Tooned In: The Flintstone Kids – Heroes For Hire (1986)

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It was the late 80s on Saturday Morning television, and Muppet Babies was still going strong as the centerpiece of CBS’s schedule. It was surprising that it took two years for someone to try and cash in with an imitation. And who better to get into the imitation game than Hanna-Barbera?

Miss Piggy wondered in The Muppets Take Manhattan what it would be like if her, Kermit, and the gang knew each other as children…ah, so the entire Muppet Babies existed in her imagination…so, then, why could she never get Kermit there too? Why did she allow Gonzo to keep stalking her if it was all a dream? Why did she not imagine a head for the adult she trusted the most? Does she invent fictional characters like Skeeter to join in on the fantasy? Did Piggy became so obsessed with this fantasy, she had a fake home movie made in A Muppet Family Christmas to confuse the gang into thinking they were lifelong friends? That would be some Total Recall business right there. Unless the special was too all a dream, this time from an overworked Jim Henson, who with Sprocket spent all day cleaning Emily Bear’s house and thus was delirious? And….

Oh yeah. What Hanna-Barbera did.

So the Muppet Babies came from this question about what the younger Muppets would be like. Who would H-B explore the childhoods of? The answer was on a page…a page right out of history. And thus we got The Flintstone Kids. And no, I don’t have an extensive theory about it like I did with the Muppets. It’s just what it says on the label: an attempt to imply that all the characters in The Flintstones knew each other when they were grade school aged. Here they are, now let’s shrink them all down to size, there you go. Never mind that the original series probably betrays this theory a couple times over. Oh, and we also get a couple characters that never make it out of this show, except for Philo Quartz, Bedrock’s one African-American kid…erm, African-Pangaeain kid? Oh what the hell, it was ALL Pangaea back then (assuming that “Bedrock” really WAS the Stone Age and not dystopia at the base of the Jetsons’ Orbit City, speaking of theories!). Anyway, Philo appears in the later specials when Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are a married couple.

I know, I keep getting sidetracked about What If stories about old cartoons. Well, it’s probably more interesting than The Flintstone Kids itself. I mean, I used to watch it, I used to ENJOY it…maybe I’m a little nostalgic watching it and remembering all of the above. It was…at best, fine. And this episode was one younger Megabucks was obsessed with whenever it was on. I remember making a cassette recording of soundbites from it, for whatever reason. So here now is…

HEROES FOR HIRE

The kids are all over Freddy Flintstone’s (yep, Freddy, get it? He’s Fred…AS A KID) house to watch their favorite show, Captain Caveman, who here is now just a show within a show and not an actual superhero. Unless the actor playing CC snapped and believed himself to be an actual vigilante. It would explain why Wilma and Betty fangirled out for him on that one Flintstone spinoff : they remember watching him every day on TV. And Captain Caveman’s actual show is depressing when you think of it: he was frozen in glacier ice until the Teen Angels found him, billions of years later when everyone you knew on The Flintstones was long dead. Assuming the above thing about the Jetsons isn’t true. And I’m veering off into Tommy Westphall World again. But speaking of The Jetsons, the show’s narrator looks like a Bedrock style George (ah, but WAS it George? Who was one of the feral people living outside of Orbit City who built himself up into the self-made…button pusher at Spacely Sprockets. OK, I’ll stop it now, promise!). So they are announcing a contest where a lucky kid gets to fly to Hollyrock to star with Captain Caveman on his show. While the others are watching, Freddy is helping his mom prepare lunch, and, well…

Freddy’s mom is actually a time traveling adult Fred, dressed up like the time he told Barney to “go act sexy” in Jetsons Meet The Flintstones! I’m sorry, I’m sorry…I have to do whatever I can to make this show more interesting than it really is. OKAY…this time I mean it…

So Barney is the one who answers the phone, and says the word “brontosaurus” in reply to Freddy asking what sandwich he wanted…only that turned out to be the right answer to the not-given question. When Freddy finds out, he protests that it was his phone, his answer, and should be his prize. Barney says “he can keep the phone and the answer,” and he’ll keep the prize, punctuated with the annoying kiddie version of the Rubble Laugh: “A-hoo-hoo-hoo!” Freddy threatens to end their friendship if he doesn’t give him the trip to see Captain Caveman, and worse, keeps taking Barney’s sandwich away. “Now I know why they call it fast food,” says Barney, “You’ve gotta be fast to eat it” (punchline said with a fourth wall gaze towards the screen to make sure we get it…) He’s kicked out of the house, but all Barney is worried about is, “Does that mean I don’t get my sandwich?”

Next day at school, one of the “Eh, It’s A Living” prehistoric birds acts as recess bell, and probably makes some one-liner. Freddy is still being pissy about the whole Captain Caveman thing, and everyone — even Dino — wants to be friends with Barney when they hear the news. Enter Rocky Ratrock, the ’80(-billion-BC)s style bad boy bully, and his gang, and he’s jealous of the other kids suggesting Barney could be a hero. Moreso when one of his cronies suggests “Maybe he’ll even outlive you!” Which DOES happen, actually, since we never see Rocky again besides on The Flintstone Kids. I did, however, believe that he was the father of Bronto, of the Bronto Bunch, from The Flintstone Comedy Hour…I mean they were both biker gang leaders and all. He continues to harass Barney and Betty, as the future Rubbles go to Baskin-Rockins (4 Flavors…get it? Because the 27 others weren’t invented yet!) where they “coincidentally” meet Freddy and Wilma. Freddy is still not talking to Barney, and hijinks lead to him getting water spilled on him accidentally. When Barney makes an “all wet” pun complete with Hoo-Hoo-Hoo, Freddy sprays him with whipped cream. And for some reason, pre-teen Megabucks loved when he asked Betty to “tell Whipped Cream Head I’m sorry”. Barney continually getting Freddy into humiliating accidents causes him to dump his sundae on him. Which Barney actually appreciates, saying “It’s been a long time since you’ve treated me.” Freddy uses this dumb joke as an opening, suggesting that since he’s being grateful, he might as well pay him back by giving him the Captain Caveman prize. At this point the episode doubles down from the kids appearing on TV, to actually being real heroes. Since Freddy says Barney doesn’t even know what being a hero is. Barney disagrees, and sees an old lady in traffic…and points out that heroing is “saving the old lady before she gets killed.” Yes, KILLED. Not “destroyed,” “eliminated,” or any other Saturday Morning Safe synonyms. Of course, as Freddy and Barney tug at her, she hilariously considers them muggers and sics her dog on them.

Next scene, we see Fred and Barney’s dads, and in one of the closest things to clever on the show, they’re played by Henry Corden and Mel Blanc. And…wait…who plays Edna Flintstone again? (Checks IMDB) She’s Corden as well!!! Makes my Adult Fred thing not seem so out of this world, doesn’t it? Mr. Flintstone sees Barney coming home, and Barney’s surprised he’s still talking to him, whipping out his catchphrase for this series: the Rubble Rules. In this case, Rubble Rule 19: “Like father, like son, unless you’re in a different family.” This causes the two dads to argue about the prize as well, and they sabotage the car and sprinkler they fixed for each other, for some reason doubling down on Barney’s Flanderised laughter by ending EVERYTHING they say in the argument with their own trademark laughs (which of course are adult Fred and Barney’s laughter). A fight breaks out, but I guess the animators had to compensate for using the “K” word earlier, because it’s obscured by Barney’s kid brother Dusty squirting everyone with the hose:

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That’s what your old lady called it.

So next we have Freddy and Barney making Lucy Van Pelt “Hero for Hire” stands, and Rocky is back to mess with both by getting Dusty trapped in an Alligator Seesaw-a-Saurus’ jaws. He threatens them by saying they should “get him…or I get you!” Why would he care enough about Barney’s brother to want to beat anyone up if they don’t rescue him? Knowing Rocky, he is such a sociopath that he wants to see bratty Dusty live to keep on annoying Barney. Not that it helps in the long run, since we also never even have a mention of Barney having any siblings anywhere else.

Next they pester Officer Quartz, Philo’s dad, looking for an emergency to act on. The girls worry about the boys getting in danger, and Betty drops another D bomb when she says Barney won’t make a good dead hero. Then Wilma adds, “Sometimes I think Freddy would…” So we got one more Death Reference, and someone wishing it on another character. Yet the Superfriends could not even lay a finger in violence on anyone else. Regardless, Wilma does try to get them out of it by using her cat in a tree as a distraction. Come on now, we’ve seen the closing credits to The Flintstones a billion times over. That cat is a master escape artist. But Rocky again sabotages the wannabe heroing by giving Quartz the wrong address, leading Freddy and Barney to another area faced with a saber tooth tiger…which Rocky apparently kept in captivity and releases to send the kids up a tree of their own. He then catapults them out of the tree…and what’s with Rocky on this episode? He could have let Freddy and Barney beat each other then take over as Bedrock’s real hero. But no, he settles for potentially dangerous situations and here, at least two attempted murder instances. Well, he failed miserably both times, since Freddy and Barney gently land in the cop car. Officer Quartz: “Next time you fellas drop in, use the door…” (“…IN MY PANTS.” Hey, he’s voiced by Buster Jones too, it counts).

At school, someone posted a challenge to survive the Neanderthal Ghost in a haunted cave. Of course Fred and Barney accept, and take Philo and Nate Slate along. And yes, THAT Nate Slate. He says if it proves to be fun, he’ll make the cave an attraction he can sell tickets for. Get it? Because he’s going to be a successful businessman and Fred and Barney’s boss. Scary hijinks follow, and of course Rocky was behind all of them. His last act is to disguise his dog as the ghost promised on the poster, telling him to “Get those zeroes, Ghosty Baby!” Is that what we call Iron Sheik now? Fearing the apparition, Barney busts out another Rubble Rule: Number 12 : “When in doubt, pass out!” So help me, that line stuck with me to this day as well. But Dino exposes the ghost, and in the chase, Rocky’s dog falls in a river, and NOW Rocky wants either Freddy or Barney to be his hero. Barney jumps in to rescue him, then he remembers he can’t swim. So Freddy jumps to rescue Barney. Then Wilma rescues everyone.

The next day, the prize arrives, and Freddy out of gratitude wants Barney to have it, for his actions in the cave…and vice versa. Wilma takes it for herself, as she did the bigger job of saving people after all. It’s then that we learn the prize is for two, which of course made all of Freddy and Barney’s fighting ridiculous. Wilma has one more gambit though, thinking of inviting Betty as her guest. Freddy tries to talk her out of it, because TV “is a big drag” (Freddy under his breath: “like my mom”). But it was all a ruse, because she wanted the boys to have it to settle their argument. If only their parents were so lucky, as Mr. Flintstone and Rubble are still going at it.

Unfortunately, MeTV Toons did not air the Captain Caveman (…AND SON!) episode where this pays off. Fred and Barney get to be guests on the show…as walk-ons. I mean no one’s upset about it, but it is probably more truthful about those TV contests than you’d think.

Oh, and happy belated St. Patrick’s Day. Remember when some Irish guy was a deep cut Woody Woodpecker villain?