One of the first things I received from my newly revised Amazon.com Wishlist is The Flintstones – The Complete First Season. Kathleen and I sat down and watched the extras and the first episode last night, and I can already see this is a great compilation.
The extras include the pilot, a 45-second-long film called The Flagstones. I thought this showed the potential of The Flintstones concept very well. Several ads for consumer products featuring The Flintstones are also part of the extras. Most of them are for Miles Products: One-a-Day Vitamins and Alka-Seltzer. You’ll find that these products are now part of Bayer Health Care’s Consumer Care Division, which coincidentally markets Flintstones’ Vitamins. That means the relationship has lasted 44 years.
I got a kick out of the first episode, The Flintstone Flyer. It showed a lot of the comic elements that are woven throughout the series, but not all of them. Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are at each other’s throats from the get-go. Fred dismisses Barney’s tinkering with a prehistoric helicopter, but claims credit for the device when Barney gets it in the air.
The rest of the episode deals with how Fred and Barney avoid going to The Opera with Wilma and Betty so that they can go bowling instead. Wilma and Betty believe the story that Fred and Barney concoct in order to cover-up their plans (Fred’s sudden sickness), but the cover is blown when the women decide to call home to see how Fred is feeling.
So far, there’s no Dino, no Pebbles and Bam-Bamm, no Mister Slate or the Quarry. They’re all in the future of the series at this point. Dino comes along midway through the first season. Pebbles and Bam-Bamm don’t appear in this season at all.
I can’t wait to watch more, and I urge everyone who watched The Flintstones reruns every day after school like I did to give The Flintstones – The Complete First Season a serious look. Rent it next time you go to Blockbuster or put it on your Netflix list.