“Moving” Pictures (Part 5)

Let’s spend an afternoon “moving” along with Hanna-Barbera, during their early “glory years” of TV. We’ll focus today only on three of their early series – Yogi Bear, Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, and the show that seems to have something in practically every category – the original six-season run of “The Flintstones”.

An early first-season Yogi Bear episode (aired while he was still a supporting character on “The Huckleberry Hound Show”), features a moving van in a brief but prominent gag position. Baffled Bear (11/27/58) is one of those formative early installments when Bill and Joe were still feeling out what could be done with the character, and no formula had yet been developed with outwitting Ranger Smith or filching pic-a-nic baskets. Yogi in fact performs this episode nearly solo, with only a few random shots of construction workers and silhouettes of drivers to indicate the presence of any other animate characters.

It is hibernation time. To fit the setting of the story, Yogi does not reside in his usual cave, but inside the hollow base of a giant redwood tree. Before entering the tree for his long winter snooze, he takes one last look around at his beautiful forest – as a narrator points out, not realizing it really is his last look. As winter proceeds, a construction team moves in, levels the forest with the exception of the redwood tree (which some surveyor must have considered decorative enough to save as window-dressing), and builds miles and miles of super-highway surrounding all sides of the tree. Sleepy-eyed Yogi is still in a half-daze as he exits the tree in spring – and is immediately smacked unto by a car bumper, knocking him back into the tree trunk. Yogi awakens to this nightmare of asphalt pavement, small shoulders and medians. He shouts to the air that he’ll write his Congressman about this. But try as he might, he just can’t manage a way across the highway and out of his dilemma. He resorts to every truck in the book: “devil may care” attitude with his face buried in a newspaper (stopping all traffic except a little compact, which chases him up the tree with hood snapping like a barking dog). A balloon-o-copter with five toy balloons which all pop. Playing dead on the road (causing all traffic to dodge except for a steamroller). Disguise as a little old lady in a wheelchair (with the compact car returning the minute Yogi gives the other drivers a disdainful razz). Finally, Yogi constructs a makeshift bridge, board after board hammered on from the branch of his tree (looking like something out of Art Davis’s “The Foxy Duckling” for Warner). The bridge reaches over two-thirds of the way across the traffic lanes, with all cars safely passing under him. But Yogi didn’t count on oversize vehicles. A tall moving van barrels down the highway. Yogi yells at the top of his lungs and flails his arms: “Hold it! Stop! WATCH IT, WILL ‘YA????!!!!!” But nothing can avert the splintering crash, excepting the fade out which immediately follows. When the scene fially fades back in, there have been a few changes (but with no clue given as to how they were managed). Yogi never gets off the highway. Instead, he adapts, by opening a gas station – “Yogi’s Super Service”, and seems to be turning a tidy profit. (It’s probably a safe bet that the writers had seen the similar ending to Robert McKimson’s “There Auto Be a Law” at Warners.) The narrator closes the story by recommending the viewers stop in the next time they’re on Highway 66 – “Tell him I sent you.”

• “Baffled Bear” can be viewed on Facebook.

Lend Lease Meece Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks (The Huckleberry Hound Show), 12/21/59) – Jinks, peering out a window, sees a moving van pull up at the house next door. Not that he’s necessarily a busybody, but his first instinct is to find out whether the newcomers are bringing in a mongrel, “which could make it tough on me, sorta.” Scooting over to a side window for a closer look, Jinks breathes a sigh of relief – no dog, but instead a cool-looking cat. Jinks cordially introduces himself as a good neighbor should, and tells the new cat (named Charley), “If you ever need anything, like a cup of catnip, just holler.” Charley does have a need. “It’s a new house, and there are no mice in it yet, which ain’t so good.” Jinks agrees – the kind of thing that might make humans think, what’s the good of having a cat. “No problem, Charley boy. Until you get some meeces of your own, you can utilize mine.” Inside the house, Jinks barks orders to Pixie and Dixie that they’re going out “on a loan-out deal with a friend of mine.” The mice exchange wise cracks between themselves in deadpan: “I didn’t know Jinks had a friend, did you Pixie?” “It’s hard to believe, Dixie.” Jinks blows his fuse, and hastens the mice out on double-time, with instructions “Don’t show your meece-type faces around here again, ‘till I call you guys.”

Charley awaits the “meeces”’ arrival, and gives them a royal welcome. A sumptuously-furnished living room, three meals a day, and a mousehole complete with monogrammed awning over the entrance, and mouse-sized furnishings, including a stove and refrigerator. “We like it! We like it!”, the mice shout in unison. They do a practice run with Charley on the daily chase to impress the owners, which goes letter-perfect, and with Charley conscientiously commenting afterwards, “Maybe you better rest up a bit before lunch.” “I could get to like it here”, remarks Pixie, trying out the comfy beds for size. “I already like it, Pixie”, responds Dixie.

Two weeks pass, and Jinks hasn’t heard a word from his neighbor or the meeces. He wonders if Charley needs reminding that the meeces should be returned. He knocks on Charley’s door, providing gentle hints, with the conversation, ‘Mice day today, huh, neighbor? It looks like it will be mice tomorrow, too.” (Odd that Jinks finally learned how to say “mice” instead of “meeces”.) “Thanks for the weather report, but I’m busy. So long”, responds Charley, shutting the door in Jinks’s face. Jinks peeks in the window, spotting the mice playing atop a toy wind-up car, and waves hi to them. ‘Hey, Dixie, look. It’s What’s-His-Name.” “Oh, yeah. The cat next door. Hi’ya Mac.” “Mac? The cat next door? How could they forget so soon?”, ponders a puzzled Jinks. Returning to the door, Jinks determines to “hint” a little stronger this time – greeting Charley with a shout of “GIVE ME BACK MY MEECES!” “Don’t tell me you’re an Indian giver”, sneers Charley. “Outta my way, paleface!”, roars Jinks. He grabs up the mice, but receives a blow across the cranium with a hunk of lead pipe, from Charley. Jinks brings down a shovel upon Charley’s noggin. Just as Jinks receives another blow, he suggests “leaving it up to the meeces.” Jinks poses the mice the question – whether they want to live in an “atmosphere of love and affection, with your pal Jinksy”, or “pardon the expression, like, live with…” The mice don’t even wait for the question to be finished, and in unison point to Charley, shouting, “HIM!” “I do not accept that…”, shouts Jinks, “…YOU BRAINWASHED THEM MEECES!!” A full-scale brawl erupts, Jinks and Charley repeatedly beating each other over the head with a baseball bat and a two-by-four. While the mice marvel at the fight, a small, scrawny mouse happens to wander into the yard, remarking that no one ever fought over him – or wanted him. He is a homeless mouse of the road, sleeping in different tin cans every night. Jinks too spots the new mouse, and screams at Charley to “WAIT A MINUTE!!!” (lifting a Jack Benny catch phrase). “There’s a meece for ya”, he points out to Charley. So Jinks reclaims his possession of our mouse duo, who admit they were only having fun with Jinks, and wouldn’t leave him for nobody. Charley meanwhile proudly takes home the new mouse, promising there’s a hot meal waiting for him. “My very own cat”, says the little mouse. “I’m so happy, I could cry.”

• “Lend Lease Meece” is on ok.ru.

Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear (Columbia, 6/3/64), Hanna-Barbera’s first feature-length animation project, gives Yogi a chance to not only encounter a moving van again, but to ride one. He, Boo Boo, and Cindy, through multiple misunderstandings and destination mix-ups, have been transported halfway across-the country, far from Jellystone Park, avoiding a shipment to the St. Louis Zoo, and recently escaping from the Chizzling Brothers’ circus. They are wanted by the law as escaped wild creatures, and through Yogi’s fancy footwork elude a pack of police bloodhounds on the scent. Boo Boo spots a truck marked “Rocky Mountain Van Lines”, and Yogi remarks, “That’s the general direction of Jellystone Park.” Everyone hops aboard (though Yogi at first takes a pratfall on his back as the van starts up, pulling away from under his feet). Yogi leaps for the truck bed, slides through it, and ends up with his head projected through a small peephole panel into the back of the driver’s cab. The driver off-shift is fishing through a lunch box, and states, “Hey, Mack, here’s your hamburger”, extending the sandwich blindly to the driver across the seat from him. Yogi isn’t going to miss this opportunity, and gulps down the tasty treat in one swallow, then retracts his head back through the panel. “Boy, you must be hungry”, states the co-driver to a confused Mack, who merely responds, “Huh? Who, me?” Yogi spends the night in a rocking chair, while Cindy curls up on a soda, and Boo Boo in a chest of drawers. A screech of the truck’s brakes in the morning topples Yogi backwards, and sends Boo Boo into one of the drawers and out another. But stopping may mean that they’ve arrived back at Jellystone. The bears clamber out the back, finding another van briefly obscuring the view of the surrounding countryside. Cindy can’t wait to see green forests again, and Boo Boo majestic mountains. Both vans suddenly pull away, revealing a scenic the bears were not expecting. Apparently, the van’s destination was in the opposite direction from their intended target, and the bears find themselves standing in the middle of a multi-lane intersection in the heart of a major city of tall skyscrapers. (A neon sign for an Automat gives away that this can only be New York City).

The shocked bears find themselves dodging (and snarling) city traffic, Yogi averting a near head-on collision between two cars headed at them in opposite directions by standing dead center between the vehicles’ bumpers, and holding both Boo Boo and Cindy above his head with his outstretched arms. A complex police chase ensues, resulting in the bears taking refuge atop a skyscraper under construction, and keeping the police at bay with objects accidentally dropped from the site. (A good gag mass-replicates the Buster Keaton “Steamboat Bill Jr.” falling-housefront gag, with a long wooden ladder falling at a group of cops from many stories high. The Police Sergeant shouts, “Ten-SHUN!”, and all the cops stand erect in a straight line – the ladder slamming to the ground, each space between the rungs neatly fitting the width of each standing cop. Eventually, Ranger Smith spots a newscast about the bears on national television, and arrives at NYC with the park’s helicopter to take the bears home. Yogi tries to wheel and deal with the ranger before coming down, demanding that the Do Not Feed the Bears signs go – or he may go into a dizzy spell. He attempts to feign a fall just as Smith is about to give in – but falls for real. He clutches to a rope, which runs through a pulley but stops at a knot, leaving him suspended in air. Had he looked down, he might have noticed his is only two inches above the ground. Afraid to open his eyes, he hears Ranger Smith’s megaphone and Smith’s voice stating he’ll save him, but no deals. Then Smith, without the megaphone, quietly utters in Yogi’s ear, “Step down.” The embarrassed bear regains a footing on mother Earth, and admits that Smith is “smarter than the average ranger.”

• “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear” (with Columbia opening) is on ok.ru

The Hot Piano (The Flintstones, 2/3/61) – Fred and Wilma’s 10th anniversary approaches – but Wilma can’t find a trace of an anniversary present hidden around the house. She tries to prod Fred’s memory with everything but shoes and rice – including heart-shaped toast for breakfast, presented with a sung chorus of a modified lyric to the Wedding March, in a bridal veil. Yet all Fred can remember about tomorrow is it’s trash day. Or so it seems. Fred boasts to Barney how well he played dumb – though Barney wonders how Wilma could ever tell the difference. Fred has 50 clams from a bowling tournament prize money, and intends to blow the whole wad on something Wilma’s wanted for years – a piano. Finally, he can avoid the annual consequences of forgetting the special day every year – the run to buy flowers when he’s found out, and Wilma not speaking to him for two weeks. Fred’s bubble bursts quickly at the music store, when he finds that his sum would buy a piano stool – not the $1500 instrument. However, a shady-looking character (88 Fingers Louie) listens outside the store, and has a deal right in Fred’s price range. A genuine Stoneway, in a truck down the street. Louie claims he has no store, and thus no overhead, and even parks the truck in the low rent district – then passes the savings on to the consumer. Fred asks for delivery, but is told 88’s business is strictly cash and carry – you carry. Barney gets roped in by Fred to offer assistance in sneaking the instrument into the house at midnight. Barney also has to lift the instrument onto the back of Fred’s car at a slant, then run behind the car, holding up the other corner of the piano in his arms all the way to Fred’s garage.

Fred oversleeps at the appointed hour. Barney tosses a pebble in the window to wake him, but Fred swallows it. Barney tries something bigger, and conks Fred with a rock. Next, Barney shoves the piano into Fred’s gut. He tests the keys to see if the piano is all right, almost waking Wilma. Fred slams the keyboard lid on Barney’s fingers to stop him, then picks up Barney bodily, and stuffs his face into a mailbox to absorb the scream of pain Barney utters. A postman arrives a few minutes later, opening the mailbox hatch to be greeted by Barney’s scream. “I gotta stop eating in those cheap restaurants”, he declares. Meanwhile, the boys try rigging a line from a pulley on the roof to lift the piano up to a window. Wilma begins to awaken, and Fred lets go of the rope, dashing under the covers of his bed, and explaining the crashing sound as Wilma having a “loud nightmare”. Barney lies flattened under the fallen piano outside.

So, let’s try the front door. It won’t fit – too narrow. Fred decides to throw a little weight on it. “But you’re a lotta weight, Fred”, observes Barney. Fred’s impact sends the piano rolling all the way through the house and out the back door (Wilma really thinking she’s having nightmares at imagining such an image). Barney has raced around to the back door just in time to be bowled over by the instrument’s exit. Fred pursues it out of the yard and down the highway, hopping aboard just as the instrument runs a red light. A traffic cop pulls the piano over. Fred is hauled to the police station with the incriminating music box, and mistaken for 88 Fingers Louie – the man who stole the subject piano. Fred keeps telling the cops they’ve made a mistake, and informs them all he was trying to do was get his wife something special for her anniversary. The desk sergeant is suddenly reminded that it’s hs own anniversary too – how could he forget, with it falling on trash day? To show that the precinct has a heart, he orders four of the officers to help “88″ with his anniversary problems, while the Sergeant runs out to but last minute flowers. When morning dawns, Wilma finds Fred, Barney, and the four officers playing and serenading her with the piano, and a quartet vocal of an iconic jingle for the show, “Happy Anniversary” (set to the William Tell Overture). All seems happy until the end of the song, when the officers cart away the piano and Fred too, to “face the music.” Just before Fred is to enter the paddy wagon, a radio call comes in that the real 88 Fingers has been apprehended, clearing Fred – but not keeping the piano from being taken away to its rightful owner. The arresting officer reminds Fred not to play around with a hot piano – “your fingers will get burned.” “Yeah – all 88 of ‘em”, quips Fred. Barney informs Fred that he explained the whole story to Wilma – and Wilma said nothing. The silent treatment has started already. So Fred hitches a ride on the paddy wagon to the florist for last minute flowers as usual, and vows that next year – it’ll be flowers again.

• “The Hot Piano” is at https://www.topcartoons.tv

Trouble-In-Law (The Flintstones, 3/16/62) – Wilma’s sprained her ankle, and Fred’s grumbling about being saddled with the housework. Send out a call to the mother-in-law. It takes one minute for Mama (Verna Felton) to have words with Fred – and under five minutes for Fred to lose his cool and shout “Sit down and shut up!” – a time delay that Barney refers to as Fred’s new worlds’ record for tolerance. Fred’s even losing his appetite with what Mama’s serving for breakfast. “Health food, sonny. Just what the doctor ordered.” “Then let the doctor eat it!” snarls Fred. Then the surprise. Sensing Wilma needed help around the place on a longer term basis, Mama sold her home – and is moving in to stay. A brontosaurus, carrying a canopied cargo bed with the name “Bronto Moving Company” displayed thereon, backs up to the house door. The Bronto lowers its tail, and the entire contents of the van empty like a dump truck into the Flintstone living room. Rising from the heap of furniture and bric-a-brac, Fred can only holler for “Wilma!!”

Fred spends the afternoon hauling furniture from one location to another, then back again, as Mama just can’t be satisfied as to the arrangement of her things around the house. Fred complains at her next suggestion for positioning, completing the question of “what if” they tried this with a response of “I’d break my back.” Before Fred can say another word, Mama states she knows what Fred is going to say – that this house isn’t big enough for the two of them. So she has Fred move more furniture out to the garage, then concludes that Fred should be plenty comfy here – when Fred thought the arrangement was for Mama.

A chance meeting occurs on the golf course between Fred and a stranger who claims to be a Texas oil millionaire – on the look-out for a suitable “filly” to tie the knot with. Fred decides this character might take Mama off his hands, and the two are soon heavy-dating. The Texan even gets Mama to write him a check to invest for herself in an oil well which Tex guarantees will be a gusher. Then, Wilma and Fred read a newspaper article about a confidence man on the loose – posing as a Texas millionaire and guilty of bigamy, bilking old widows of all they’re worth. They smell a rat in Mama’s suitor, and Fred and Barney spend a harrowing day running interference to prevent the Texan from proposing. They finally hogtie the Texan, throwing him into the baggage car of a train returning to Texas – leaving Mama with no explanation for his disappearance. Then, a second newspaper article is discovered. Police have caught the confidence man – whose picture looks nothing like the Texan. They goofed. But Mama’s faith in the Texan is restored, when she receives a fat check from the profits of the successful oil well. She vows to use the money to travel to Texas – and find that man (er, just to thank him). Fred anxiously offers to carry her bags to the station – and stumbles, spraining a back ligament. Mama knows the trip can wait – as long as it takes to make sure that Wilma isn’t stuck with an invalid, and Fred is nursed back to full health. Right back where he started, Fred can only utter as he is dragged to bed, “Oh, boy!”

• “Trouble-In-Law” is on topcartoons.tv

The Big Move (3/22/63) finds Fred attempting to move upwards socially, worried about the effect environment will have on Pebbles’ future if she is raised among common folk such as the Rubbles. Pebbles is developing from babbling stage to forming words, and is picking up phrases from “uncouth” Barney such as “Scooby dooby doo” (which might have been H-B standard parlance a decade later, but seems inappropriate to Fred), “Play poker”, and “Shoot pool”. To get away from these lowly influences, Fred visits the Snob Hill Real Estate agency, and signs the family into a long-term lease for a mansion, sight unseen. He rents his old house to a tenant of his own (never seen, and conveniently written out of the script midway through as having had to vacate for job relocation reasons). The Rubbles are left behind, caring for Dino (thanks to a no pets clause in Fred’s new lease), but with no hard feelings. Wilma is against the whole thing from the start, and nearly blows her stack seeing Fred putting on airs in front of the landlord, pretending to have a chauffeur and limousine which are on vacation and in the shop, claiming to be “in construction” but only phoning in his orders and never setting foot in the lowly quarry, etc. Fred goes in the hole financially, having to work double-shifts, suckered into a game of pool by the landlord (yes, even the filthy-rich play the game) which costs him an extra month’s rent, and receiving the bill when Pebbles breaks a priceless vase in the furnished mansion. On top of that, the neighbors flock from blocks around to use the family’s tennis court and pool, and freeload for meals. Wilma points out to Fred that this is the kind of behavior he wanted to “rub off” onto Pebbles.

Barney drives by the quarry, but can’t talk Fred into attending a bowling tournament. Still, it is plain that Barney is the best of friends, and Fred begins to sorely miss him. Fred also begins to realize he is making a fool of himself pretending to be something he is not, and that Pebbles has all she needs having a mother like Wilma and a father like himself. So, he announces to Wilma that they’re moving back where they belong. But the lease! Fred’s been thinking about that, too, and Wilma smiles, claiming she can see the wheels clicking in Fred’s brain. An elaborate charade is devised between the Flintstones and Rubbles, with the Rubbles and Dino showing up disguised as hillbilly “kinfolk” of Fred at a “dinner party” to which the landlord is invited, held in the kitchen instead of the dining room. Fred declares that his “kin” caught up with them, as they always do after every attempt by the Flintstones to move away, and now the family is “stuck with them”, according to the unbreakable “law of the hills”. The gang’s uncouth ways, including Barney taking random shots with a slingshot, Wilma tossing a Pterodactyl leg fresh from the pot at the landlord’s mother for the main course, and Dino yapping at the landlord’s heels, are enough to make the landlord happy to smash the lease and demand everyone’s immediate eviction. The family returns home, with Barney giving Pebbles piggy-back rides in the living room and Betty reunited with Wilma – the best neighbors anyone could ever ask for. Pebbles sums the whole thing up with another “Scooby dooby doo.”

• “The Big Move” is at https://www.topcartoons.tv

Perhaps no odder move-in took place on The Flintstones than that of The Gruesomes (11/12/64). Weirdly and Creepella, along with their son Gobby (short for Goblin), were indeed a couple designed to rival Gomez and Morticia Addams, Weirdly resembling a small green ogre with fright wig, while Creepella had the slim-trim shapeliness of an Elvira type but with a face that could stop a clock. They purchase the previously-unseen house on the opposite side of the Flintstone house from the Rubbles – Tombstone Manor (a cave-dwelling that looks suspiciously similar in profile to the Addams house). “A little unfixing here and there, and it will be a total wreck”, says Weirdly proudly. He also is extremely fond of the waist-high crabgrass – with real crabs, yet. (If this place is so near to Fred’s house, how could they let Pebbles and Bamm Bamm wander so close to the fence line all this time without going into utter panic? Also, wouldn’t this proximity decrease property values of Fred’s and Barney’s places in general? Or is that, perhaps, the reason Fred could afford his home on a quarry salary?)

A moving van delivers the Gruesomes’ belongings – and menagerie. An electric chair for comfortable sitting. A guillotine for a cheese slicer. Medieval axes for silverware. A something-or-other under a sheet, with a visible unicorn’s horn and dragon tail. And a bird cage larger than a human, with a humongous talon that reaches out from under the cage cover to grab one of the humans, then has to be whipped to induce it to let go. Fred receives a rough introduction to the family through Gobby, who wanders into the yard where Fred sleeps in his hammock, leading his giant pet, Snyder the Spider, on a leash. Later, Fred meets an equally-large pet grasshopper. Wilma, in a showing of neighborly good will, volunteers to watch Gobby for the afternoon, then saddles Fred and Barney with the task when she is called away on a forgotten hairdresser’s appointment. The boys spend the entire afternoon in a frightful game of hide-and-seek with Gobby in the catacombs of the manor house – a sequence better seen than physically described, and including an alligator pit, man-eating plant (shades of Cleopatra!). octopus, Gila monster, and monstrous clutching hands of unspecified origin. Fred and Barney barely escape with their lives, and Fred has had enough of these neighbors. He orders Wilma to pack their things, because they’re moving out – to anywhere as far as possible from the Gruesomes. Nothing could make Fred stay – until he passes the TV set, and finds his neighbors on the screen – in their own television show. The Gruesomes are celebrities, and mention in the closing minutes of their show that they will be presenting guest artists – including looking for local talent right here in Bedrock. Fred dons straw hat and cane, and comes calling upon the Gruesomes, finding the chance to show off his song and dance moves on the slightest provocation. Weirdly presses a button, and activates a trap door under Fred, dropping him out a chute in the side of the house as a reject from the “audition”. Fred, to his surprise, finds Barney also seated out in the yard – also wearing a straw hat and cane. He was rejected too. Deciding that the Gruesomes don’t appreciate single acts, the boys decide to rehearse as a double, and tap and soft-shoe their way around the yard. Looking out their window at the spectacle of this scene below them, the Gruesomes remark, “We certainly have some oddball neighbors, Creepella.” “Seems like we always do, Weirdly, we always do.”

It is odd after this sendoff that The Gruesomes would return in only one more episode of the series – though they made appearances from time to time in the comics, and were even remembered several years later for a crossover appearance with Super Snooper on the first Cartoon Series LP of the Hanna-Barbera Records line-up, “Monster Shindig”.

• Check out “The Gruesomes” at https://www.topcartoons.tv.

Moonlight and Maintenance (The Flintstones, 1/29/65) – I don’t know how many units were working on this and other H-B projects at the time of this production, but portions of this film give the impression that animation of at least some sequences/characters may have been sourced-out to unfamiliar hands. Checking is shoddy in multiple places, with half of a dialog line delivered by Fred without his lips moving, and droplets of water remaining frozen in mid-air while Fred makes an exit and re-entrance in a switch of wig and moustache. Also, Mr. Slate appears in a design majorly off-model in both shape and color, which I’ve never noticed in any other episode. The plot again finds Fred seeking a source of higher living – but this time, not for the sake of Pebbles’ upbringing – but to get away from the tedium of household maintenance chores on his off-time and weekends. He believes a man can be king in his own apartment, with no lawns to mow, and no fixing to do (a flunkey can be called to perform any such task). He decides to look at the units available in the swanky Bedrock Towers, but is floored by the asking price for rent (never stated in dollars on screen – the better to prevent the episode from becoming dated as apartment prices continue to soar). However, he still takes a look at one of the places with the building owner, who is having to show the place himself today, due to the unexpected departure of his Resident Stationary Engineer. He is shown a modern marvel of an apartment where everything is automatic at the push of a button – but not in the mechanical sense of the Jetsons – with everything actually performed behind the scenes by hard-working monkeys, dinos, and other critters). The owner lets slip that the Resident Stationary Engineer position was a cushy job with good pay, tips, and a free apartment. But it needs a man with a good education, charm to fraternize with the tenants, and know-how. “Free” catches Fred’s ear, and so he begins, “I went to school…” “You’re hired!”, shouts the owner.

Though Wilma thinks the suggestion at first crazy, Fred talks even Wilma into his new scheme. Not only the free apartment, but the chance to earn two paychecks by keeping his old job, and more money to boot by renting their old house out. With somewhat saddened hearts, the Flintstones leave the Rubbles behind once again, and their home in the hands of a new couple under a lease. First disappointment comes when Wilma discovers the free apartment is in the sub-sub basement. Even still, Wilma thinks that Fred may have been a smooth operator, until Fred leaves for his regular work at the quarry, and she discovers the function of a multi-light switchboard on the wall with an aggravating squawking bird perched above as an alarm bell. Fred was sure from the owner’s description that the most that would come in on the board was calls from tenants for “advice”. Instead, Wilma receives a barrage of new calls every two minutes, asking for major appliance, plumbing, and electrical repair throughout the building. When Fred returns hone that evening, Wilma is in a frazzle and run ragged. And now it’s Fred’s turn to receive the calls, keeping him up so late, he never gets his dinner.

Fred drives (with his feet in slow motion) to work the next morning with only an hour’s rest, falling asleep at the wheel. He heads for Mr. Slate’s office to ask for the day off – but overhears Slate firing another employee for falling asleep on the job, and, even worse, moonlighting at a second job. Fred is suddenly wide awake, with nothing to ask for. Slate brings up the subject of apartments – which Fred feigns knowing nothing about. Seems Mrs. Slate has an interest in moving to a luxury apartment – in the Bedrock Towers, and Slate wants to check the place out. Knowing there will be no one to show him the property unless Fred can beat him there, Fred finds excuse to end the conversation, hops in the car, and speeds back to the apartments, on the way stopping at a costume shop to acquire a wig and moustache (the latter of which he rips off the shop owner’s face, in spite of the moustache being real). Try as Fred might to belittle the premises, and to show Slate the highest-priced unit over his intended price range, Slate becomes sold on the unit, and can’t be dissuaded from acquiring occupancy. Now Fred must play a game of hide-and-seek to avoid being spotted during his performance of duties at the apartment. Slate catches him without the wig and moustache, just as Fred is assigned by the building owner his least-favorite task – mowing the lawn. Fred lets the mower run wild, and pretends he was just walking by the place, so Slate invites him upstairs to see the apartment – while the mower runs down the building owner and his family at a picnic on the grass.

Mrs. Slate informs them on arrival upstairs that the kitchen sink isn’t working. To keep Slate from calling for the “janitor”, Fred offers to fix the sink himself – and opens a sizeable leak. Before permitting Slate to phone for the janitor, Fred says he’ll get him himself. A quick exit and quick change, and Fred is back in moustache and wig. He makes the leak even bigger. The owner walks in as Fred is changing back to himself again, and Fred runs out once more for his alter ego to avoid facing the music. Finally, Moustached Fred stops the leak. Slate and the building owner both want to fire Flintstone, but Moustached Fred tells them that clever Fred is the one who informed him how to stop the leak. Slate decides he underestimated Fred, and should be nicer to him in the future. The building owner is still not ready to accept Fred back, and approaches Moustached Fred with the proposition of becoming new Resident Stationary Engineer. Fred turns him down flat, slapping both the fake wig and moustache upon the owner before departing.

The Flintstones return home, to the welcome of the Rubbles. But there is one slight catch. The new tenant still has a lease on the Flintstone home for the next 364 days. So, the Flintstones are invited to move in with the Rubbles for the duration – provided Fred does some odd jobs to earn his keep. First assignment – mowing the lawn. Oh, boy!

• “Moonlight and Maintenance” is over at https://www.topcartoons.tv.

The House That Fred Built (The Flintstones, 9/24/65) – History repeats itself – especially when writers begin to run out of ideas, and try to modify old scenarios from previous seasons. A letter arrives from Fred’s mother-in-law, again announcing that she’s sold her home, and plans to move in with her “favorite son-in-law”. Wilma assumes this means Mama’s coming to stay (news she breaks to Fred while feeding him his favorite dinner and letting him watch the fights on TV, obtaining his consent to Mama moving in while Fred isn’t listening and is totally distracted by the fights). Fred finally has it sink in what he consented to, and realizes it is he who has received the K.O. punch.

The next day, Barney tries to console Fred in a game of golf, to get his mind off of Mama’s impending arrival next Friday. The road to the golf course oddly has a detour sign across it, and a series of other signs lead the two on a winding and treacherous mountain road and down into a valley, where no golf course awaits, but a final sign says “You have arrived.” Where? Stoney Acres – a real estate development, with no tenants as yet. A shady agent has placed all the fake detour signs as a lure to get them here. He seems to have only one property for sale – a dilapidated tumble-down cave house, which he tries to offer for $20,000. Barney turns to leave, as the offering price plummets down, down, down…until a light bulb goes on in Fred’s brain. He offers $100 clams for the property. Sold! Why, Barney asks, would he even pay that much? Fred envisions that, with a little work and elbow grease, this could be fixed-up as a new residence – for Mama.

Over the next week, Fred and Barney go nuts with hiring subcontractors for electricity and plumbing, working on their own wallpapering, and various other expenses, increasing Fred’s total investment to $1,000. The girls at first can’t understand the boys’ mysterious nightly absences, suspecting them of clandestine meetings with other women – but finally follow the boys, to find no fooling around – except in trying to finish up the house. They approve of the project, and add a few woman’s finishing touches to complete things. But Betty still wonders why they got the property so cheap. The answer comes quickly thereafter. The lot is built atop an Artesian well, and within minutes, they are standing in the living room with water up to their belt lines. Fred covers for his poor judgment with a spur-of-the-moment idea – move the completed house to his own backyard. True, Mama will be uncomfortably close – but at least out of the house proper (unless she moves Fred outside like in the previous episode). Fred and Barney succeed the next day in getting the home up on wheels, with a mammoth to push it from behind. Barney wonders if it might have been more appropriate to pull the house instead of push. His reasoning proves sound – as the house gets away from the mammoth on a downhill slope of the mountain. The house careens along a narrow cliffside road, with Fred and Barney hanging onto the roof. When Fred becomes sure the house is headed for the edge, they make a jump for life, hitting the roadway just before the house tumbles over the cliff, and cracks in a million pieces. The battered boys show up back home, just as Mama arrives on a motor scooter. Before they can tell Wilma the tale, Wilma announces her own unexpected news – Ma’s only visiting, not staying. Her “favorite son-in-law” was really Wilma’s sister’s husband in another town. Mama adds that she wouldn’t stay here under any circumstance – except if she had her own home. As Mama leaves, Wilma laughs with Betty at her mix-up in interpreting the letter. Fred laughs too at his own mix-up in buying the house – until Barney laughs at the $1,000 down the tubes, leaving Fred in tears, bawling, “What am I laughing at?”

• “The House That Fred Built” can be viewed at https://www.topcartoons.tv

NEXT WEEK: A few more 60’s movers, and beyond.