Old Lady Betty

Old Lady Betty
Details
Show	The Flintstones
Season	4
Episode number	97
Production number	P-96
Original airdate	November 14, 1963 (ABC)
Recording Date	May 6, 1963
Crew
Animated by	Carlo Vinci Don Patterson Hugh Fraser
Layout	Dick Bickenbach Walt Clinton Jack Huber
Background	Robert Gentle
Written by	Walter Black (teleplay)
Chronology
Previous	"Big League Freddie"
Next	"Sleep On, Sweet Fred"

"Old Lady Betty" is the ninth episode of the fourth season and the ninety-seventh overall episode of the original series, The Flintstones. It aired on November 14, 1963.

Synopsis

Betty gets a little job to buy Barney a gift, and her work is simple and puzzling: use big bills to make small purchases.

Plot

Betty wishes to earn some money to fund a rocking chair for Barney, and because she wants to surprise her beloved caveman with this present, she intends that her part-time job be in the daytime while Barney is at work, so that she can do her paid travails without Barney's- or Fred's- knowledge. A classified advertisement in the Bedrock journal requests a kindly, elderly lady, no experience necessary, for daytime duties, and Wilma assists Betty in the transformation of Mrs. Rubble to Mrs. Ol' Lady, with application of Wilma's never-before-used Halloween costume's grey wig, some spectacles, and a violet shall, and Betty's convincing rendition of a sexagenarian's voice.

Betty reports for an interview at the house of Greta Gravel, a seemingly wheelchair-bound woman of age approximating that being faked by Betty and eyes concealed by opaque eyeglasses. Gravel's alleged butler is a ruffian, name of Stony Mahoney. Because apparent invalid Gravel requires her "butler" to be with her at all times, "old lady Betty" is needed for unusual shopping errands, Gravel allocating 100 dollar bills for Betty to expend on whole rock bread, toothpaste, and letter postage- on 3 separate downtown excursions, and return the approximately $280 of "change".

Betty and Wilma are both bewildered by Gravel's strange spending habit, but neither suspects the truth, that Gravel is really a voluptuous, red-haired, counterfeit money-producer, that Mahoney is Gravel's accomplice, and that Betty is being used by them to pass 100- and then 500 and 1,000- phony dollars to Bedrock businesses by means of trifling purchases and return the substantial difference, in proper money, to their greedy clutches.

Before long, though, police are issuing bulletins to television and radio stations about the elderly lady suspect in the distribution of bogus currency, and Wilma and Betty both see the news story on television to this effect. Thus, the two women reveal Betty's employment, in the nefarious Greta Gravel scheme, to their spouses. With Betty still acting as Gravel's unwitting stooge, the Flintstones and Rubbles obtain further "illegal tender" to submit to the police in order to prove that they know the location of the counterfeiters.

However, because Gravel wanted to, "...throw the cops off (her) trail," she gave genuine currency to Betty on this occasion, and the desk Sergeant at the Bedrock Police Station dismisses the Flintstones and Rubbles' claim of knowledge of the fake-money printers' whereabouts. Fred steals a policeman's "motor"-bicycle to lead the police to the house of the criminals, where Gravel and Mahoney are in the process of gathering their "funny money" prior to their planned escape from Bedrock. The devious pair are caught and jailed by Bedrock law enforcement, which does not penalize Fred for police "motor"-bicycle theft but allows Betty to attain the rocking chair with bona fide twenty dollars provided to her by Gravel.

Characters

• Fred Flintstone
• Wilma Flintstone
• Barney Rubble
• Betty Rubble
• Pebbles Flintstone
• Dino
• Greta Gravel (only appearance)
• Stoney Mahoney (only appearance)
• News reporter (only appearance)
• Jean McBricker (mentioned)

Locations

Bedrock

• Flintstone home
• Greta Gravel's house (only appearance)
• Bedrock Police Station
• Rollerrock Derby (mentioned in a want-ad news-slab)

Objects

• TV's
• Counterfeit bills (only appearance)
• White wig (only appearance)
• Shawl (only appearance)
• Eyeglasses (only appearance)
• Umbrella (only appearance)

Animals

• Snorkasaurus
• Birds (as clothes hangers)
• Turtlesauruses
• Mammoth (as a stamper and a bird bath)
• Pterodactyl (as a food chopper)

Vehicles

• Flintmobile
• Loggin Continental

Media

• Bedrock News (news broadcast)

Cast

Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone Pebbles Flintstone Greta Gravel
Mel Blanc	Barney Rubble Dino Bird Bath Bird Turtle
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble
Allan Melvin	Stoney Mahoney Sergeant Elephant
Doug Young	Chopping Bird News Reporter Cop

Notes/Trivia

• This is the only episode in which Betty is put into the spotlight.
• Greta Gravel is a spoof of Hollywood actress, Greta Garbo.
• Barney mentions Dr. Boulder Dome from the episode, "Fred's Monkeyshines".
• When Betty knocks on the door, the owner sticks his head out the window. This references the emerald city scene from the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Errors

• When Betty is telling Wilma about the job she's doing for the old lady, there's a shot when she chuckles and takes off her wig. In the next shot, the wig is back on her head.