The Hit Songwriters

The Hit Songwriters
Details
Show	The Flintstones
Season	2
Episode number	29
Production number	P-31
Original airdate	September 15, 1961 (ABC)
Recording Date	February 7, 1961
Crew
Animated by	George Nicholas Bill Keil
Written by	Jack Raymond
Chronology
Previous	"Fred Flintstone: Before and After"
Next	"Droop-Along Flintstone"

"The Hit Songwriters" is the first episode of the second season and the twenty-ninth overall episode of the original series, The Flintstones. It aired on September 15, 1961.

Synopsis

Fred & Barney write a song, which is performed by Hoagy Carmichael.

Plot

Barney's proficiency at poem-writing stirs ever-ambitious Fred to seek fame and fortune by writing songs, with Barney supplying lyrics. The pair go to a library to read Popular Songs People Prefer, and using the statistics therein, Fred and Barney brainstorm by night until they assemble incredibly banal lyrics incorporating motherhood, brotherhood, and love.

They then bring their masterwork to Scat Von Rocktoven, whom they hire to compose music for their lyrics, and, with "sheet" music in hand, next visit top music publisher Roland Rockwell, and Fred is confident that their composition will be a number one seller to the people of the Stone Age. Enter Hoagy Carmichael, debonair and famous songwriter, whom Fred and Barney do not immediately recognize. Fred's self-assurance impresses Carmichael, who urges the skeptical, impatient, and easily angered Rockwell to allow Fred to sing for them the lyrics to Fred and Barney's song, with Carmichael playing an accompanying piano.

However, upon glancing at the sheet music, Hoagy reacts in horror, noticing immediately that Scat Von Rocktoven, instead of composing original music to Fred and Barney's lyrics, merely set them to the music of "Stardust," which Hoagy naturally recognizes, as composer of that classic.

"Could it be love that makes me feel the way I do," croons Fred, with reference to mother and several ring-a-ding-a-lings. Rockwell, also recognizing the melody, orders Fred and Barney to exit from his office, and the flustered pair do as they are commanded, leaving behind their briefcase containing the words to a composition by Fred and Barney, "Yabba-Dabba-Dabba-Dabba-Doo".

Carmichael perceives immense potential in it, adapts it to music, and, with credit to Fred and Barney, introduces the completed work, an ode to Yabba-Dabba-Doo involving a "magical" and tuneful rearranging of the letters in Fred's favorite and iconic expression, at the Pilton Hotel to a receptive audience. However, Carmichael emphasizes to Fred that only one in 5,000 songs ever earns any money, and Wilma deters Fred from aspiring to continue song-writing.

Characters

• Fred Flintstone
• Wilma Flintstone
• Barney Rubble
• Betty Rubble
• Librarian
• Scat Von Roctoven (only appearance)
• Roland "Rocky" Rockwell (only appearance)
• Sally (only appearance)
• Mabel's friend (only appearance)
• Mabel (only appearance)
• Hoagy Carmichael (only appearance)
• Rocky Rockwell's wife (only time mentioned)
• MC (only appearance)

Locations

Bedrock

• Flintstone home
• Rubble home
• Public library
• Rockwell Music Publishers (only appearance)
• Pilton Hotel (only appearance)

Objects

• How to Improve Your Manners (only time mentioned)
• There's Loot in Lyrics (only appearance)
• Piano
• Cuckoo Clock

Animals

• Roosterasaurus
• Mammoth (as a bubble maker)

Vehicles

• Flintmobile

Songs

• Yabba-Dabba-Doo!

Cast

Alan Reed	Fred Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl	Wilma Flintstone
Daws Butler	Barney Rubble Cuckoo Small Rooster Big Rooster Welk
Bea Benaderet	Betty Rubble Mabel Sally
John Stephenson	Scat Von Roctoven Roland "Rocky" Rockwell
Hoagy Carmichael	Himself

Notes/Trivia

• Wilma mentions Mrs. Gilbert and Sullivan.
• Hoagy's assistants are named Sally and Rocky Rockland.
• On Tuesday, January 23, 1961, Mel Blanc almost lost his life in an automobile accident, when his little sports car went off the road on a dangerous and treacherous curve atop a hill in California. Miraculously, he recovered, but was encased in a body cast in his bedroom for an entire year. During his early recuperation, Daws Butler, uncredited, filled in for Mel for five episodes, which were seen early in the second season in the fall of 1961.
• This was the first guest appearance of a famous celebrity in animated form (and portrayed by the actual celebrity) on the series; unlike most other celebrity guest characters, his real-world name is used rather than it being altered with some "stone-based" pun. Ironically, although Fred sings a few bars of Carmichael's own "Stardust", Hoyt Curtin, not Carmichael, wrote the episode's marquee song, "Yabba Dabba Doo". This is appropriate since according to the episode, it is Fred and Barney who primarily compose the song, not Carmichael.
• According to the liner notes of the album, The Flintstones: Modern Stone-Age Melodies, William Hanna's favorite musical moment of the series is Fred mangling the lyrics to Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust".
• This is first of the five episodes in which Daws Butler voices Barney.
• Fred, during their songwriting session, tells Barney to think up a lot of rhymes for orange and silver. The joke is that both of these words are notorious for not having any rhymes.
• "Yabba-Dabba-Doo" was later used in a Boomerang promo for The Flintstones which featured clips from the series in addition to Hoagie Carmichael's performance.

Allusions

• Scat Von Rocktoven is of course a parody of Ludwig von Beethoven.
• This episode is a remake of The Honeymooners' episode entitled "Songwriters", from Dec. 11, 1954.
• Fred mentions the song “We’re off to see The Wizard.” Heard in the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Errors

• None known.