Fred Flintstone

Fred Flintstone
Information
Gender	Male
Hair color	Black
Age	41 (Season 1) 43 (Seasons 2-5) 44 (Season 6 and TV specials)
Occupation	Crane operator
Relatives	Jed Flintstone (great-grandfather) Zeke Flintstone (great-uncle) Rocky Flintstone (grandfather) Giggles Flintstone (uncle) Tex Hardrock (uncle) Hatrock (uncle) Tumbleweed (cousin) Mary Lou Jim Hardrock (cousin) Ed Flintstone (father) Edna Flintstone (maid name Hardrock) (mother) Wilma Flintstone (wife) Ricky Slaghoople (father-in-law) Pearl Slaghoople (mother-in-law) Mica Slaghoople (sister-in-law) Mickey Slaghoople (sister-in-law) Jerry Slaghoople (brother-in-law) Pebbles Flintstone (daughter) Stoney Flintstone (adoptive son) Bamm-Bamm Rubble (son-in-law) Roxy Rubble (granddaughter) Chip Rubble (grandson)
Pets	Dino (snorkasaurus) Baby Puss (saber-toothed cat) Shmoo (briefly)
Production Details
First appearance	The Flagstones (Pilot)
Voiced by	See below

Frederick Joseph "Fred" Flintstone, once known as Fred W. Flintstone, is a fictional character of the original series, The Flintstones and the rest of the franchise.

Background

Fred is the handsome husband of Wilma, father of Pebbles and best friend of Barney Rubble, who lives in Bedrock, at 345 Cave Stone Road (in some episodes, 1313 Cobblestone Way or 222 Rocky Way).

Fred Flintstone's most famous and iconic catchphrase is "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!", which is also heard at the beginning of the theme song, "Meet the Flintstones" and the film plus the rest of the franchise.

Personality

File:The-flintstones-in-viva-rock-vegas-6.jpg

Fred and Barney in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.

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, offensive, and constantly scheming ways to improve his family's working class lot in life, often with unintended results. Archie Bunker of All in the Family & Archie Bunker's Place and George Jefferson of The Jeffersons also have similar personalities based on Fred Flintstone.

Due to his impulsive, aggressive, immature, childish and ill-tempered behavior and obstinate and naive nature, Fred Flintstone seems to be accident-prone. He is able to create the biggest confusion, even with the most innocent and mundane action.

Fred is mainly a kind and generous man, although he gets mad and angry quite a lot, usually when his immature friend Barney pesters and teases Fred, or even laughs at him by going. Other than that, Fred can have other emotions too. His laugh is "Ho, heh, he, he, he, he". He starts crying in some episodes, like "The Babysitters", when Barney tears up the tickets, in "Dino Disappears", when Dino runs away, and "The House That Fred Built", when Fred discovers that 1,000 bucks down the drain wasn't funny anymore.

Positive Qualities

Despite his apparently anti-social character, Fred's actions are shown to be usually free of any malice. And, although he almost constantly screams and irritates the people around him, Fred proves to be a friendly person; often going out of his way to help someone.

Although Fred often bugs Wilma with his immaturity, he proves to be a very caring and loving husband and father. Flintstone is even known to go to great lengths to please his family or owe somebody an apology when he goes too far.

Fred is also devoted to his daughter and cares for her more than Wilma herself. He is fatherly and can be overprotective with her at times though.

Physical Appearance

Fred is a stout but handsome caveman with fair skin, black hair, thick black eyebrows and a large nose. He wears a raggedy, deep sky blue necktie and a sleeveless, orange and black-spotted loin cloth with a torn hemline.

Occupations and Interests

Fred is a typical blue-collar worker, who works as a "bronto-crane operator" at Slate Rock and Gravel Company (a.k.a. Rockhead and Quarry Cave Construction Company in the earliest episodes). However, when their children became teenagers, Fred and Barney joined the Bedrock police force, but when they went into adulthood and moved away, Fred went back to working for Mr. Slate alongside Barney.

Water Buffaloes

Fred, like Barney, was also a member of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos Lodge (named "the Loyal Order of Dinosaurs" in an early episode), and both Fred and Barney were rather popular with the other members and even had some degree of influence over the Lodge's events, with Fred briefly even becoming Grand Poobah on one occasion.

Bowling and other sports

Fred's interests include bowling, playing pool, poker, lounging around the house, playing golf, and both Fred and Barney even coached several baseball teams as well. At the first two of these sports, Fred is very skilled, as seen in "Mother-in-Law's Visit", where he plays against Wilma's unsuspecting mother and beats her effortlessly despite her claims of being the best bowler in Arkanstone. Fred has won championships with his incredible bowling skills. In fact the only person Fred could never fairly best in bowling was Blowhard Sandstone, an obnoxiously boastful man who had never lost a game in his life and who seemed to have some sort of bad luck "hex" over Fred, as whenever Fred challenged him to a game something bad would usually follow, such as Fred tripping, falling on his back or his ball falling to the way side, all in an unusually uncharacteristic streak of poor performance that was highly unusual for a bowler of Fred's impressive skills. Although Fred's failures against Blowhard may have only been due to the latter using his demeaning and insulting banter to lower Fred's self-esteem and focus. The streak of bad luck against Blowhard finally ended in "Barney the Invisible", when Fred used an invisible Barney to help him cheat, thus crushing Blowhard's arrogance and pride. Despite this crooked victory, Fred was still the best bowler in town and would go on to win championships on his own skill and merit.

In "Bowling Ballet", he goes so far as to take ballet lessons in order to improve his game which led to his nickname "Twinkletoes". The nickname of "Twinkletoes" stuck with him when Fred attended a local college and became eligible to play on their football team, and it became his call sign.

Fred is also an excellent golfer and occasionally goes to the golf course with Barney to show off his skills. Both also own their own sets of golf clubs which they happily show off. In "The Golf Champion", he wins the championship only to have Barney repossess the winning trophy cup because Fred is behind in his dues.

Gambling

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. Unlike his other skills, Fred is not a particularly good gambler and whenever he goes on a gambling streak, he always gets a losing streak and bets off more than he can offer.

Inventing

Fred inventing a new soft drink in his garage turned laboratory.

In "Barney the Invisible", Fred is revealed to have started developing an interest in inventing, going so far as to convert his garage into a pseudo-laboratory full of tools, mechanical parts, bottled chemicals, tubes, beakers and cauldrons. Fred claimed he was inspired into this pursuit after reading about brilliant inventors like Thomas Edistone (the inventor of the candle) and Albert Einstone, but its clear that his primary motivation is his desire to invent a new soft drink, miracle formula or revolutionary machine that will make him rich overnight, with Wilma outright revealing to Betty that Fred only started pursuing chemistry simply to create a new kind of soft drink to outmatch Cactus Cola and make a fortune. His streak as a wannabe "mad scientist" would continue for the rest of the show's run and in the majority of subsequent sequel media, like The Flintstone Comedy Hour, The New Fred and Barney Show, The Flintstone Comedy Show and the many comics. By the time of "Barney the Invisible" Fred claims that he had already made 411 attempts at creating a new soft drink, showing that he had been pursuing this goal for quite a while, and by the time of "Glue for Two", Wilma indicates that Fred had invented 778 failed soft drink formulas. Fred tends to name each new soft drink based on the numerical order of their creation, such as naming his 411th failed soda "411up" but he named his 778th soda "777up" (which were obvious spoofs of the 7up brand of soda).

Inventions

Despite not being the most intellectually inclined caveman around, Fred has proven to be at least somewhat competent at inventing, creating all manner of "soft drinks" with unpredictable effects as well as other things (although even his most successful inventions always tend to backfire):

• "The Fred Flintstone Hiccup Cure", Fred's first invention which is just a paper bag (first appeared in "Barney the Invisible").
• "The Hair Grower", hair growth formula that only grew hair on dodo bird eggs (first mentioned in "Barney the Invisible").
• "411up", a horrible soft drink which causes spasms (first appeared in "Barney the Invisible").
• "412up", a horrible soft drink that was intended to cure hiccups but instead caused invisibility (first appeared in "Barney the Invisible").
• "777up", a horrible soft drink which Fred accidentally turned into a glue after pouring glue into it (first appeared in "Glue for Two").
• "Fred-O-Cal", a weight reducing formula that only worked as a temporary shrinking potion (first appeared in "Itty Bitty Fred").
• "The Flintstone Rockuzzi", essentially solar power and wind-power harnessed for the creation of a solar-powered hot tub, and is probably Fred's most successful invention and created during Pebbles' teen years. It was a small building with a hot tub that on its roof had a windmill that was used to pump water from the ground which was then collected into a trough that was then boiled by a "solar energy lens" that collected and amplified the sun's rays and the water was then poured into the hot tub. The invention and its discovery of wind and solar power proved so revolutionary for the Stone Age that Fred even appeared in the news and dubbed his creation as the ultimate way to "Lick the Energy Crisis", and he was to have a major public event in his honor to reveal it. However a windstorm botched his invention, causing it to go out of control and flood part of Bedrock, resulting in his most successful invention becoming another dud that put him in debt (first appeared in "Fred vs. the Energy Crisis").
• "Invisibility Spray", a more effective version of 412up that doesn't need to be consumed and only sprayed on to turn invisible (first appeared in "Invisible Mouse").

Relationships

Family

Young Fred with his own parents, Ed and Edna Flintstone.

According to The Flintstone Kids (which is non-canon as the show is more 80s-centric and features all the characters knowing each other as kids, but still features the accurate names of the parents of characters such as Wilma's), he is shown to be the son of Ed and Edna Flintstone. In the special, The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special, it is shown that he has a cool cousin from Hollyrock who has a band of his own and not only doesn't use drugs, he is in a "Just Say No" club, eventually inspiring Wilma to start one of her own.

The Flintstone family came from "Arkanstone" where they had been engaged in a feud with the "Hatrock" family which had been caused by an ancestor of Fred's making a wisecrack of a Hatrock family portrait ("I don't know what the artist got for doing that painting but he should have gotten life"). In "The Bedrock Hillbillies", the feud is ended when Fred helps rescue a Hatrock baby (and Pebbles) from going over a waterfall only to start up again when Fred makes the very same wisecrack.

In "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes", when the "Hatrock" family visited the Flintstone family and being friends, until when Bug Music was played and the Hatrocks couldn't stand the Bug Music. The last of the Arkanstone Flintstones was Fred's great-uncle Zeke Flintstone. Other Flintstone relatives were Giggles Flintstone - a rich eccentric practical joker who drove Fred into a mad rage with his jokes; an "Uncle Tex" and his sister "Aunt Jamima".

Love Interests

Fred mainly has been shown to be faithful to his wife, Wilma, but this has not stopped him from pursuing other women. Examples of this include Sharon Stone, his gorgeous secretary in the 1994 film, The Flintstones, who often seduced him in order to distract him while she and his villainous boss, Cliff, framed him for embezzlement. Fred very clearly enjoyed being seduced by the beautiful woman, and was even caught in the middle of a very "intimate" moment with her by his furious wife.

Other examples include Maggie, Fred's beautiful co-star in Bedrock's production of A Christmas Carol in A Flintstones Christmas Carol. The two often enjoyed rehearsing their love scene together, which included a passionate kiss. As well as the "Mystery Woman" from The Flintstones: On the Rocks, who was staying at the same resort as Fred and Wilma while the couple was on their second honeymoon, but Fred spent most of his time fantasizing about her.

Appearances

Television shows

• The Flagstones (1959)
• The Flintstones (1960–1966)
• The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971–1972)
• The Flintstone Comedy Hour (1972–1974)
• Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (1977–1978)
• Fred Flintstone and Friends (1977–1978)
• The New Fred and Barney Show (1979)
• Fred and Barney Meet the Thing (1979)
• Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo (1979–1980)
• The Flintstone Comedy Show (known as The Flintstone Frolics) (1980–1982)
• The Flintstone Funnies (1982–1984)
• The Flintstone Kids (1986–1988)
• What a Cartoon! – Dino: Stay Out! (1995)
• Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs (2020)

Films and specials

• Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1966)
• The Man Called Flintstone (1966)
• The Flintstones on Ice (1973)
• Energy: A National Issue (1977)
• A Flintstone Christmas (1977)
• Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue (1978)
• The Flintstones: Little Big League (1978)
• Hanna-Barbera Educational Filmstrips (1980) – A Weighty Problem, Fire Alarm, Fire Escape and Driving Guide
• The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone (1980)
• The Flintstone Primetime Specials
  • The Flintstones' New Neighbors (1980)
  • The Flintstones: Fred's Final Fling (1980)
  • The Flintstones: Wind-Up Wilma (1981)
  • The Flintstones: Jogging Fever (1981)
• The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration (1986)
• The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones (1987)
• The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special (1988)
• The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (1990)
• I Yabba-Dabba Do! (1993)
• Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby (1993)
• A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)
• The Flintstones (1994)
• A Flintstones Christmas Carol (1994)
• The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)
• The Flintstones: On the Rocks (2001)
• The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age SmackDown! (2015)

Video games

• The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy
• The Flintstones
• The Flintstones: The Surprise at Dinosaur Peak
• The Flintstones: The Treasure of Sierra Madrock
• The Flintstones: Bedrock Bowling
• The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
• The Flintstones: Big Trouble in Bedrock

Portrayals

Television shows, films and specials

• Daws Butler - The Flagstones (1959)
• Alan Reed
  • The Flintstones (1960–1966)
  • The Man Called Flintstone (1966)
  • The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971–1972)
  • The Flintstone Comedy Hour (1972–1974)
  • Energy: A National Issue (1977)
• Henry Corden
  • The Man Called Flintstone (1966, singing voice)
  • A Flintstone Christmas (1977)
  • Fred Flintstone and Friends (1977–1978)
  • The Flintstones: Little Big League (1978)
  • The New Fred and Barney Show (1979)
  • Fred and Barney Meet the Thing (1979)
  • Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo (1979–1980)
  • The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone (1980)
  • The Flintstone Comedy Show (known as The Flintstone Frolics) (1980–1982)
  • The Flintstone Primetime Specials
    • The Flintstones' New Neighbors (1980)
    • The Flintstones: Fred's Final Fling (1980)
    • The Flintstones: Wind-Up Wilma (1981)
    • The Flintstones: Jogging Fever (1981)
  • The Flintstone Funnies (1982–1984)
  • The Flintstone Kids (1986–1988)
  • The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration (1986)
  • The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones (1987)
  • The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (1990)
  • I Yabba-Dabba Do! (1993)
  • Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby (1993)
  • A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)
  • A Flintstones Christmas Carol (1994)
  • What a Cartoon! – Dino: Stay Out! (1995)
  • The Weird Al Show - "Talent Show" (1997)
  • The Flintstones: Bedrock Bowling (2000)
• Jeff Bergman
  • The Flintstones: On the Rocks (2001)
  • The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age SmackDown! (2015)
  • Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs (2020)

Other

• John Goodman - The Flintstones (1994)
• Mark Addy - The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)
• James Arnold Taylor - Pebbles Cereal commercials

See also

• Flintstones Chewable Vitamins
• Pebbles Cereal