The Flintstones

Let me start by saying my earliest exposure to the animated Hanna-Barbera cartoon, “The Flintstones”, was as a small child. Fred was more or less an analogue of my father, and, except for the bobbed hair-do, Wilma was most certainly an archetype that somehow my mother was patterend against.

It’s been many decades since I enjoyed seeing my cartoon parents mixed up in their various weekly, then re-run-ed, escapades. However, the show’s theme make a frequent re-appearance as an earworm. I have no explanation for this.

For no particular reason, the song entered my conciousness again today, and I realised something disturbing. The tune is meant to provide a backdrop elevator pitch for what the show was about, and it’s wrong. Worse, it’s terribly misleading. And now, I’m not only very disappointed, but I fear that since the whole notion of a ’60s-style existence in the Stone Age is fiction, all fiction is meant to be based on some real thing or things. Since this is a lie, my whole foundation of knowledge and perception of the world is shook.

History. History, or the knowledge contained therein in the chronicling of persons and their actions in the past, plays a fundamental role in our collective existence and our understanding thereof. So, what is the problem with the Flintstone’s theme music? this:

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones
They’re the modern stone-age family
From the town of Bedrock
They’re a page right out of history

See it? It’s right there. “They’re a page right out of history”. How is that possible if they’re a stone-age family? The so-called “stone age” falls into pre-history, where there are no written records or oral traditions that document the goings-on back then. Therefore, the theme song is not only wrong, but misleading.

Yes, the Flintstones can, and probably are, a fictional family, as are their neighbours and other “stone-age” people and things they interact with. But to call them or the town of Bedrock “a page right out of history” is simply unforgiveable. Think of the impact upon generations of children who would succumb to the theme’s exhortation and fold into their fundamental belief systems upon which other knowledge would be built this utter mis-direction.

Clearly, the intention of the producers was to subvert generations of citizens, not only in the United States, but everywhere the Flintstones was beamed, over and over again, to subtly influence and ultimately corrupt stupid children into believing a lie.

Who would benefit from such subversion? A government that wished to control their subject’s understanding of the world so as to be able to manipulate those people? Perhaps an agency within a government with their own agenda disguised as population pacification for the good of the many?

We will never know the answers to these questions. The composers of the tune, Hoyt Curtin, Joseph Barbera and William Hanna, all died within six years of each other. Coincidence? Were they eliminated because of what they knew? There is no declassified information available to help us understand their possible connections to any government agency, but one of them, Curtin, had been awarded patents in the late ’70s and early ’80s for pipe couplings. You read that right – cartoon and jingle maker turned piping engineer? Hmm.

You be the judge.