Fred's Monkeyshines

Fred's Monkeyshines
Details
Show	The Flintstones
Season	4
Episode number	93
Production number	P-91
Original airdate	October 17, 1963 (ABC)
Recording Date	April 3, 1963
Crew
Animated by	Hugh Fraser Carlo Vinci
Layout	Dick Bickenbach Jack Huber
Background	Art Lozzi
Written by	Joanna Lee
Chronology
Previous	"Dino Disappears"
Next	"The Flintstone Canaries"

"Fred's Monkeyshines" is the fifth episode of the fourth season and the ninety-third overall episode of the original series, The Flintstones. It aired on October 17, 1963.

Synopsis

Fred picks up the wrong pair of new glasses, leaving him nearly blind, accidentally taking a nearby monkey, instead of his daughter Pebbles, to the circus.

Plot

Fred is a prehistoric Mr. Magoo, while breakfasting passing pepper to Wilma in lieu of the requested salt, colliding with doors, and kissing and giving flowers to Dino while inserting a bone into Wilma's mouth. No doubt about it. Fred needs to consult an eye doctor. Dr. Boulder Dome tests Fred's vision and diagnoses an astigmatism, with temporary corrective eyeglasses as the cure. While cleaning the eyeglasses that he has prescribed for Fred, Dr. Dome receives a telephone call from Mrs. Dome and places his own eyeglasses on a table next to those intended for Fred as he chats with the Mrs..

Anticipating a long conversation with his spouse, Dome dismisses his patient, and Fred inadvertently selects the wrong pair of lenses from the table. Without knowing that Dome's eyeglasses are aggravating his faulty sight, Fred drives his car atop and over a huge dinosaur and through a tree trunk, only acknowledging a bumpy "road". He intends to enjoy with Pebbles the events at a circus, but one of Rocco's Marvelous Monkeys, a small ape named Chipsie, has escaped captivity at the circus, meandered into Bedrock, and leaped into a blanket on the front seat of Fred's car parked on the road outside of cave Flintstone.

Fred, having arrived at home to refresh himself before chaperoning his baby daughter to the circus and having asked that Wilma ready Pebbles for the circus excursion, finds the blanketed monkey in the car and assumes it to be Pebbles. Naturally, his deficient vision does not permit him to distinguish Chipsie from Pebbles, who is still at home. Dr. Dome telephones Wilma to report the eyeglasses mix-up, and Wilma, with Pebbles and the Rubbles, follows Fred to the circus.

There, Fred is offended when other patrons are repulsed by the physiognomy and peanut-snatching manners of "Pebbles", confuses a gorilla with an elderly lady and a live baby alligator in an alligator pen for the "lady's" handbag, and chases "Pebbles" onto the circus stage when Chipsie jumps out of Fred's arms to join his fellow simian performers. Fred catapults himself into the trapeze and high wire acts and, believing a unicycle on the high wire to be a boy's bicycle, rides it with unwitting success on the wire while he chases the errant "Pebbles".

Wilma arrives at the circus with her infant and best friends and shouts to Fred that Pebbles is really with her. Barney continues the unfogging revelation by yelling that Fred has the wrong pair of lenses. After Fred removes them, he sees Pebbles safely in Wilma's care and the circus ring dozens of feet below him. He is afraid of height and begins to fall from the wire, but Chipsie grabs and prevents "clown" Flintstone from falling to his doom. Fred survives his harrowing experience and is an unexpected success as a circus entertainer.

Characters

• Fred Flintstone
• Wilma Flintstone
• Barney Rubble
• Betty Rubble
• Pebbles Flintstone
• Dino
• Chipsie (only appearance)
• Henry (only appearance)
• Dr. Boulder Dome (only appearance)
• Mrs. Dome (only mentioned on the phone)
• Manager (only appearance)
• Rocco (only appearance)

Locations

Bedrock

• Flintstone home
• Dr. Boulder Dome's Office (only appearance)
• Rollerrock Derby (mentioned in a want-ad news-slab)
• Cave Cone's Ice Cream Stand (only appearance)

Objects

• Salt and pepper shakers
• Pillow
• Flowers
• Rock Bell Phone

Food

• Bronto-Bone
• Sandwiches
• Pterodactyl Egg Omelets
• Ice cream cones (only appearance)

Animals

• Snorkasaurus
• Gatorsauruses
• Monkeysaurus
• Gorillasaurus
• Pterodactyl (on top of a police car)
• Mammoth
• Brontosaurus (as a Bronto-Bone and a Bronto-Bridge)
• Turtlesaurus
• Beaversaurus
• Stegosaurus (as a Stego-Mover)

Vehicles

• Flintmobile

Cast

Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone Pebbles Flintstone Lady
Mel Blanc	Barney Rubble Dino Turtlesaurus Chipsie Gorillasaurus
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble
Don Messick	Dr. Boulder Dome Bird Elephant Man Kid Manager
Doug Young	Rocco Father Cop Henry Barker

Notes/Trivia

• Fred mentions Little Lord Fauntlerock, which is a spoof of Little Lord Fauntleroy, a character in a novel of the same.
• The Flintstones live at 222 Rock Way. The Rubbles are at 224 Rock Way.
• Fred is farsighted and he needs to wear the glasses for only two weeks, which is why they are never seen again.

Errors

• Barney says he lives at 224 Rocky Way, but it has already been established that his next door neighbor Fred lives at 301 Cobblestone Way.
• The sign on the building where Fred goes to have his eyes examined says "Optician". Optometrists examine eyes, not opticians.
• When Barney is driving Betty and Wilma to the circus, Barney's and Betty's hair are blowing in the breeze, but Wilma's isn't moving at all.