"The Flintstones" Is Fifty

Wow! Fifty years?! It's hard to believe, but it's true!

Fifty years ago tonight, Hanna-Barbera’s The Flintstones TV series premiered on ABC on September 30, 1960 and "yabba-dabba-do!" became a fixture of pop-culture.

The animated cartoon series involving Fred and Wilma Flintstone with their next-door neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble was somewhat based on The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. Fred and Barney worked at a quarry in the town of Bedrock during "prehistoric" times. The show had sabre-tooth cats and dinosaurs. Fred and Wilma had a pet dinosaur named Dino.

If my memory serves, The Flintstones aired Friday nights around 9:00 PM on KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles. I remember it being Friday nights as it was my dad's bowling night, so that left my mom and me to fend for ourselves watching TV. I was six at the time.

The series ran as a first-run show until 1966. It is reportedly the first television series showing a married couple sleeping in the same bed.

Later, the Fred and Wilma had a daughter named Pebbles and Barney and Betty adopted a boy named Bam-Bam.

At one point, one of the sponsors of The Flintstones was Winston cigarettes. Commercials featuring Fred and Barney smoking Winstons were shown.