The Flintstone Comedy Hour

The Flintstone Comedy Hour
Genre	Animation
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Voices of	Alan Reed Mel Blanc Jean Vander Pyl Gay Hartwig Jay North Mickey Stevens
Composer(s)	Hoyt Curtin
Country	United States
Language(s)	English
Number of episodes	18
Production
Executive Producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Camera setup	Dick Blundell Tom Barnes Ralph Migliori Roy Wade George Epperson
Running time	60 minutes (1972–73) 30 minutes (1973–74)
Distributor	Screen Gems
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	September 9, 1972 – January 26, 1974
Chronology
Preceded by	The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show
Followed by	Fred Flintstone and Friends

The Flintstone Comedy Hour is a 60-minute Saturday morning animated series and spin-offs of the original series, The Flintstones and The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired on CBS from September 9, 1972, to September 1, 1973, and re-titled The Flintstone Comedy Show for a second season of reruns as a half-hour show from September 8, 1973, to January 26, 1974.

Overview

The show's first half-hour featured two shorts with Fred and Barney, one short with the cast of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, short jokes and two songs performed by the new Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm band called The Bedrock Rockers; the second half-hour featured four new episodes and reruns of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show. The show also featured Moonrock, Penny, Wiggy, Schleprock, Cindy and Fabian, and the Bronto Bunch (Bronto, Noodles, Stub and Zonk) from The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show.

Mickey Stevens replaced Sally Struthers as the voice of Pebbles in four new episodes of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and in brief in-between segments, Struthers at the time being fully committed to her role as Gloria Stivic on the sitcom All in the Family. This was the final spin-off to feature Alan Reed as the voice of Fred Flintstone before his death in 1977.

For the 1973–74 television season, CBS dropped The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show episodes and repackaged the first half-hour segments of The Flintstone Comedy Hour for a second season of reruns under the new title The Flintstone Comedy Show from September 8, 1973, to January 26, 1974. The "Fred & Barney" shorts and "The Bedrock Rockers" segments were later featured on the syndicated weekday series Fred Flintstone and Friends in 1977–78. The program continued to air in rebroadcasts under The Flintstone Comedy Show title on USA Cartoon Express, Cartoon Network and Boomerang.

Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the show contained a laugh track created by the studio.

Voices

• Alan Reed – Fred Flintstone
• Mel Blanc – Barney Rubble, Dino, Zonk, Stub
• Carl Esser – Fabian Fabquartz
• Gay Hartwig – Betty Rubble, Wiggy Rockstone, Cindy Curbstone
• Don Messick – Schleprock
• Mitzi McCall – Penny Pillar
• Jay North – Bamm-Bamm Rubble
• John Stephenson – Mr. Slate, Noodles
• Mickey Stevens – Pebbles Flintstone
• Jean Vander Pyl – Wilma Flintstone
• Lennie Weinrib – Moonrock Crater, Bronto

Episodes

Main article: The Flintstone Comedy Hour episode list

Home media

The four Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm episodes ("Squawkie Talkies", "The Suitor Computer", "Beauty and the Beast" and "Bedlam in Bedrock") were released as bonus episodes on the 2-disc DVD set The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show: The Complete Series by Warner Home Video (via Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Family Entertainment) on March 18, 2008. Note that these were simply the shows, they did not feature the musical selections of The Bedrock Rockers, which they had not been released in any commercial form, due to music licensing issues.

Notes/Trivia

• These four episodes of the show ("Squawkie Talkies", "The Suitor Computer", "Beauty and the Beast" and "Bedlam in Bedrock") are currently streaming on Boomerang.