The Flintsones, Season 5

Reviewer: Alyice Edrich

The Cartoon

The Plot

Two families living next door to each other become best friends. They live in the prehistoric stone age, but have many “modern” conveniences such as a dishwasher (run by a live animal), a car (where the motor is human foot action), a foot rest (using a live turtle), and a shower (shower head courtesy of a prehistoric elephant known as a wooly mammoth).

Starring

Alan Reed as Fred, Jean Vander Pyl as Wilma, Mel Blanc as Barney, Bea Benaderet and Gerry Johnson as Betty.

Review

In every episode of The Flintstones there seems to be some rendition to a modern day movie star, hero, or classic story. In season five, the renditions are: Cinderella, Frankenstein, The Adams Family, Moby Dick, Indianapolis 500, Romeo and Juliet, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Prince and The Pauper, Surfin' USA, and James Bond.

In season five, my favorite episodes are those that deal with Halloween and Christmas: Monster Fred, A Haunted House Is Not A Home, The Gruesomes, and Christmas Flintstones.

I’ve always been a huge fan of The Flintstones. It’s one of those rare cartoons where adults and children alike can sit and be entertained, without thinking the show is “too childish” or “too grown up”. Whether you decide to order season five, season one, or every season of The Flintstones, you can’t go wrong!

And as entertaining as The Flintstones are, there are many life lessons that can also be gleaned from each episode.

For starters, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble’s friendship is as solid as a male relationship can get, yet they have moments where their friendship gets a bit rocky and you wonder if they’ll make it this time. The episodes are wonderful tools for teaching our children that just because we don’t always care for the way someone behaves, or the way they treat us, there are times when a little forgiveness goes a long way.

Then there’s Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble’s, their friendship is unbreakable. They remind both men and women that just because one party, in a couple, has a falling out it doesn’t mean you have to stop being friends with the other party. There’s always a way around the situation; in which you can show respect to the hurt party and not hurt the innocent party in the windfall.

Betty and Wilma’s relationships with their husbands are also something to take notice of. While they may not always agree with the way their husbands handle situations or conduct themselves, they do their best to show their husbands respect and support. Sometimes it’s in the little things, like making a home cooked meal and other times in the big things, like going along with their actions, when they’d rather not. (I especially loved the way Wilma turned things around on Fred without causing conflict in her own marriage. When Fred decided he was too mad to live next to Barney and they just had to move, Wilma seemed to go along with Fred’s decision and then quietly found a way to get him to agree to see the Rubbles one last time—which she knew would put their friendship back on the right track.)

And then there’s hot-headed Fred. His first reaction to any situation is to over-react and every time he does, chaos pursues! In these episodes, parents can remind children of the importance of taking a self-imposed time out to cool down and think things through logically.

Your Task

Watch season five with your children and do nothing more than enjoy your time together. Then later, when one of your children does something that reminds you of an episode in The Flintstones, call him by your side, ask him to watch that particular episode with you, and then discuss how that character could’ve done things differently. If the light bulb doesn’t go on in your child’s head, causing him to say, “Hey, that’s what happened today, blah blah blah,” then take the opportunity to point it out to him, but do so in a way that shows how smart he truly is!

Order The Flintstones Today!