How About That Thing?

Surely, I don’t have to tell you anything about who The Flintstones are. They’ve been a stable of 90s children’s entertainment for as long as I can remember. Got a cartoon block, but need something to fill in space? Just throw old Flintstones reruns in. That’ll do the trick.

When this was originally going to be a YouTube channel, The Flintstones was one of the series I was originally thinking about covering, both as a retrospective review series, and as a “boy, we’ve really come a long way as a society, haven’t we?” sort of thing. Not just making fun of the obvious stone age take on things like cameras and telephones, but in terms of things like Fred just outright telling Wilma that a woman’s place is in the kitchen .

I ended up eliminating The Flintstones from my list of candidates early on, though. Partly because I discovered someone else covering it, but mostly because outside of one or two episodes, I didn’t really find myself with a whole lot of material.

Still, though, there’s one episode of The Flintstones that always bugged me for some reason. That episode being “The Drive In”.

The episode begins with this.

A lot of season 1 and season 2 episodes of The Flintstones had this cold open where they showed you something that happens in the middle of the episode. I fucking hate it when shows do this. On a similar note, I fucking hate it when YouTubers show you what is, in their opinion more than anyone else’s, the funniest clip from the video right at the very beginning, then start the video proper right afterward. I understand wanting to grab the viewer’s attention, but for some reason, that always bugs the crap out of me when people do that. 

But hey, that’s probably just me. In any case, it’s beside the point.

In this episode, Fred is sick and tired of his job, and so is Barney. And so, rather than spend the rest of his life working 9-to-5 at a job that has no upward mobility, no opportunity for pay raises, and treats him like dirt, he decides he’s going to start his own business. And he’s going to keep it a secret from Wilma because when he aired his grievances to her, her answer was a simple “tough shit, Fatty.”

And immediately, I feel like this is another example of one of those “Take my wife, PLEASE!” caliber marriages the silent generation and the boomers used to eat up and call comedy. Then they wondered why Millennials and Gen-Z didn’t want to get married and have kids after hearing their oh so glamorous take on it… But that’s a rant for another day.

Maybe I’m just an entitled millennial with one too many participation ribbons, but this sort of shit never sat well with me. Fred is legit unhappy at his job, and he has a plan for a business. Maybe it’s a bit on the get-rich-quick-scheme side of things the way it’s portrayed, but a restaurant is a pretty legit business compared to some of the nonsense he and Barney usually get into. And I guess that nonsense is why Wilma’s first response is to tell him to suck it up and stop being such a bitch. Still, though, this setup doesn’t sit well with me.

I guess I either live in a fantasy world where husbands and wives understand each other and are willing to support each other through thick and thin, or Wilma is apparently the stereotypical silent generation era battle axe wife. You know the kind. The kind who makes the husband’s life absolutely miserable, and you find yourself wondering why that guy even bothered marrying her in the first place. Other than it was the 1950s, and if you weren’t married at twenty, and having kids by twenty-three, you were a deviant and a weirdo who didn’t deserve to walk among the normies. But even then, you can’t help but feel like the guy could’ve done better.

But I’m pretty sure Wilma isn’t one of THOSE wives. After all, Fred goes bowling, plays golf, goes fishing, shoots pool, and… Well, they don’t outright say he goes drinking, but I’m pretty sure “cactus juice” is a metaphor, so… Yeah, he gets a couple cactus juices with his buds. Meanwhile, Wilma and Betty do stuff they like when the guys are away. Seems like there’s an understanding that guys sometimes need guy time. So why wouldn’t Wilma understand Fred wanting to try and find a new job? I mean yeah, the restaurant business is a roll of the dice, but if it makes him happy, maybe it’d be worth it. Right?

But no, that’s not how it goes down. And thus, Fred and Barney decide to quit their jobs without telling their wives, and then go about setting up their restaurant in secret. Typical sitcom shenanigans ensue, like Wilma and Betty receiving peculiar phone calls regarding orders for dinosaur meat, and Fred and Barney having to cover their asses. Oh, and then these two show up at Fred’s house.

I forget their names, but they’re the waitresses Fred and Barney end up hiring. They come to Fred’s house, and sing one of the shrillest, most obnoxious songs I’ve ever heard. Seriously, me writing about it doesn’t do it justice. I’d dare you to look it up on YouTube, but I have a feeling you’d be suing me for making your ears bleed. Suffice to say, this song is definitely on the playlist of music I’ll be hearing when I eventually wind up in hell. Right there between Baby Shark, and “I Miss the Misery” by Halestorm. Oi, speaking of things where people insist I missed the point entirely… But again, I digress.

Fred and Barney now have waitresses, a meat supplier, and through a deal that can only be described as dubious at absolute best, they have a venue. The restaurant is in full swing… And this is probably where you expect business to be bad, and Wilma and Betty to be proven right. Right?

Either I missed some context clues here and there, or that’s not the case. Near as I can tell, it seems like the restaurant is doing just fine. Like, obviously, it’s not exactly bringing in Gordon Ramsay numbers or anything, but it seems to be doing okay in the time it’s open. Fred and Barney are making flapjacks, and aside from a couple moments of slapstick, they’re enjoying themselves.

Hell, the only thing anybody has to complain about is one of the waitresses complaining that her feet are killing her at the end of the shift. Considering this is a day and age when shoes haven’t been invented yet, it’s definitely safe to assume she’s been walking around barefoot on gravel all day. So yeah, I’ll give it to her.

Regardless, day one of the restaurant is barely in the books, when suddenly, Wilma and Betty show up and demand that the plug be pulled on this foolish notion of following your dreams once and for all.

To add insult to injury, the girls take the boys out on a date, and perform a similar version of the hell song the waitresses they hired sang for them, reminding them that they’ll never forgive them for having the audacity to leave their dead end, go nowhere jobs.

It’s very likely I’m unintentionally misconstruing things in my synopsis of this episode. Regardless, this is an episode that just bugs the crap out of me for some reason.

For starters, despite a moment of slapstick here and there, it’s not one of the funnier episodes, in my opinion.

More importantly, though, It seems like one of those thinly stretched premises that wouldn’t work in today’s society because men aren’t expected to be the breadwinner at the expense of their own personal happiness anymore. 

. Either that, or I really lucked out when I met the woman I’d eventually marry and have a kid with. My wife is the kind of person who’d support me in just about ANY sort of crazy business venture I decide to go on. Seriously, I’m pretty sure I could decide I want to be the human cannon ball for the local circus one day, and I’m pretty sure my wife would support me. She probably wouldn’t APPROVE, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t drag me out of the big top and thoroughly humiliate me in public overit like Wilma and Betty do to Fred an Barney. And all THEY did was open a restaurant.

So yeah, Fred and Barney’ dream is shattered, their wives humiliate them further in a public venue, and somewhere in the interim, Fred and Barney are forced to come crawling back to their old bosses and beg for their old jobs back. I’m going to guess the boys didn’t take a brontosaurus-sized taco dump on their respective boss’ desks before leaving, because Fred gets his job back at the gravel pit, And Barney gets his old job at… Uh… Actually, where does Barney work? Seriously, it seems like he has a different job every time I tuned in at one point. But you get the idea.

And so, Fred and Barney go right back to being miserable with their jobs, and probably their lives if that’s the kind of reception they can expect to get for having a dream. The end.

Yeah, this is not one of my favorite episodes. I’ll admit that their might be a lot of generational context here that probably doesn’t apply to MY generation, or didn’t age well seventy years later, or whatever. Still, though, this episode just bugs the crap out of me. More so than it probably has any right to, considering it’s a relic of the olden days.

I really hope that I’m not misunderstanding something in the process of recapping this episode… But knowing my luck in these sorts of things, I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of comments assuring me that I did, in fact, miss the point entirely, that I’m an idiot, that I should kill myself for wasting everybody’s time with my stupid opinion, etc. That’d be just my luck right there.