The Dress Rehearsal

The Dress Rehearsal
Details
Show	The Flintstones
Season	3
Episode number	83
Production number	P-84
Original airdate	February 22, 1963 (ABC)
Recording Date	September 20, 1962
Crew
Animated by	Dick Lundy Al Wilzbach Chuck Harriton
Layout	Dick Bickenbach Lance Nolley Dan Noonan
Background	Neenah Maxwell
Written by	Harvey Bullock R.S. Allen
Chronology
Previous	"Fred's New Job"
Next	"Carry On, Nurse Fred"

"The Dress Rehearsal" (a.k.a. "The Blessed Event") is the twenty-third episode of the third season and the eighty-third overall episode of the original series, The Flintstones. It aired on February 22, 1963.

Synopsis

After Fred is told that Wilma will give birth any day, Betty suggests a practice dash to the hospital, but it soon turns into the real thing.

Plot

Fred and Barney are exercising at Brick Boulder's Gymnasium, whose owner is secretly an anemic weakling beneath a muscle suit inflated by mastodon's breath, when Fred strains a tendon and requests a bottle of soothing alcohol lineament from Boulder. Fred then meets Wilma at the office of Dr. Rockpile- baby doctor, to bring her home after her routine examination by the doctor, but is told by Rockpile that a blood sample is required from the proud father of the soon-to-be-born "chip off the old Flintstone". Fred is terrified of syringe needles and hides under a canvas.

So, Rockpile's no-nonsense nurse extracts the blood from what she thinks is Fred's buttocks but what is really the bottle of lineament in Fred's rear pocket. Fred is pleased that the removal of his "blood" was painless, but after he departs Rockpile's office, Rockpile and the nurse discover Fred's "blood" to be strangely colored and scented! Wilma is due to begin feeling the pains of labor, and Fred is so nervous that transport of Wilma to hospital when the exact time comes to do so will be a fiasco that despite an admirable "dress rehearsal" of this procedure (with Barney substituting for Wilma), Fred's worry becomes self-fulfilling prophecy when Wilma announces for real that she is ready to go to hospital.

Fred and Barney both panic and pull Wilma's sealed suitcase open, Fred confuses his words when he telephones the doctor to say that he will be rushing Wilma to the Bedrock Hospital maternity ward, and Flintstone and Rubble scramble to carry Wilma to Fred's car with neither succeeding in installing her therein. Dino is confused under the sheet of Wilma's bed for Wilma by flustered Fred, who does not look inside of the bed sheet to swiftly determine that its occupant is not Wilma. Fred has at high speed chauffeured his pet dinosaur part of the way to the hospital before he is ordered to stop his car by a motorcycle policeman and the confounded constable gazes at the uncomely content of the bed sheet, flabbergasted by Fred's claim that the "dog" is Fred's pregnant wife.

When Fred at last discovers that his passenger is Dino, he does a 180 degree turn toward cave Flintstone. Back at the "home front", Wilma has become impatient and arisen from bed to calmly search for frantic Fred, and Barney, still at the Flintstones' harried abode, is met by Wilma in the den and offers to drive Wilma in his car to the hospital. Barney arrives there with Wilma in advance of Fred, and there is confusion by a desk nurse about whether Wilma is Mrs. Flintstone or Mrs. Rubble. In any case, she is wheel chaired into the maternity ward, where she gives birth to a beautiful red-haired girl, and Fred is delighted when shown his daughter by a nurse. The Flintstone baby is named Pebbles by the proud parents and godfather Barney.

Characters

• Fred Flintstone
• Wilma Flintstone
• Barney Rubble
• Betty Rubble
• Dino
• Baby Puss
• Pebbles Flintstone (first appearance)
• Brick Boulder (only appearance)
• Dr. Rockpile (only appearance)
• Len (only appearance)
• Mr. Brickley (only appearance)
• Mrs. Brickley (only mentioned)
• Orderly (only appearance, no lines)

Locations

Bedrock

• Flintstone home
• Brick Boulder's Health Club (only appearance)
• Bedrock Rockopedic Hospital (last appearance)
• Hotel Brickhouse (only appearance)

Objects

• Syringe needle (only appearance)
• Rock Bell Phone

Timepieces

• Alarm Clock
• Cuckoo Clock
• Fred's Sundial Watch

Animals

• Snorkasaurus
• Saber-Toothed Cat
• Mammoth
• Armadillosaurus
• Crocosaurus
• Storkasaurus (as a punching bag)
• Porcupineasaurus
• Parrotsaurus (as an intercom)
• Stegosaurus (as a lawnmower)
• Saber-Toothed Cat
• Cuckoodactyl
• Shrimp (as food)
• Sardines (as food)
• Oystersauruses (as food)
• Lobstersaurus (as food)
• Turtlesaurus

Vehicles

• Flintmobile
• Loggin Continental

Cast

Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone Pebbles Flintstone Nurse #3
Mel Blanc	Barney Rubble Dino Len Parrot
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble
Howard Morris	Dr. Rockpile Brick Boulder Bird
Don Messick	Dog Windy Porcupine Baby Puss Cop Mr. Brickley
June Foray	Nurse #1 Nurse #2

Notes/Trivia

• This is the last of the four episodes in the Birth of Pebbles story arc. The other three episodes featured in the arc were, "Mother-in-Law's Visit", "Foxy Grandma", and "Fred's New Job".
• Wilma's voice actress, Jean Vander Pyl was pregnant at the time of recording and gave birth to her son on the day this episode originally aired.
• This episode appears to have two names, “The Dress Rehearsal” and “The Blessed Event”.
• In a rare appearance by Baby Puss, he and Dino are fighting.
• The gym owner is named Brick Boulder.
• The two doctors that Fred meets in the hospital corridor are caricatures of Vince Edwards and Sam Jaffe, who co-starred in ABC's highly-rated medical drama of that era, Ben Casey. As Fred wonders where he's seen them before, a sign on a nearby stone wall flashes, "On The Air"...
  • Different caricatures of them would later go on to appear in "Monster Fred".
• Wilma's OB/GYN is Dr. Rockpile and Pebbles is born at Bedrock Hospital.
• The scene where Barney was dressed like a woman with a bandanna would later be reused in the 1993 television film, Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby.
• This is the first episode where Wilma and Fred share a double bed instead of two single beds.
• Originally, Fred and Wilma were going to have a son named Fred, Jr., but it was later decided their baby should be a girl as it could be a bigger target for merchandise.

Allusions

• The scene where Fred, Barney, and Betty rehearse getting Wilma to the hospital (with Barney playing Wilma) and calling the doctor when Pebbles is born, is exactly the same as the I Love Lucy episode where Ricky, Fred, and Ethel rehearse getting Lucy to the hospital when Little Ricky is born.
• The first opening scene, when Fred and Barney are in the gym, all the characters actions with the equipment is very similar to the opening scene in the Tom and Jerry episode: Muscle Beach Tom (1956).

Errors

• When Fred and Barney came in to see Wilma at the hospital, Wilma's top was pink. When she was holding Pebbles, Wilma's top was white.
• When Wilma exits the bedroom to look for Fred, the bed has a blue blanket on top. In the next shot when Fred is going into the room, the blanket is gone and there's a white bed sheet on top. Then when Fred is in the bedroom, the blanket is back on the bed.
• Pebbles, a newborn baby who is presumably only a couple of hours old at the most, is able to say "Yabba-Dabba-Doo" when it takes babies at least a year or two to say any words.
• She also has a full head of hair instead of fuzz.
• Also for a pregnant woman about to give birth, Wilma doesn’t show a hint of pain throughout the entire episode.
• The hospital Pebbles is born in must be very accommodating. Not only do they dress Pebbles, as commented by Wilma, but they also fix Pebbles' hair, complete with a bone in it.
• In the book, The Flintstones: A Modern Stone Age Phenomenon, the recording date was mistaken for September 20, 1960, instead of September 20, 1962.