Droop-Along Flintstone

Droop-Along Flintstone
Details
Show	The Flintstones
Season	2
Episode number	2
Original airdate	September 22, 1961
Crew
Animated by	Kenneth Muse Carlo Vinci George Nicholas
Written by	Warren Foster
Chronology
Previous	"The Hit Songwriter"
Next	"The Missing Bus"

"Droop-Along Flintstone" is the second episode of the second season of The Flintstones. It aired on September 22, 1961.

Synopsis

Fred takes Wilma and the gang to Cousin Tumbleweed's ranch.

Plot

Into Bedrock in their extended car comes Fred's wealthy Texan cousins Tumbleweed and Mary Lou Jim, who bankroll a dinner for the Flintstones and Rubbles at Bedrock's costliest restaurant, the Rockadero. When a Rockadero waiter refuses to serve informally-dressed Tumbleweed, the ornery Texan buys the pretentious "eatery" and delights in terminating the waiter's employment!

Tumbleweed and Mary Lou Jim are planning a month-long ocean excursion and need caretakers for their ranch while they are enjoying their seagoing exploits, their desired candidates for this generously-remunerated task being Fred and company. So, Flintstones and Rubbles "go West" to Tumbleweed Ranch, with Fred and Barney donning bibs and white cowboy hats, singing Western songs, and trying to ride bronco-dinosaurs, the only one onto which they are able to mount being a squat, white variety of bronco-dinosaur that reacts with lightning speed when Barney "spurs" it to increase pace.

After a prolonged junket across the frontier, Fred and Barney free themselves from their speedy conveyor by pulling on its reigns while it is in the process of leaping over a canyon. The greenhorn cavemen fall into water at the canyon's bottom. Lost in an expanse of nothingness walk Fred and Barney, until they come upon a deserted Western town. Weary from their foot- numbing lack of progress in rejoining their wives at Tumbleweed Ranch, Fred and Barney nap on cots in the town's Last Chance Saloon's storeroom.

A Hollyrock production crew, having rented the town for a rapid, three-hour episodic television "shoot", arrives at the saloon with its actors, none of whom wanting to wear black, villains' hats. During an enacted brawl in the saloon, Fred and Barney awaken and, not knowing about the television project and believing the fighters to be real cowboys, request from the rowdy performers the directions to Tumbleweed Ranch- and are hit with a vase and chair. The director of the television production pretends to be a sheriff and orders Fred and Barney to wear the black hats and, to avoid being lynched for trying to disrupt the pleasure of the rambunctious saloon patrons, to combat the angry cowboys to free themselves from death-by-hanging.

While a camera films the action, Fred and Barney succeed in incapacitating every one of their opponents and flee the town, outside of which the director's phony Indians attack Fred and Barney and tie the Bedrock men to stakes. Exasperated with their husbands' absence for hours from the ranch, Wilma and Betty- in Fred's car- commence a search for Fred and Barney, encounter the "Indian" marauders, and relentlessly engage the startled "savages" in tomahawk-seizing and rock-throwing combat, before the camera of the delighted director, who never does tell the Flintstones and Rubbles that their antagonists are really actors in a ridiculous Western television series.

The wives release their spouses from the stakes and scold them for their frontier misadventures. Tumbleweed and Mary Lou Jim's return from their vacation cannot be soon enough for Wilma and Betty, and after the Flintstones and Rubbles depart the ranch to go home, the "Indians" besiege Tumbleweed and Mary Lou Jim with arrows and war chants.

Characters

• Fred Flintstone
• Wilma Flintstone
• Barney Rubble
• Betty Rubble
• Tumbleweed (only appearance)
• Mary Lou Jim (only appearance)
• Pokey (only appearance)
• Chester (only appearance)
• Chuck (only appearance)
• Pebble (only appearance)
• Indians (only appearance)
• Director (only appearance)

Locations

• Bedrock
  • Flintstone home
  • Rockadero
• Grand Canyon (only appearance)
• Nice-Clean Gas Station (only appearance)
• Tumbleweed Ranch (only appearance)

• • Last Chance Saloon (only appearance)

Objects

• Tomahawks (only appearance)
• Movie camera
• Frying pan
• Road map (only appearance)
• Brontosaurus ribs

Animals

• Brontosaurus (as Brontosaurus Ribs)
• Broncosaurus
• Mammoths (as gas pumps)

Vehicles

• Tumbleweed's limo (only appearance)
• Flintmobile
• T.V. Productions' car (only appearance)
• Director's car (only appearance)

Cast

Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone
Daws Butler	Barney Rubble
Hal Smith	Tumbleweed Hardrock Manager Attendant Bronk Chester
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble Mary Lou Jim Hardrock
John Stephenson	Driver Maitre d' Guy Chuck Indian

Notes/Trivia

• The title refers to a Western character named "Droop Along" who was used later by Hanna-Barbera in the Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-Long cartoon segments on The Magilla Gorilla Show.
• After several complaints and controversies from the Native community, this episode was banned in parts of Canada.
• The music in this episode is unusual and is not heard again throughout the series.

Errors

• None known.

Template:Season 2 (The Flintstones (1960))