HAPPY BIRTHDAY FLINSTONES 50 YEARS OLD TODAY

Today is Fred Flinstone's 50th birthday. it's also Barney's and Betty's and Wilma's and Pebbles and Bam Bam. God does that make me feel old.

Of course, the Flinstones was the first animated series on a night time schedule. It was broadcast on ABC while Walt Disney was still alive. In ended in 1966, the same year Walt passed away.

It has been noted that Fred Flintstone physically resembled voice actor Alan Reed, and also Jackie Gleason. The voice of Barney was provided by legendary voice actor Mel Blanc, though five episodes (the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 9th) during the second season employed Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler while Blanc was incapacitated by a near-fatal car accident. He wore a body cast and it was thought that we had lost him until his doctor thought of the genius idea of asking Mel not how HE felt but with questions like "Hey, Bugs Bunny, how are you feeling this morning?" Mel Blanc answered in that charcater's voice-- it was that genius that enabled Blanc was able to return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. It should be noted, however, that Blanc's portrayal of Barney Rubble had changed considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a much higher pitch. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper voice.
Additional similarities with The Honeymooners included the fact that Reed based Fred's voice upon Jackie Gleason's interpretation of Ralph Kramden, while Blanc, after a season of using a nasal, high-pitched voice for Barney, eventually adopted a style of voice similar to that used by Art Carney in his portrayal of Ed Norton. The first time that the Art Carney-like voice was used was for a few seconds in "The Prowler" (the third episode produced).In a 1986 Playboy interview, Jackie Gleason said that Alan Reed had done voice-overs for Gleason in his early movies, and that he (Gleason) considered suing Hanna-Barbera for copying The Honeymooners but decided to let it pass. According to Henry Corden, who took over as the voice of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed died, and was a friend of Gleason’s, “Jackie’s lawyers told him that he could probably have The Flintstones pulled right off the air. But they also told him, “Do you want to be known as the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air? The guy who took away a show that so many kids love, and so many parents love, too?”Henry Corden handled the voice responsibilities of Fred after Reed's death in 1977. Corden had previously provided Fred's singing voice in The Man Called Flintstone and later on Flintstones children's records. After 1999, Jeff Bergman performed the voice of Fred. Since Mel Blanc's death in 1989, Barney has been voiced by both Frank Welker and Kevin Richardson. Various additional character voices were created by Hal Smith, Allan Melvin, Janet Waldo, Daws Butler and Howard Morris, among others. Well we were about to hire a pianist from Valley College and we brought her the music explaining that we wanted her to practice and come to a rehearsal where we would record her playing on the eighty-eight key keyboard that one of our actors provided. We were going to pay her $60 for three hours which included gas money. Then she pulled a diva's trick on us. If we were going to record her playing and use that recording for future rehearsals enabling the show to go on, she wanted $125 up front and a percentage of the show-- 2.5% in perpetuity -- Can you grasp that one? reminds me of the concert my friend Tim Doran had in 2002 and the violinist refused to wear a lapel mike to be recorded! And this is only a junior college! Dear god! And a sad note on the death of a real Hollywood star Tony Curtis. He was always such an amazing actor!