The Flintstones - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

As noted above, for the first two seasons, the series had strong ties to a sponsor, Winston cigarettes, with the characters shown smoking the product during commercial breaks. This approach was not unusual for television at that time, either with tobacco or any other product. In one memorable advertisement, Fred and Barney relaxed while their wives did housework, smoking Winstons and reciting Winston's jingle, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!" In 1962, Winston pulled their sponsorship from the show when Wilma became pregnant; beginning in the fall of 1963, the main sponsor was Welch's Grape Juice. By no small coincidence, Pebbles' favorite drink was Grape Juice.

Welch's advertised their product with animated commercials featuring the cartoon cast and they were often pictured in print ads and on grape juice containers. In the actual scenes of a few episodes, Pebbles is given grape juice as a treat, although, in those scenes, Welch's is not mentioned by name.

Miles Laboratories (now part of Bayer Corporation) and their One-A-Day vitamin brand was the alternate sponsor of the original Flintstones series during its first two seasons, and in the late 1960s, Miles introduced Flintstones Chewable Vitamins, fruit flavored multivitamin tablets for children in the shape of the Flintstones characters, which are sold to this day.

The characters from the series were used in a 1966 industrial film designed to promote the 1967 beer advertising campaign for Anheuser-Busch's Busch Beer. This film was released to the Anheuser-Busch distributors, and it was not seen by the general public until years later when bootleg copies began to circulate.

In 1982 satirist Tom Chalkley, using the alias "Bruce Springstone", did a parody of the intro theme titled 'Bedrock Rap/Meet the Flintstones'. The cover of the album listed "Live at Bedrock". Sounding like Bruce Springsteen, Tom did a talking intro describing himself as a kid 'flipping dino burgers' and watching a worker (Fred) 'coming home to his stone hut' at night shouting 'Wilma, I'm home honey. Wilma!', then launching into a Springsteen-esque version of the intro theme from the show, complete with saxophone solo at the end.

The series spawned the Post Foods brands of Pebbles cereals: Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles, and the discontinued Dino Pebbles (later revived as "Marshmallow Mania Pebbles", and then to "Marshmallow Pebbles").

In the 1985 documentary feature Bring on the Night, Sting and his band sing "Meet the Flintstones" during a recording session.

On May 13, 1986 ABC broadcast the Joe Piscopo New Jersey Special. It included one skit titled "The Flintstones: The Last Episodes" featuring Piscopo (as Fred) and Danny Devito (as Barney).

"Weird Al" Yankovic paid homage to the Flintstones in his song "Bedrock Anthem", a combined parody of "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away", both by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that even featured Flintstones voices and sound effects. It also was rereleased on the soundtrack album of the 1994 live action film.

The Screaming Blue Messiahs had a song called "I Wanna Be a Flintstone" on their album Bikini Red. It was later rereleased on the soundtrack album of the 1994 live action film The Flintstones.

Ralph Bakshi's 1987 series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures included a reference to The Flintstones in the episode "Don't Touch That Dial!" In the episode, Mighty Mouse is trapped in a series of Saturday morning cartoons; one was The JetStones, a surreal mix of The Jetsons and The Flintstones, parodying the two shows' similar, formulaic styles. Mighty Mouse condemns the show as stupid.

The Simpsons have referenced The Flintstones in several episodes. In the episode Homer's Night Out, Homer's local convenience store clerk, Apu remarks "You look familiar, sir. Are you on the television or something?" to which Homer replies "Sorry buddy, you've got me confused with Fred Flintstone." During the opening credits of the episode Kamp Krusty, the Simpson family arrive home to find the Flintstone family already sitting on their couch. The beginning of the episode Marge vs. the Monorail is an homage to the The Flintstones opening sequence. Homer leaves work much in the same way Fred Flinstone does, singing to the tune of The Flintstones theme: "Simpson, Homer Simpson / he's the greatest guy in history / from the town of Springfield / he's about to hit a chestnut tree" at which point he screams and crashes his car into a tree. In Lady Bouvier's Lover, Homer's boss, Mr. Burns appears at the family's house and says "Why, it's Fred Flintstone (referring to Homer) and his lovely wife, Wilma! (Marge) Oh, and this must be little Pebbles! (Maggie) Mind if I come in? I brought chocolates." Homer responds by saying "Yabba-dabba-doo!" In Rome-old and Juli-eh, to save on gas, Homer "Flintstones" the car, imitating Fred Flintstone by putting his feet through the car floor and running on the road, yet with much less efficiency. Again, he says "Yabba-dabba-doo!" In Little Orphan Millie, Homer sings a song about his wife which contains the line "She's the Wilma to my Fred".

An episode of BBC sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf sees Lister and the Cat discussing, and agreeing that they find both Wilma and Betty attractive, before realizing that the discussion is pointless... 'She'll never leave Fred and we know it!'

In 2008, Warner Bros/ Theater Ventures announced that Jeff Marx, Jake Anthony and Marco Pennette would collaborate on a stage musical version of The Flintstones, with the plot putting a contemporary spin on the characters. The proposed production stalled during negotiations.

Fred Flintstone's exclamation 'Yabba-Dabba-Doo!', shouted in the opening credits as well as any time Fred became happy or excited, is widely known and repeated.

In the Young Money song BedRock, although the song is mainly about sex, the name is referenced with the line: "Call me Mr Flintstone, I can make your bedrock".

More recently, the Flintstones have been seen in commercials for GEICO automotive insurance and Midas auto repair shops.

On September 30, 2010, Google temporarily replaced the logo on their search page with a custom graphic celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first TV broadcast.

In the animated feature, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs when Ellie jumps on a brontosaurus she exclaims, "Yabba-Dabba-Do". Manny later says, "Don't Yabba-Dabba-Do that again".

The Beastie Boys song "Shake Your Rump" from their 1989 album Paul's Boutique contains the lyrics "Like Fred Flintstone driving around with bald feet".

The show both the original and Seth MacFarlane's planned reboot along with the FOX network were poked fun at in an episode of Aqua Something You Know Whatever.

In 2012, Shuffle Master made licensed casino slot machines based on the animated series.

Futurama referenced The Flintstones in the Season 7 episode Fun On A Bun in the closing scene where an oversized side of ribs was placed on the edge of a table, causing the table to turnover, mimicking the closing sequence of The Flintstones.