The Flintstones
The Flintstone Flyer
TV Flash files “The Flintstone Flyer” as a desk essential hour — The Flintstones (1960–1966) on ABC, season 1, episode 1, aired 1960-09-30, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 166 in the The Flintstones guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 1960-09-30 (30 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “Hot Lips Hannigan” (S01E02).
Essential hour: “The Flintstone Flyer”. The Flintstone Flyer is the prime-time animation contract: blue-collar sitcom in Bedrock, laugh track included, dinosaurs as appliances.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Barney has invented something that looks to Fred like a giant egg beater, but it's a flying machine. Fred feigns illness so that he and Barney can get out of "opera night" with the girls and use the Flyer to go bowling instead.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Flintstone Flyer sit in the The Flintstones guide?
S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 166 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.
When did The Flintstones S01E01 air?
The Flintstone Flyer aired 1960-09-30 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Early Bedrock hours with Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty show the sitcom-in-skins contract before the kids arrive. Later seasons add Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm if you want the household as a merchandising unit.
In the series
Why this series still plays
The Flintstones put a blue-collar sitcom in Bedrock and proved animation could own prime time: Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, dinosaurs as appliances, laugh track included. Hanna-Barbera's six-season breakthrough is the blueprint every later cartoon family still raids. Yabba-dabba-doo as American brand, plus the endless Honeymooners-in-skins debate.
So about Bedrock: the group chat has been having the *Honeymooners*-in-skins fight since before the timeline had a name, and nobody is logging off. ABC's *The Flintstones* (1960–1966; 166 episodes) put a blue-collar sitcom in the Stone Age — Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, dinosaurs as appliances, laugh track included — and proved animation could own prime time. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera built the household. Alan Reed's Fred and Jean Vander Pyl's Wilma opposite Mel Blanc's Barney and Bea Benaderet's Betty.…
Filed against
- Alan Reed as Fred Flintstone
Alan Reed’s Fred Flintstone put a blue-collar sitcom in Bedrock and proved animation could own prime time — Wilma, Barney, Betty, dinosaurs as appliances, laugh track included. Hanna-Barbera’s six-season breakthrough, the blueprint every…
- Jean Vander Pyl as Wilma Flintstone
Jean Vander Pyl’s Wilma Flintstone put a blue-collar sitcom wife in Bedrock — Fred, Barney, Betty, dinosaurs as appliances, laugh track included. Hanna-Barbera’s six-season prime-time breakthrough, the blueprint every later cartoon family…
- Mel Blanc as Barney Rubble
Mel Blanc’s Barney Rubble gave The Flintstones its next-door giggle — 1960s catalog Bedrock, a laugh-track sitcom in stone, the pal Fred could not do without. The Jetsons and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century kept the most famous voice in…
- Bea Benaderet as Betty Rubble
Bea Benaderet’s Blanche Morton needled The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show as next-door vaudeville, then The Flintstones’ Wilma and Petticoat Junction’s Kate Bradley made her 1950s–60s catalog warmth a three-stop map. TV Flash files…