nickname "Twinkletoes". Fred is also an excellent golfer. In one episode he wins the championship only to have Barney repossess the winning trophy cup because Fred is behind in his dues. Fred, like Barney, was also a member of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos Lodge and a member of the Loyal Order of Dinosaurs (clearly modeled after Freemasonry; Mel Blanc, the voice behind Barney, was himself a Mason). Fred also has a serious gambling problem; the mere mention of the word "bet" causes Fred to stammer "bet" over and over again and go on gambling binges.

Fred's catchphrase "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!" (originally dervied from the Brylcreem advertising jingle motto "A Little Dab'll Do Ya!"), becomes the subject of a song by Hoagy Carmichael that the singer-songwriter performs in an episode of The Flintstones. Fred's ability to carry a tune was quite good in his younger years. In fact, in one of the earliest episodes, "The Girl's Night Out", he recorded a demo record at a fair of the song "Listen to the Mockingbird", which ended up making him a star; renamed "Hi Fye", he toured for two weeks with Wilma, Barney and Betty. As the series progressed, however, his voice became worse and worse, eventually to the point that his housekeeper quit rather than hear Fred sing. It was also referenced in the refrain of the George Jones song "The King is Gone."


[edit] Marriage

In the original TV series, Fred and Wilma fight often because of Fred's laziness, and this even led to a possible divorce in the TV special, On the Rocks. Wilma always gets angry at Fred for this, but never seems to get as mad when she catches him flirting with other women. In the live-action Flintstones film, she walks in on him cheating on her with his sexy secretary, Miss Stone, but all she does is hit him in the chest and then never brings it up again throughout the entire film.

[edit] In other media

 Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (July 2008)
  • For many years Fred Flintstone (as well as other characters from the show) was used to advertise 'Amber', an Australian company that sold pavers and tiles. In some advertisement, a variant of Fred's catchphrase was changed to "Only Amber tiles will do".
  • Fred Flintstone appeared in the short movie trailer, Raging Fred, a redub of Flintstones clips with dialogue from the movie Raging Bull.
  • In 2004 the gay rights movement of Ohio all dressed as Fred and marched at the town hall to demonstrate their anger at recent proposals to ban a popular gay magazine.
  • English cricketer Andrew Flintoff has been nicknamed "Freddie Flintoff" because of a similarity between their surnames.

[edit] Advertising

During the first several seasons of The Flintstones series, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were pitchmen for Winston cigarettes, the show's sponsor at the time. In one Winston ad, Fred and Barney saw the men working hard at the quarry and decided to retire out of sight for a smoke break. After extolling the virtues of the Winston brand cigarette, Fred lit up his cigarette and delivered the catch phrase: "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." Another similar ad for the cigarettes featured Wilma and Betty as well; the women were working hard mowing the lawn and beating dust out of a rug while Fred and Barney smoked behind the house. Vignettes also aired in which Fred lit Wilma's Winston cigarette, and the couple shared a smoke. Campaigns such as this contributed to cigarette advertising of all kinds being banned from television beginning in 1970.

With Barney Rubble, Fred has been a pitchman for Post Cereals' Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles breakfast cereals. The commercials typically feature Barney trying to trick Fred out of his cereal, usually ending with Fred bellowing, "Barney, my Pebbles!" as Barney runs off with Fred's cereal - a notable exception being a Christmas-themed commercial in which Santa Claus reminds him that "'Tis the season for sharing, Fred," whereupon Fred then sheepishly shares his cereal with both Barney and Santa.

In autumn 2005, Fred and Barney began appearing in Midas Muffler television commercials. Fred appears in a 2007 GEICO Insurance commercial which spoofs the money-saving methods of a blue-collar working man and how he and wife, Wilma, were able to afford a necklace "with huge rocks."

Fred was the spokesman for a Rhode Island bank until it went out of business in the 1980s-'90s. The bank, The Providence Institution for Savings, known as Old Stone Bank, featured Fred in its commercials, saying, "Yabba-Dabba-Doo! Love that Old Stone Bank!" The Bank was also one of the first to offer full service Automated Teller Machines (ATM) which were named "Ready Freddy" and included a picture of Fred until the Bank decided to terminate its contract with Hanna Barbera to use the likeness. The machines were so popular that people often referred to ATMs at other banks as "Ready Freddies."

[edit] Music

Fred Flinstone is mentioned in the Beastie Boys song "Shake Your Rump" and in the Cam'ron song "Killa Cam".

Fred and Barney once appeared as guest stars in Yogi's Space Race. Fred also appeared in some episodes of Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics.

[edit] Portrayal

  • When the series was broadcast in Spanish-speaking countries, Fred and Wilma's names became Pedro (Pedro, Peter in Spanish as being close to 'piedra' which means 'stone') and Vilma Picapiedra ('picapiedra' translating to something like 'stone chiseler' or 'stone hammerer'), and Barney and Betty Rubble became Pablo and Betty Mármol ('marble'), though in Portuguese (which is quite similar to Spanish), the names remained intact. The Spanish version featured Mexican actor Jorge "Tata" Arvizu doing the voice of Pedro Picapiedra, who frequently ad-libbed comments not traceable to the original English language script. Some critics (and a few Hanna-Barbera executives, Arvizu once claimed), found these ad-libbed comments funnier than those in the original English track. A classic example is an episode in which Fred suggests to Barney that two music-playing boarder youths who rented rooms at their respective houses be ejected from them "de una patada en la rabadilla" ("with a kick in their rumps"), a line not featured in the English script.

[edit] External links

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The Flintstones
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Television shows
Television specials
Television films
Theatical films
Other media
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