It’s now deeply embedded in our culture. “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones…” But that wasn’t the original opening that appeared in the program’s first two high-rated seasons on ABC. In fact, the 1960s-popular-culture-laced cartoon (un-admittedly based on Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners — Fred was drawn to look like Gleason and Wilma looked like Gleason’s wife on the classic show, Alice, as played by Audrey Meadows) had a different theme.
It was a bouncy show-biz style tune called “Rise and Shine.” It vanished by 1963, although it would occasionally appear as background music. Here’s the original opening (link to first season DVDs is below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HimxvC21ToY
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.