Groom Gloom

Groom Gloom
Details
Show	The Flintstones
Season	4
Episode number	90
Production number	P-90
Original airdate	September 26, 1963 (ABC)
Recording Date	March 22, 1963
Crew
Animated by	Edwin Aardal Jerry Hathcock
Layout	Dick Bickenbach Jerry Eisenberg Iwao Takamoto
Background	Fernando Montealegre (known as F. Montealegre)
Written by	Herbert Finn
Chronology
Previous	"Ann-Margrock Presents"
Next	"Little Bamm-Bamm"

"Groom Gloom" is the second episode of the fourth season and the ninetieth overall episode of the original series, The Flintstones. It aired on September 26, 1963.

Synopsis

Fred dreams that Arnold the delivery boy plans to marry Pebbles in the future and that he cannot stop the wedding.

Plot

Fred detests Arnold, the newspaper delivery boy. Not only is the lad smug and condescending to elder Fred; not only does he repeatedly hit Fred in the face with the stone-forged journal and sell it to him at full price in a chipped condition; not only does he defeat Fred at virtually every game, including table tennis, with Fred wagering and losing money; but also, he has attentions toward Pebbles, or so Fred perceives.

And when Arnold quips about someday marrying Pebbles, Fred retorts that it will be a cold day in Bedrock before such an event will happen. Fred promptly has a highly surreal nightmare about this precise scenario. On a bitterly cold, snowy day, fully grown Arnold and Leonard Bernstone music-loving Pebbles are scheduled for noontime marriage at "the Little Church".

An aged Fred struggles to prevent the nuptials, although Wilma is in favor of the ceremony- and Fred is ultimately powerless to stop his beloved daughter from wedding Satan's spawn, who, in addition to replacing Fred in every capacity from dinosaur lift operator to bowling and snooker champion and being elected as Grand Poohbah of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos, continues to deliver newspapers to his stalwart customers.

Pebbles throws her bouquet to her fretting father, and it transforms into one of Arnold's kamikaze journals, Fred's head incurring its impact. As Arnold and Pebbles depart for their honeymoon on the back of a flying mastodon, Fred, at the climax of frustration, awakens. He implores Pebbles never to "grow up" and vows never to allow Arnold to enamor her.

Characters

• Fred Flintstone
• Wilma Flintstone
• Barney Rubble
• Betty Rubble
• Pebbles Flintstone
• Arnold
• Mr. Slate
• Joe Rockhead
• Pearl Slaghoople (mentioned)
• Harold and his girlfriend (only appearance)

Locations

Bedrock

• Flintstone home
• Slate Rock and Boulder Company
• Pool Hall
• Bedrock Bowl
• Water Buffalo Lodge
• The Little Church (only appearance)
• The Big Church (only appearance)

Objects

• Table tennis (only appearance)
• Table tennis racquets (only appearance)
• Table tennis ball (only appearance)
• News-slab

Animals

• Snorkasaurus
• Storkasaurus (as a high chair)
• Duckasaurus
• Pill Bugasaurus
• Parrotsaurus
• Pterodactyl (as a record player)
• Mammoth
• Beeasauruses (mentioned)

Vehicles

• Loggin Continental
• Arnold's car (only appearance)

Cast

Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone Pebbles Flintstone
Mel Blanc	Barney Rubble Dino Bird Minister
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble
Don Messick	Arnold Duck Harold
John Stephenson	Mr. Slate Joe Rockhead Buffalo Little Church Minister
Janet Waldo	Teenage Pebbles Harold's girlfriend

Notes/Trivia

• In Fred's dream, Pebbles and Arnold have aged to perhaps her early twenties. But he, Wilma, Barney and Betty have aged at least forty years on the assumption they're in their thirties in 'reality'.
  • In Fred's dream, Slate Rock and Gravel Company is known this time as Slate Rock and Boulder Company.
• This is the only episode to feature Pebbles as a teenager. She was voiced by Janet Waldo, who later played the role of Judy Jetson in The Jetsons.
  • Eight years later, she appeared again in her teenage form in the spin-off, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show.
• Goldirocks and the Three Dinosaurs is the spoof of a fairy tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
• Water Buffalo Lodge was labeled as Water Buffalo Hall.
• Leonard Bernstone is a spoof of Leonard Bernstein.
• A duckasaurus horn, voiced by Don Messick sounded like the Rubbles' family pet Hopparoo, Hoppy who would later appear in the episode of the fifth season, "Hop Happy".

Errors

• Miraculously, in a few minutes between Fred's return home and Arnold's arrival, all the snow has disappeared.