It started out as an animated, situation comedy, the first of its kind. "The Flintstones" featured the bumbling caveman Fred, his wife Wilma, their neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble, and Dino, the family dinosaur. It was meant as a family entertainment, and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Not until almost a decade after their 1960 debut, would the show be classified as a "children's" cartoon.
The trials and tribulations of the prehistoric friends, Fred's lodge nights, Barney's bowling, and the addition of the children Pebbles and Bam-Bam, shot Hanna-Barbera to the front of the pack for producing animated features. The series would run on a regular basis until 1966, when it went into weekly re-runs, and since then has appeared periodically as specials and movies.
With ratings to kill for, the show spawned a multi-million dollar industry in toys, lunchboxes, clothes and stuffed toys. Then along came Flintstones Vitamins, a product of what is now the Bayer company. They became a sponsor of the show, until prolonged pressure from the viewing public, citing the fact that children would not be able to distinguish between the real characters and the ones they would eat, caused their withdrawal.
But wait! There was something missing in the vitamin bottle. It was Betty! There was Fred, Barney, Wilma, Dino, the car, Pebbles and Bam-Bam. What happened to the petite neighbor? That depends on which company line you want to swallow. Either her small waist made her impossible to re-create, because the vitamins kept breaking, or there weren't enough dyes to make another character, or she looked too much like Wilma.
Whatever the excuse, the release of the feature movie "The Flintstones" in 1994, appeared to launch a "Bite Into Betty" campaign, where the public clamored to have her wasp-waisted form added to the vitamin bottle. Never ones to ignore an opportunity for publicity, Bayer started a "Vote for Betty" campaign and provided a toll free number, where you could register your feelings on the issue. Then they bowed to public pressure and added Betty Rubble in 1996.
|
Email This to a Friend
