Henry Corden had a tough act to follow. Alan Reed created the voice of Fred Flintstone, came up with the now-trademarked phrase, “Yabba Dabba Doo!” and developed the way prime time animated characters still speak – in a conversational tone touched with an affectation that doesn’t get in the way of the regular engagement of TV series audiences. There is no way to understate his contribution.
From the accounts of those who knew and/or worked with Henry Corden, the versatile, solid actor who subbed, dubbed, and eventually became the voice of Fred after Reed’s passing would agree that any Freds to follow would not fully match the original.
He was born Henry Cohen in Canada, growing up in The Bronx. His film career began the same year he moved to Los Angeles, with a small role in the 1947 Danny Kaye hit, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He became ubiquitous in movies, including The Ten Commandments, The Asphalt Jungle, and The Band Wagon, and TV series from Dragnet, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Bonanza to I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, and . He appears below as Mr. Haskell, owner of an ice cream parlor, in a 1973 episode of The Brady Bunch called “Marcia Gets Creamed,” especially notable because of Jan’s rare triumph over Marcia-Marcia-Marcia!
Corden came to Hanna-Barbera’s attention when he was cast for various supporting roles in 1964’s Jonny Quest. Also that year, Alan Reed gave a particular charming performance of two songs in the Flintstones episode, “Christmas Flintstone”. As 1965 approached, two musical animated projects were in production that required Fred to sing “book musical” songs. Corden had the innate musical skills needed, including excellent pitch, that would make recording sessions more efficient and less costly. Though their speaking voices were not identical, Corden’s singing Fred sounded very much like Reed’s speaking Fred. By March 1966, he could be heard in the ABC special, Alice in Wonderland, or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?
A few months later, he was heard singing for Fred on the big screen in The Man Called Flintstone.
Except for the album Flip Fables and brief sections of Bambi and Hansel and Gretel, it was not possible to schedule (and budget for) Alan Reed to play Fred on records.
Monkees Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork with Henry Corden as landlord Mr. Babbitt
Perhaps Corden’s most delightful and enduring original voice characterization is Paw Rugg, who first appeared in The Hillbilly Bears segment of 1965’s Atom Ant Show. Paw’s amusing mumble that Corden punctuated with a “heh-heh-heh” more guttural than the one he used for Fred. One of the best episodes is the surefire showbiz Cinderella story, “Do the Bear” by Tony Benedict. Which Charles Shows expanded into one of the finest and funniest Hanna-Barbera records. Side one can be heard here, and side two here.
Our pal Mark Evanier remembered Corden on his blog, newsfromme.com:
Henry was a charming, funny man who was just a joy to be around. I remember him telling me a long story about working with Bud and Lou in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion. He played an Arab in the film — he played Arabs and sometimes Germans in an amazing percentage of his screen appearances — and apparently Lou kept forgetting that Henry wasn’t of Arabian descent. “There would be some Middle Eastern name or word in the script and Costello would ask me, ‘Hey, you’re from there. How’s this pronounced?’ And I’d have to keep telling him, “How the hell should I know? I’m from Montreal!”
H-B continued to cast Corden in a variety of cartoon roles, while Alan Reed played Fred in specials and series. Still, when Fred sang, it was usually Corden. Then, in April 1977, each was heard in the syndicated TV special that would be Reed’s last performance as Fred. Energy: A National Issue was also the first Hanna-Barbera project directed by Gerard Baldwin (Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, The Bullwinkle Show, Linus the Lionhearted, Smurfs).
Technically, the first series with Corden as Fred’s speaking voice premiered in Fall 1977. The five-day-a-week syndicated series, Fred Flintstone and Friends featured an archive of H-B Saturday morning series that were associated with Columbia/Screen Gems (Jeannie, Partridge Family 2200 A.D., Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, The Flintstone Comedy Show, and Goober and the Ghost Chasers, often featuring the Partridge kids). Fred, voiced by Corden, introduced the segments from a TV control room, but all the Flintstone cartoons starred Alan Reed. It wasn’t until December that audiences heard Corden leading the cast in A Flintstone Christmas.
In 1979, NBC premiered The New Fred and Barney Show, the first continuing series with Henry Corden as Fred, Mel Blanc as Barney, and Jean Vander Pyl as Wilma Flintstone. The series was available for a premium on Amazon Plus (but one of the episodes was in German!). Fortunately, it can be enjoyed often on MeTV Toons, along with the classic Flintstones series. Later this month, The New Fred and Barney Show finally comes to physical media when Warner Archive releases it on Blu-ray. It’s available right now for pre-order here.
Henry Corden voiced Fred for the rest of his life, as did Jean Vander Pyl, for TV shows, recordings, and commercials. They did interviews to promote a primetime Flintstones 50th anniversary special, including this one for Entertainment Tonight. They were heard, along with Mel Blanc for many years, in TV ads for Post Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles cereals, and occasional Flintstones Vitamins ads for Miles Laboratories, which was one of their first sponsors. A recent final Jeopardy! answer referred to the fact that the Flintstones have been associated with two national brands longer than any other animated characters in history—over 50 years for each.
Henry Corden was quoted as saying, “My big hobby is my family. That’s it. I don’t know how long I’ve got to go, and whatever time I have, I want to get the pleasure of my children, of my grandchildren and of my wonderful, wonderful wife.” As for being second, you can’t get to Neverland by the FIRST Star to The Right.
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in “Songs from Mary Poppins”
This 1968 LP is perhaps the most unique among countless Poppins cover recordings. Clearly inspired by the episode “The Hit Songwriters,” Charles Shows configured a similar storyline to accommodate four Poppins songs (sung by Jean King and Ron Hicklin), most likely because licensing the songs was a separate negotiation from licensing a retelling of the movie story. I love Daws Butler’s impression of Ed Sullivan, who here hosts The Yogi Bear Show!
GREG EHRBAR is an author, presenter, and recent guest host on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). His latest book is Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History. Greg creates content for such studios as Disney, Warner, and Universal, hosts the POP Culture Classics and the Funtastic World of Hanna & Barbera podcasts, and teaches at universities nationwide. Visit 
I’m not acquainted with “The New Fred and Barney Show” — a deficit that I’ll have to remedy — but I have seen several episodes of the original series in German, where it’s known as “Die Familie Feuerstein” (Feuerstein = flint). It translates quite well, and the actor who voices Fred sounds exactly as you would expect Fred Flintstone to sound if he spoke German. I’m amused by some of the translations of the geological puns in the character’s names; for example, in the “Bewitched” crossover episode “Samantha”, the title character’s name comes across in German as “Zementa” (Cement-a). The town of Bedrock is “Felsenthal” (Rock Valley), and Barney’s last name is Geröllheimer (Geröll = rubble), which, curiously, is also Wilma’s maiden name; I don’t know if she’s meant to be related to Barney, or if Geröllheimer is just a very common surname in Felsenthal. However, I had a German-language Flintstones storybook when I was a boy, and in it Betty and Barney were… the Rubinsteins! Funny, they don’t look it.
I can distinguish Alan Reed’s voice from Henry Corden’s if I concentrate. But when I’m watching the cartoon, no matter who’s voicing him, he sounds like Fred Flintstone to me.
Interestingly enough, both Reed and Corden appeared in guest spots with Jackie Gleason during his single-series run in The Life of Riley (Reed was a regular member of the radio cast), bringing the two Fred Flintstones together with Ralph Kramden before there ever WAS a Honeymooners.
Corden’s Fred on the Poppins album is a bit over the top and bombastic, although it fits with the script and the dialogue for the album. It is evident from listening that Corden is still trying to feel his way toward the character. Before long, Henry’s Fred voice became much less imitative of Reed and/or Gleason and developed its own degree of warmth, charm, and occasional bluster. He really grew into the role on the HBR albums, as can be evidenced through his voice work on “SASFATPOGOBSQALT” and “The Time Machine.” By the time he was in it for the long haul, the character was his.
Alan Reed will always remain the best Fred Flintstone in my estimation, although Corden was an apt and able replacement. For years, he carried the character, even to the point of becoming a grandfather in the later movies and specials. He played well off Jean Van Der Pal, who not only accompanied him as Wilma Flintstone but also as Maw Rugg in the Hillbilly Bears series–a role that Corden “owned” from the outset.
He made a couple of appearances on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. In one episode, he played an attendee at an Armenian wedding who was crashing the Teddy Awards. In a Christmas episode, he did a voice-only character. Check out the episodes “Bob and Rhoda and Teddy and Mary” and “Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid II”.
Henry Corden’s contribution to the Flintstones and to the Hanna-Barbera output (especially with regard to the Hillbilly Bears and Jonny Quest) should not be underestimated. He left a lasting legacy.
The Gleason connection to THE FLINTSTONES went somewhat cyclical when Corden dubbed in TV-acceptable dialogue for Gleason in edited versions of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. “Where’s the can? I gotta take a squirt” as uttered by Gleason became “Where’s the john? I gotta wash” as uttered by Corden- who also voiced a Gleason-inspired sheriff in the Buford Files segments of YOGI’S SPACE RACE.
I grew up on Henry Corden as Fred Flintstone. He created his own Fred and didn’t attempt to be Alan Reed Sr. Since he was from Montreal, Henry’s Fred was more folksy and gruff with Canadian rasp. Additionally, his Fred combined both Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker. A lot of The Flintstones’ continued success, during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s was attributed to Henry Corden playing Fred Flintstone!!!
Henry Corden also appeared on “Adventures of Superman” in the 1951 episode “Drums of Death” as the witch doctor Legvoo.
Henry was a mensch. I worked with him for about twenty years on Post’s Pebbles Cereal commercials for Ogilvy & Mather in the 1980s and 1990s. I was often his voice director when my incompetant boss would say the sentence and expect him to copy it. We became good friends, and I kept telling him that I’d ghost-write his autobio in entertainment but it never happened. BTW, the Jewish gentleman loved to refer to Bedrock citizen as “Fred Flintstein”. I really miss Henry, a very sweet guy.
Surprising that there’s no mention here about Corden’s role in the DFE-produced The Barkleys (1972), which, according to the Saturday Morning Archives blog, “owes its existence not so much to the then-popular All In The Family, but rather The Honeymooners, largely because the patriarch, Arnie, like Ralph Kramden, was a bus driver.”, indicating another area of overlap on the Venn diagram of Corden’s association to Gleason and The Honeymooners.
Finding out that Corden is of German descent does make sense to me. But I’ve always suspected that he may also have some Greek roots on his side of the family, based on the nasal, gruff sound of his voice, which I’ve often compared to that of TV’s “Kojak”, Telly Savalas.
I meant to follow up the last paragraph in this post with an addendum: As it happens, Corden played a mob boss in one episode of “The Flintstones” that apparently was somewhat of a pastiche of movie actors of the time, such as Savalas and Anthony Quinn, who were known for being typecast as heavies.