The Flintstones: The 25 Worst Things To Happen To Wilma
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Wilma Flintstone has a had a lot of good things happen in her life, but here are the 22 Worst things that have ever happened to Wilma Flintstone.
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Wilma Flintstone is far and away one of the most recognizable cartoon characters of all time. As a wife to Fred and co-star of one of the most cherished American pop-culture juggernauts of all time, Wilma’s red hair, white dress, pearls, and overall charm have been being sent directly into living rooms worldwide since the early 1960s and is still be reinvented right up to modern times.
Through trial and tribulations (mostly attributed to dumb things Fred does) Wilma has been the voice of reason to Fred’s underlying stupidity, all the while accomplishing some pretty amazing things for herself. However, it hasn’t been all flowers and roses when it comes to Wilma’s life.
Hanna-Barbera knew they had a great and strong character in Wilma Flintstone, so they threw everything they possibly could at her. From losing multiple businesses to having to help raise two of the strongest children who have ever lived, there was never a moment of rest for poor Wilma.
Wilma Flintstone has a had a lot of good things happen in her life, but here are the 22 Worst things that have ever happened to Wilma Flintstone.
22 What’s My Name Again?
The legendary cartoonist team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera will go down in history as two of the most influential men in the history of television. There is no arguing that the two men who created The Flintstone, Yogi Bear and dozens of other enduring cartoon titles will forever be remembered for their contributions to the art of comedy. Just because they were influential doesn’t mean they didn’t cut corners and such was the case with Mrs. Flintstones maiden name.
When the series first aired, the redhaired cavewoman’s known maiden name was “Pebble” and she was even referred to as Wilma Pebble on several occasions, including once by a former high school classmate. In the third season, however, her maiden name was inexplicably changed to “Slaghoople” upon the first appearance of her mother Pearl Slaghoople. When a series insider was asked why the change took place, his response was pretty straightforward; he said that Hannah and Barbera just don’t care about continuity all that much.
The Pebble name didn’t end there, however, seeing how Fred and Wilma’s first born child was given the name with an “s” attached at the end. So, what was once the clearly stated last name of a prominent character on the show quietly became her daughter’s name right before our eyes.
21 The Flintstone’s Live Action Movies
Take a moment to let that header sink in, will you? “Flintstone movies” plural, as in more than one. Somehow the Hollywood big shots behind the original Flintstones movie were so blind to the steaming pile of garbage they had created that somebody green lit a sequel, and to no one’s surprise, it’s even worse.
The one saving grace the original film had was John Goodman’s nearly pitch-perfect portrayal of Fred Flintstone, right down to the twinkle toes. While one good performance alone was not enough to stay the sinking vessel, at least it provided a bright spot in an otherwise grim tale. The movie was banking on a younger demographic feeling nostalgia for a period that they weren’t even a part of and that’s a tough sell for anyone.
Viva Rock Vegas had none of that Goodman charm and really no bright spots at all. It was a bad film based on a trashy concept, that was one of the rare films that felt as cheap as it actually was. So while, of course, Wilma, and the woman who voiced her, Jean Vander Pyl, also made a cameo in the film, can feel a tinge of pride knowing they were at least famous enough to be made a movie of, they weren’t interesting enough to have a good movie made of them.
20 The Flintstones & WWE Stone Age SmackDown!
I’m not altogether certain that Wilma Flintstone had anything particularly bad happen to her when World Wrestling Entertainment stepped into Bedrock for one of the most wildly bizarre crossover shows of all time. However, bearing the name Flintstone is bad enough when it’s being run across an idea so monumentally foolish. The Flinstones & WWE Stone Age SmackDown! is an example of a bad marketing ploy and the fact that it exists is amazing.
It’s kind of hard to believe that a room full of executives could hear the idea Fred Flintstone Meets Hulk Hogan and think it is exactly the sort of thing that needs to happen.
In 2015, WWE and The Flintstones thought it was high time for the fans to get what they so obviously wanted, with a StoneAge version of John Cena, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, The Undertaker, and other WWE superstars. No, wait. Literally, nobody asked for that or thought it was a good idea. The Flintstones are a timeless hallmark of American culture that has endured for more than six decades. World Wrestling Entertainment is also revered, but no one asked for those two goliaths to merge.
19 Straight to the Moon, Wilma
Things were already looking down for poor Wilma Flintstone before the first time she was even drawn. Before the very first pencil marks were put on paper of a white dress, red hair, and striking pearls for what would become a landmark of animation, she was already based on an unfortunate woman of Hollywood’s past, Honeymooner Alice Kramden. Now don’t get me wrong, I know Ralph loved Alice as much as Fred loved Wilma, but they didn’t always show it in the best way. “Straight to the moon, Alice” is a joke that would not be so widely accepted in 2018, as it was back in the 1950s, as much as Fred’s 1960s affectations that “women belong in the kitchen” wouldn’t be acceptable today.
Both born with the same accepting personality and equally brutish husbands in Ralph Kramden and Fred Flintstone, the two iconic television homemakers went about their business with a quiet dignity. However, in their dignity also came submission as both characters would be stunted and intimidated by their neanderthal-like (in Wilma’s case an actual neanderthal) partners. Wilma had the chops to be a baseball player, delivery woman, salesman, and who knows what else? Sadly, she was always foiled by Fred, but the writing for that was on the wall well before The Flintstones premiered.
18 Mistaken Identity
There really hasn’t been a single period of reprieve for the imperilled Wilma Flintstone, from the iconic cartoons latest run in the 2000s, all the way back to their early 60s beginnings. It never rained on Wilma Flintstone, it always poured. In the 1961 episode, “The Big Bank Robbery”, the world’s unluckiest redhead made one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She accidentally got her husband Fred Flintstone arrested for Bank Robbery.
In the rare miscue that can be completely attributed to Mrs. Flintstone and her sidekick Betty, the ladies nearly had their husbands shipped up the river to prison for a crime they didn’t commit.
When Fred and Barney found $86,000 just lying in the street, the pair did what any sensible person would do and they started living out their wildest fantasies. Unfortunately for them, it turned out the money had come from a bank robbery earlier in the day and their wives were having none of it. So Wilma and Betty sent them back to the bank to return the money in a move that unwittingly made Barney and Fred the prime suspects in the investigation.
Once the wives realize what they had done, they set a trap for the bank robbers to help get their husband’s out of the clink. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry and Fred is forced to save the day. Could you imagine the guilt of having sent your husband to jail by accident?
17 Canceled Reboot
Robin Hood, Peter Pan, The Three Musketeers, and Superman. Believe it or not, The Flintstones fall in line with all of those icons as a pop-culture landmark that is always reborn. Since their 1960 inception, there have been too many reincarnations of Bedrock’s favorite family to count. But one that sadly never came to fruition was the mid-2000s version with Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame at the helm.
It would have been just the thing the franchise needed to bring it into the 21st century and judging by what a revolutionary female character Lois Griffin has been, there is no doubt MacFarlane’s makeover of Wilma Flintstone would have been top notch. Unfortunately, it never happened and the most recent reboot of Wilma was the horrendous character created for the 2014 WWE/Flintstones crossover.
Would we have seen a hyper-intelligent, drunken Dino? Perhaps a Barney that gets around? Who knows what original ideas the Family Guy creator would have brought to his vision of Bedrock? As long as MacFarlane is a Hollywood heavyweight, there will always be the possibility that he will revisit his Flintstones fantasy. But for now, it is just something that almost happened.
16 Flintstones on the Rocks
More than 40-years after their television debut, the Stone Age’s most popular family were still telling brand new stories and 2001’s The Flintstones: On The Rocks was a rough one for Mrs. Flintstone. In a cartoon that takes place only a few years after the events of the original show, Fred and Wilma are frustrated with each other and contemplating divorce. To make matters worse, the Rubbles are next door experiencing marital bliss.
In an attempt to help their neighbors, Barney and Betty book a vacation for all four of them to head down to Rockapulco to get away from it all. Upon arrival at the prehistoric resort, Wilma gets her luggage mixed up with the diamond thief Xavier’s and hilarity ensues.
Fred takes credit for the stolen diamond as a surprise gift and Wilma actually forgives him for his prior misdeeds, only to wind up kidnapped by Xavier in an attempt to reacquire his prize. So while the film was actually fairly well received by the audience, you gotta feel bad for poor Wilma, who was pulled out of retirement to get lied to by her husband and then kidnapped by a thief.
15 Miss Stone
While the horrible big screen treatment Wilma Flintstone received is already well documented above, this character from the first Flintstones movie deserved its own category. Miss Stone is one of the worst things that the creative team for The Flintstones ever did to poor Wilma. Already having to feel self-conscious due to her idiot husband, Flintstones creative decided to throw a younger, attractive, and more manipulative woman into the mix just to add Wilma’s headaches.
Brought to life by the gorgeous Halle Berry, Miss Stone had one job, to distract her then-boss Fred Flintstone into embarrassing himself and nearly ruining his marriage was just collateral damage
Sadly, the worst damage was done to poor Wilma, as Fred kept his marriage and got to be doted upon by Halle Berry. While all Wilma got was the chance to once again swallow her pride and stay married to her oaf of a husband.
Missms Stone is just another example of not only Wilma’s husband Fred walking all over her and getting away with it, but The Flintstones writers too! Can’t the first woman to ever be filmed in bed next to her husband get some respect on her name? Or at least a husband who wouldn’t leave her for the next gorgeous woman walking down the block?
14 Windup Wilma
Wilma Flintstone is such an iconic housewife that for the current generation she even overshadows her main influence, Alice Kramden. She is the epitome of everything a television mother should be and she does it all in cartoon form. She truly was a revelation for her time and place.
But what if I told you that there is more to Wilma Flintstone than just being a meticulous homemaker and caring mother. For one glorious 1981 short, Wilma Flintstone was a professional baseball player (a pitcher to be specific). But her jerk of a husband couldn’t handle having a wife who didn’t live to serve him. So when Wilma got picked up by a pro team, Fred huffed and puffed and told Wilma that he thought a woman’s place was in the kitchen and not on the field.
Wilma, the devoted wife and mother that she is, chooses her husband’s feelings over her own and faked an injury to get out the game, along with sparing his feelings. She did later pulverize a would-be robber with a watermelon that shot out of her hand like a cannon, but that’s not quite the same as dominating the prehistoric baseball diamond.
13 Blessed Event
Though it didn’t happen directly to Wilma Flintstone exactly, voice actress Jean Vander Pyl was still dealing with the challenges of pregnancy while voicing her pre-historic character through her on-screen pregnancy. Now I’m not sure if being pregnant while playing a pregnant person is harder on the psyche, but I’m sure working an intensive TV schedule like that of The Flintstones was no easy task with a bun in the oven.
Regardless of her own real-life pregnancy, Vander Pyl delivered and The Flintstones’ “Blessed Event” went off without a hitch as the 23rd Episode of the iconic series third season in 1963. “Blessed Event” wasn’t the only show that Vander Pyl worked while pregnant, but it will go down as the most famous, seeing as it was the first time that both a cartoon character and her voice were pregnant at the same time. The Flintstones were given a baby girl who they then bestowed with the name Pebbles, her mother’s former maiden name that was completely forgotten about right around the time the child was born. Awww, how sweet.
12 Fred’s Final Fling
Just a year before Fred ruined Wilma’s prospective baseball career, the neanderthal was tugging at his poor wife’s heartstrings. Now to be fair, this 1980 cartoon calamity was not the orange-clad caveman’s fault, but I don’t think that makes it any easier on his doting wife who has to put up with all of it.
When a doctor mixes up Fred’s x-rays with Frank Frankenstone’s, he mistakenly informs Mr. Flintstone that her husband only has 24-hours left to live.
In a state of utter shock from the news, Fred swears to spend his final day on earth doing good things and, after gifting some items over to his friends, he takes Wilma, Barney, and Betty out for a fancy dinner and a night of dancing.
Overcome by exhaustion, Fred passed out not expecting to awaken the following morning, but he did. As it turned out, the doctor realized his mistake and The Flintstones lived happily ever after. Well, except for Wilma, who must have been having a heartache preparing for life without her husband.
11 Pre-Post Mates
I bet you didn’t know that in 1993, Wilma Flintstone owned her own food delivery service with best friend, Betty Rubble. Well, she did for one television special called Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby. Once Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm moved out and started having kids of their own, the blandness of everyday life with Fred really started getting to Wilma and she needed more. She responded by starting Bone Appetite with her next-door neighbor and what did Fred do?
He threw a big tantrum because his trophy wife wasn’t in the kitchen making him dinner every night, and he forced Wilma to tank her business. No matter how inadequate a husband Fred is, Wilma always puts up with his guff. But every time Wilma tries to demonstrate her sheer brilliance at everything, Fred shoots her down like a wild pterodactyl. She was running a business big enough that she could have easily participated in the financial upbringing of her grandchildren and she was doing it on her own. Sadly, Fred just couldn’t handle it.
10 Lack of Privacy
A little known fact about Fred Flintstone and Wilma Flintstone is they were the first ever married couple depicted on television while in the same bed. You read that totally and completely right, as The Flintstones way back in 1960 were the first show to invite the camera into the boudoir. Now, this is fine for the foolish Fred, but Wilma is a lady.
The character of Wilma was not only tasked with being an afterthought to her neanderthal husband, but she was also made to be seen by the whole world indisposed with this doofus. The horror of Misses Slaghoople’s baby girl being paraded around in her skivvies in front of the entire television-watching world must have been a lot to bear. I recognize that this woman is a cartoon, but it is a lot for one character to shoulder when it is written for her to be an afterthought and now she has to let the cameras into the bedroom.
Now, Wilma and those at The Flintstones should be proud to have shown such a powerful scene first, but we really wish Wilma didn’t have to deal with her husband always making her life more difficult.
9 Fred Madistone
Imagine if the classic Adam Sandler film Billy Madison were to happen to a married father? How embarrassing do you think that would be for his wife? Because that is exactly what Wilma Flintstone had to live with in the 1962 The Flintstones season two episode, “High School Fred”. Not only was Fred, who was lying about having a high school degree, told he was going to be fired if he didn’t go back and finish high school, but, on top of that, the middle-aged man even had time to become popular while he was fixing his worthless life.
Not only did poor Wilma have to put up with the fact that her husband is a giant fool, he also lied to her about it.
Fred, in his infinite wisdom, decided to tell his always loving and caring wife that he was being considered for a promotion and would have to attend executive school. Naturally, Wilma, being a saint, believed him. So to be fair, it is kind of her fault for believing anyone would turn her foolish husband into an executive of anything. So, once again, Wilma is made the laughingstock of Bedrock by her husband and this time she doesn’t even know why. It’s hard to believe a gem like Wilma has stayed with this buffoon for more than 60-years.
8 A Housekeeper’s Nightmare
This one isn’t quite as bad as being written with a husband who blatantly loves his terrible dead-end job more than you. But it can’t be any picnic to live in a pre-historic household that has a different decor in every single episode. This jab goes a little deeper though. Nobody watching would ever mistake any of The Flintstones home decor for being Fred’s brainchild, so without her even doing anything, it would have become a place where Wilma Flintstone’s brilliance could shine through.
Alas, literally nobody involved in the show cared about Wilma and the decor, which is why it was just what the illustrator pleased on any given episode. It’s not the worst fate of any cartoon mom, but it certainly isn’t a great one because there was just no iconic backdrop with which to place the popular comic strip. This could have affected Wilma’s likability, merchandise sales and who knows what else. Like most opportunities with this iconic character, this one was completely and totally wasted by the show’s producers. To be fair though, they can’t be doing that bad, if we are still talking about their creation nearly 60-years later.
7 No Love on Christmas
Fred Flintstone may just be the luckiest man in the world. He has a job even though he has no discernible skills, he has a home even though he is terrible with money, and he has a gorgeous wife and beautiful family, even though he is kind of a jerk. Nowhere is Fred Flintstone’s selfish jerkiness more apparent than in The Flintstones first Christmas Special, where Fred refuses to play Santa for a group of orphans when his adoring wife Wilma asks him to. However, he immediately accepts when his boss Mr. Slate down at the rock quarry tells him too.
Now I realize that a request from a spouse is a little different than a command from a superior at work. However, given the fact that when it comes to Wilma, Fred is an undeserving amoeba, he should have acquiesced when his wife asked him to do something charitable. Everything worked out in the end, as the kids got their stocky Santa Fred and Wilma’s husband came through in the clutch. But wouldn’t it have been nice if he would have done it just for his doting wife and not because his boss Mr. Slate made him Yabba Dabba Do it?
6 A Christmas Calamity
Wilma Flintstone is so unlucky that she can’t even count on Christmas to be the most wonderful time of the year. While all of Bedrock was celebrating the Yule Tide tradition, poor Wilma was tasked with stage managing the town’s rendition of A Christmas Carol, starring none other than her husband Fred as Ebenezer Scrooge.
Naturally, Fred wasn’t going to take the honor of starring in the town’s Christmas play lightly, so he immediately started acting like a prima donna.
He began making the rest of the cast, especially stage manager Wilma’s, lives miserable with his antics. Then real disaster struck and several of the Bedrock players were struck with the “Bedrock Bug,” and the only person who knew their roles well enough to step in was, of course, Wilma.
So with a husband acting like a jerk and a show full of sick actors, Wilma stepped up and made the show amazing by taking on all of the sick actors roles and maintaining her stage managerial responsibilities. All while teaching her selfish husband Fred the real meaning of Christmas. By the end of the show, the town was entertained and Fred realized that Christmas is really about friends and family, not about who stars in the town’s Christmas show. Not bad for a woman juggling motherhood, a job, and a foolish husband.
5 Rock Vegas Wedding Blues
I’ve been to enough weddings to know that being the mother of the bride is no easy task and it becomes that much harder when the father of the bride loses the nest egg meant to pay for the wedding. Sadly, that is exactly what the saintly redhead was tasked with putting up with in the 1993 animated film I Yabba-Dabba Do!, which finally saw the union between Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm in fabulous Rock Vegas.
With Fred and Wilma’s marriage on the rocks, advertising executive Pebbles and auto mechanic Bam Bam decided to tie the knot. A foolish Fred Flintstone decides to bet the farm on a get-rich-quick real estate scheme that winds up backfiring, so he loses all the money earmarked for his daughter’s wedding. When Wilma figures out what happened, her and Fred fight so badly that Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm decide to skip town for Vegas to get married in relative peace.
Fred and Barney follow their kids to the desert to try and talk some sense into them and, in the process, Barney wins enough money to cover the original wedding. But then, in classic Fred fashion, he blows that money chasing the white elephant. It’s crazy what Hanna-Barbera ask poor Wilma to put up with.
4 Tru Stone
This one is pretty weird, even for a cartoon cavewoman. In the 1979 Flintstones Halloween Special, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone, an ancient Vampire mistook Wilma for his Vampire Bride. Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty won a contest for a free vacation to Dr. Frankenstone’s Castle in Rocksyvania. Once they arrive, everyone else in the place is scared away by the real Dr, Frankenstone and his vampire friend Rockula.
Rockula then saw Wilma and mistook her for his vampire bride. He then kidnapped poor Wilma and tried to turn her into a vampire, before he tried to force her into marriage.
Wilma, with the help of Fred, Barney, and Betty, is able to escape the bleak fate and together they made back home.
However, once the four of them got back to Bedrock, things got really weird. Rockula followed after Wilma in bat form and appeared in the kitchen of the Flintstone family home, begging her to reconsider and come be his vampire bride. In a last-ditch effort to get rid of Rockula, Wilma agrees to return to Rocksylvania as Rockula’s Vampire Bride, before she immediately started nagging him the way only an undead wife could.
3 The Marlboro Man
Not that being an uncaring jerk who doesn’t deserve his incredible wife isn’t enough, but Fred and the minds behind The Flintstones had to have Freddy drag old Wilma’s name through the mud just a little more by making Fred the cigarette hawkings spokesman for Winston Cigarettes. Winston Cigarettes seems like a similar product to Marlboro Cigarettes, with their reg logo and similar packaging, but they aren’t as well known. However, the cigarette company is still around and kicking today, owned by Imperial and Japan Tobacco.
Fred and Wilma were already the poster children for sine what unhealthy relationships, so, naturally, Fred decided to become the literal poster child for unhealthy habits. Back in the 1960s having a cartoon character being the face of a cigarette company was commonplace (Joe Camel, anyone?), but now in 2018, it’s unheard of. Even Archer, the hard-drinking crime-fighting spy with one of the most adult shows on TV, isn’t out there hawking Marlboros. Of course, smoking is a filthy habit, but dragging your loving wife down with you just make a few extra dollars is not cool.
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