I looked in the column archive for “Flintstone” and searched old threads and didn’t find the answer to this question.
Barney and Betty adopted Bam-Bam because they couldn’t have a baby themselves. Was it explained in the show why that was?
I once heard there was an episode of the show where Barney explained to Fred that the doctor told him they couldn’t have a baby, but they don’t show that episode anymore.
To me, that would suggest that Barney was sterile - he was the one at the doctor, and he needed a doctor to tell him (impotence wouldn’t have required a doctor for him to know).
Does anyone know whether there is an episode they don’t show anymore, and whether or not there’s canonical word on why they couldn’t have kids?
This page, complete with episode production numbers, suggests that there’s no ‘missing’ episode. I’ve seen #101 (Little Bam-Bam), and none of the episodes before it hint at anything like that.
I still wonder about the other part, though - is it explained why they can’t have kids?
Sorry for the hijack but I just got this mental image of Barney and Hank Hill at a support group meeting for cartoon characters who suffer from a narrow urethra.
According to Hanna-Barbera’s official text on the show… there is no explanation, ever, of why Barney and Betty only had one child, an adoptee at that.
There are, however, two bits of animation one seldom sees any more. One is the animated commercial which was often shown in the first season, in which Fred and Barney sneak out behind the garage to have a cigarette – a Winston, to be precise, since they were the show’s sponsor. This segment ends with Fred singing “Winston tastes good, like a (click-click) cigarette should!”
This segment is available on a great many videos of old commercials.
The other segment, I’ve never seen, but Hanna-Barbera verifies that they once made a thirty-minute promotional film for Anheiser-Busch… in which Fred and Barney are laid off their jobs and take to hanging around a bar… where they find work as bartenders… and into which Mr. Slate walks, one day… and after a few glasses of beer, rethinks himself and hires Fred and Barney back again.
Yes, I know Barney never worked for Mr. Slate, but I didn’t make the cartoon. Nor have I seen it. I’m just reporting what HB said…
Hmm, it’s been many many years since I saw the episode where Bam Bam was adopted, but I’m pretty sure that the Rubbles simply wanted to adopt child, and there was never any indication that they couldn’t conceive. It’s not uncommon.
Most of the story revolved around Fred giving Barney the Flintstones’ entire life savings (without consulting, or even telling, Wilma,) so that the Rubbles’ could qualify as suitable adoptive parents. Fred’s motive for secrecy was to spare Barney’s pride. Wilma was furious, until she found out why he did it.
[adoring]
“Oh, Fred!”
[/adoring]
A memorable episode, to be sure.
Obligatory “This really ought to be in Cafe Society.”
Several years after, the episodes were traduced to Spanish and AFAICR early in the episode Betty was distraught and crying because they had no baby; darned if I can remember well, I think there was an awkward conversation between Barney and Betty knowing they could not have a baby, then the falling star scene, of course no more explanation or a reason came, it just was so.
I misused Larry Mudd’s article from a previous post to make this “Last Episode” of “the Flintstones” where Fred wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette.
Back when the Flintstones was made, it was considered Taboo to even hint at sex on televistion. Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke had separate twin beds in their bedroom, for example. If the subject of having children had to come up in a television show, then that subject had to be adoption, because there was no other way to incorporate it into TV.
Everyone knows that the Great Star Eagle comes down and plants human beings on this planet. The earth is a giant game preserve for mosquitos and the ecological balance must be preserved.
You must have missed the whole Little Ricky thing on I Love Lucy a decade earlier. Or the episode of The Honeymooners when Ralph thinks Alice is pregnant.
Lucy was preggers and when Little Ricky came into the world it was clear he wasn’t adopted. Granted, they were in double beds and I don’t think they ever used the “P” word but there you go.
Marc
—Nitpick: Lucy was “expecting” Little Ricky; they couldn’t say the p-word. The title for the episode where she breaks the news to Ricky is “Lucy is Enceinte (sp?)”. Also, there was a flashback episode of Dick Van Dyke that recalled the birth of whatever their kid was called. So you could allow that a kid was going to be born; you just couldn’t get too graphic.
—As far as that goes, when Gloria gave birth to little Joey on All in the Family (Archie blew a gasket when he found out that Mike planned to be Gloria’s birth coach), was that the first time a TV show went into the delivery room? I know that for a long time, the gag was always the father-to-be pacing and smoking in the waiting room (assuming he got there at all…remember Ricky showed up late and in tribal face paint?).
Anyway, as long as we’re sharing memories of the Flintstones, I would swear that I remember Barney readying himself to jump off a bridge with a boulder around his neck (!), because he was so distraught that he and Betty couldn’t make a baby. And I know I remember Fred practicing the race to the hospital in advance of Pebbles’ birth.
My memory of this absolutely agrees with Rilch’s. I remember the bridge/boulder bit. Except I think it comes at the end.
It opens with Betty and Barney fussing over Pebbles. Fred and Wilma want some time alone with Pebbles and shoo Betty and Barney out. IIRC there’s a snarky comment by Fred about “If you like babies so much, why don’t you have one of your own.”. Barney replies “The doctor says I can’t”. The Rubbles leave and Betty and Barney cry about the fact that they can’t have a baby. They wish on a star. Bamm-Bamm is left on their doorstep. Barney becomes a proud papa (the episode is really more about Barney than Betty). The Rubbles apply to adopt but it doesn’t look good 'cause some rich guy wants Bamm-Bamm too. There’s an ugly custody battle and it looks the court’s gonna give the baby to the rich dude. After an ugly cross-examination by Perry Masonite*, Barney leaves the courtroom and despondant attempts suicide.
However if he’d waited minute or two longer, he’d have seen the rich dude get a telegram(?) that his wife is gonna have a baby of her own, so the Rubbles can have Bamm-Bamm after all. The rest of the episode is a last-minute rush to find/save Barney.
Fenris
*Or maybe Masonrock? Masonite is funnier, if less subtle.
Bup: it got moved 'cause it’s about an artform (a tv show), not because it’s not factual.
Besides, it’ll stay on the front page of CS longer: more views, more posts!
CS: where the cool threads are.
This has been a public service announcment on behalf of Cafe Society and the Straight Dope Message Board, brought to you by Cecil’s Little Helpers and FenCo.
I took a Psychology of Advertising class in college, and saw the Flintstones cigarette ad. Seemed very shocking to me that cigs were marketed that way not too long ago.
I think the Simpsons did a spoof of this, with Radioactive Man (?) doing an ad for the fictional Laramie Cigarettes brand.
