On the evening of September 30, 1960, families across America switched on their TV sets and met a caveman named Fred, his pal Barney, and a pet dinosaur called Dino. The Flintstones premiered at 8:30 p.m. on ABC, and within thirty minutes the rules of television had changed. Animated shows had always been for Saturday mornings - cereal-and-cartoons kid time. Prime time, the evening hours when grown-ups watched, was strictly for live actors. Until tonight.
The show was the brainchild of Hanna-Barbera, the same studio behind Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. They borrowed the family-comedy formula from a popular grown-up show called The Honeymooners and dropped it into the Stone Age town of Bedrock. Fred had a job at the quarry. Wilma fed Dino. Cars ran on foot power. Birds inside cameras carved photos onto stone. The first episode, 'The Flintstone Flyer,' had Fred and Barney sneaking off to a bowling match. Six seasons and 166 episodes followed.
The Flintstones proved that cartoons could be for everyone - kids laughing at the goofy gadgets while adults caught the jokes about marriage, work, and money. Without that yabba-dabba-doo gamble in 1960, there would be no Simpsons, no Family Guy, no Bob's Burgers, no Bluey. Every animated prime-time family today traces its tree back to one stone-age dad shouting Wilma's name into the night.
