"Meet the Flintstones", also worded as "(Meet) The Flintstones", is the theme song of the American 1960s animated television series ''

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera Productions, which takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the R ...

''. Composed in 1961 by

Hoyt Curtin Hoyt Stoddard Curtin (September 9, 1922 – December 3, 2000) was an American composer, music producer and the primary musical director for Hanna-Barbera from its beginnings with '' The Ruff & Reddy Show'' from 1957 to 1965, and again from 1972 to ...

Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator and cartoonist, best known as the co-founder of the animation studio Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian Americans, Italian immigrants in New York City, Bar ...

and

William Hanna William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator, voice actor, and musician who is best known for co-creating ''Tom and Jerry'' and providing the vocal effects for the series' title characters. Alongside Joseph B ...

, it is one of the most popular and best known of all theme songs, with its catchy lyrics "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones, they're the modern Stone Age family".

Background

The opening and closing credits theme during the first two seasons was called "Rise and Shine", a lively instrumental underscore accompanying Fred on his drive home from work. The tune resembled "The Bugs Bunny Overture (This Is It!)", the theme song of ''

The Bugs Bunny Show ''The Bugs Bunny Show'' is a long-running American animated anthology television series hosted by Bugs Bunny that is mainly composed of theatrical ''Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' cartoons released by Warner Bros. between 1948 and 196 ...

'', also airing on ABC at the time, which may have been why it was changed in the third season. Before being adopted as the TV theme, "Meet the Flintstones" was released on the

Golden Records Golden Records was a record label based in New York City. It was conceived and founded in 1948 by the Grammy Award-winning children's music producer Arthur Shimkin, then a new recruit in the S&S business department. Shimkin went on to found S ...

78 rpm children's record release ''Songs of the Flintstones'' (Golden R680, 1961), as the A-side to a version of "Rise and Shine" with lyrics. It includes verses related to Barney and Betty Rubble and to Dino that are not heard in the later TV version. The melody of "Meet the Flintstones" can also be heard as incidental music in some episodes of the first two seasons. Starting in Season 3, Episode 3 ("Barney the Invisible"), "Meet the Flintstones" became the opening and closing credits theme. This version was recorded by a 22-piece

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

conducted by Curtin and performed by the

Randy Van Horne Harry Randell Van Horne Jr. (February 10, 1924 – September 26, 2007) was an American singer and musician. Van Horne's musical group, the Randy Van Horne Singers, performed the theme songs for many classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons including ''Th ...

Singers. The melody is believed to have been inspired from part of the B section of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17 (The "Tempest"). The "Meet the Flintstones" opening was later added to the first two seasons for syndication, with "Rise and Shine" restored when the series was rereleased to syndication and, later, home video in the 1990s. The musical underscores were also credited to Curtin for the show's first five seasons;

Ted Nichols Theodore Nicholas Sflotsos (born October 2, 1928), known professionally as Ted Nichols, is an American composer, conductor, arranger, educator, and minister of music. He is best known for his work at Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1963 to 1972, ...

took over in 1965 for the final season. During the show's final season, "

Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In) "Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)" (sometimes seen as "And Let the Sun Shine In") is a popular song written by Stuart Hamblen and first published in 1954. The original version was by the Cowboy Church Sunday School and was a hit in ...

", performed by Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm in a clip from that season's first episode, was used as alternate close music.

Popularity

In 2010, a PRS for Music survey of 2,000 adults in the UK found that the "Meet the Flintstones" theme tune was the most recognised children's TV theme, ahead of those for ''

Top Cat ''Top Cat'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and originally broadcast in prime time on the ABC network. It aired in a weekly evening time slot from September 27, 1961, to April 18, 1962, for a single season ...

'' and ''

Postman Pat ''Postman Pat'' is a British stop motion animated television series, animated children's television series first produced by Woodland Animations. The series follows the adventures of Pat Clifton, a Mail carrier, postman who works for the Royal ...

''.

Use in Jazz

Recorded in

E-flat major E-flat major is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has three flats. Its relative minor is C minor, and its parallel minor is E minor, (or enharmonically D minor). The E-fla ...

, "Meet the Flintstones" is a

contrafact A contrafact is a musical work based on a prior work. The term comes from classical music and has only since the 1940s been applied to jazz, where it is still not standard. In classical music, contrafacts have been used as early as the parody m ...

of the

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive List ...

“I Got Rhythm”, as it conforms to the structure known as

rhythm changes The Rhythm changes is a common 32-Bar (music), bar jazz chord progression derived from George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm". The progression is in Thirty-two-bar form, AABA form, with each A section based on repetitions of the ubiquitous I–vi–ii� ...

, a well-known and popular chord structure in jazz composition. “Meet the Flinstones” may be played as a stand-alone jazz piece, or its melody may be used briefly as a jazz quote over the many other more traditional jazz standards that are also contrafacts using rhythm changes. The song or quote may be played to amuse audiences, in what is known as "jazz humor". The International Association of Jazz Record Collectors calls it "campy" and "cheek by jowl". Rhythm changes and its contrafacts are often performed at an exhilarating pace, which is technically challenging for some. The song has been recorded by

Barry Harris Barry Doyle Harris (December 15, 1929 – December 8, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. He was an exponent of the bebop style. Influenced by Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, Harris in turn influenc ...

on his album ''

Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twelve ''Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twelve'' is an album of solo performances by jazz pianist Barry Harris, recorded in 1990. Music and recording The album was recorded in March 1990 at the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California. The per ...

'' included in a medley with "

It Never Entered My Mind "It Never Entered My Mind" is a show tune from the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical '' Higher and Higher'', where it was introduced by Shirley Ross. Notable recordings *Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, ...

" and "

I Love Lucy ''I Love Lucy'' is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian ...

". In 2015,

The Brian Setzer Orchestra The Brian Setzer Orchestra (sometimes known by its initials BSO) is a swing music, swing and jump blues band formed in 1992 by Stray Cats frontman Brian Setzer.Partridge, Kenneth (2021)Hell of a Hat The Rise of ’90s Ska and Swing Penn State U ...

recorded a version with Christmas-themed lyrics, "Yabba-Dabba-Yuletide", on its Christmas album ''

Rockin’ Rudolph ''Rockin' Rudolph'' is the third Christmas album by The Brian Setzer Orchestra, released on October 16, 2015, through Surfdog Records. Produced by Peter Collins, it is the band's first Christmas album in ten years and their most recent album to ...

''. The song was featured in the

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

Full House ''Full House'' is an American television sitcom created by Jeff Franklin for American Broadcasting Company, ABC. The show is about the recently widowed father Danny Tanner who enlists his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis and childhood best friend ...

'' and its successor '' Fuller House''.

The BC-52's cover

"(Meet) The Flintstones" was covered by American new wave band

the B-52's The B-52s, originally presented as the B-52's (with an errant apostrophe; used until 2008), are an American band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original lineup consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, k ...

as "the B.C. 52's", a fictional band from the 1994 film ''

'', with an additional verse added. The song was released by

MCA Records MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc. established in 1972, though MCA had released recordings under that name in the UK from the 1960s. The label achieved success in the 1970s through the 1980s, often by acquiring other ...

as a single from the movie's soundtrack, peaking at number 33 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It was the band's joint highest entry on the ''Billboard''

Hot Dance Club Play The Dance Club Songs (also known as National Disco Action, Hot Dance/Disco Club Play, and Hot Dance Club Play) was a chart published weekly between 1976 and 2020 by ''Billboard'' magazine. It used club disc jockeys set lists to determine the mos ...

chart at number three, tying with "

Summer of Love The Summer of Love was a major social phenomenon that occurred in San Francisco during the summer of 1967. As many as 100,000 people, mostly young people, hippies, beatniks, and 1960s counterculture figures, converged in San Francisco's Haig ...

" from 1986. The song was also the band's second-highest-charting single in the UK. (the highest being "

Love Shack "Love Shack" is a song by American new wave band the B-52's from their fifth studio album, ''Cosmic Thing'' (1989). It was released on June 20, 1989, and was produced by Don Was. The song was a comeback for the band, following their decline in ...

" at number two), also peaking at number three. Its accompanying music video, directed by

Brian Levant Brian Michael Levant (born August 6, 1952) is an American filmmaker. Early life and career Born in Highland Park, Illinois to a Jewish family, Levant started his career in 1976 as a writer for the TV series ''Happy Days''. He also wrote for, ...

, received

heavy rotation In broadcasting, rotation is the repeated airing of a limited playlist of songs on a radio station or satellite radio channel, or music videos on a TV network. They are usually in a different order each time. However, they are not completely sh ...

on music television channels such as

MTV Europe MTV Global (formerly MTV Europe) is the international version of the American TV channel MTV as 24-hour music video and entertainment pay television network officially launched on 1 August 1987 as part of the worldwide MTV network. Initia ...

and Germany's

VIVA Viva may refer to: Companies and organisations * Viva (network operator), a Dominican mobile network operator * Viva Energy, an Australian petroleum company * Viva Entertainment, a Philippine media company * Viva Films, a Philippine film company ...

Critical reception

Larry Flick Larry Flick is an American journalist, former dance music columnist, single reviewer, and Senior Talent Editor for ''Billboard'' magazine, where he worked for 14 years. Now he produces and hosts Sirius XM radio shows. Flick started in the musi ...

wrote in ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' magazine, "That's actually enduring kitsch

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

act

The B-52's The B-52s, originally presented as the B-52's (with an errant apostrophe; used until 2008), are an American band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original lineup consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, k ...

having a field day with the theme from the classic animated series. Lifted and revamped from the soundtrack to the upcoming movie, the track pushes an insistent tribal beat, topped with snatches of

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

music and vocal loops. Props to remixer

Junior Vasquez Junior Vasquez (born Donald Gregory Mattern; August 24, 1949) is an American DJ, record producer and remixer. He has been referred to as one of the only DJs of his time to gain international attention. Career Mattern moved to New York City a ...

for a valiant effort. He handles the task of turning a novelty tune into hip jam with agility. Still, the whole thing is so weird that punters may stand and listen before they begin to twirl." Dave Sholin from the ''

Gavin Report The ''Gavin Report'' was a San Francisco-based radio industry trade publication. The publication was founded by radio performer Bill Gavin in 1958. Its Top 40 listings were used for many years by programmers to decide content of programs. The ...

'' concluded, "Only someone who's been hiding in a cave or living under bedrock for the past year wouldn't know about this cartoon come-to-life. Who better than this fun-loving trio to put a '90s spin on this well-known theme." Pan-European magazine ''

Music & Media ''Music & Media'' was a pan-European magazine for radio, music and entertainment. It was published for the first time in 1984 as ''Eurotipsheet'', but in 1986 it changed name to ''Music & Media''. It was originally based in Amsterdam, but later m ...

'' commented, "Yabba Dabba Doo! Temporarily renamed BC-52's,

Fred Schneider Frederick William Schneider III (born July 1, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter and frontman of the rock band the B-52s, of which he is a founding member. Schneider is well known for his '' sprechgesang'', which he developed from reciting ...

and

Kate Pierson Catherine Elizabeth Pierson (born April 27, 1948) is an American singer, lyricist, and founding member of the B-52s. She plays guitar, bass and various keyboard instruments. In the early years, as well as being a vocalist, Pierson was the main ...

make a credible

Fred Fred or FRED may refer to: People * Fred (name), including a list of people and characters with the name Mononym * Fred (cartoonist) (1931–2013), pen name of Fred Othon Aristidès, French * Fred (footballer, born 1949) (1949–2022), Fred ...

and Wilma on this 'remake of the cartoon's classic theme song." Alan Jones of ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...

'' wrote, "''The Flintstones'' movie spins off its first single, a quirky remake of the familiar theme tune by the barely incognito B52's. Great fun, in both its succinct pop edit and a stomping

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air c ...

remix."

David Quantick David Quantick (born 14 May 1961) is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former freelance writer for the music magazine ''NME'', his writing credits have included '' On the Hour'', ' ...

from ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' named it "a fine single". He added, "It gets off to a corking start and then hangs around waiting from some kind of melodic bus. This turns up and then things get going again. Next there is a spectacularly stupid bit and it ends. ..But for now "Meet the Flintstones" is a classic of leopardskin good nature-style poperama." Emma Cochrane from ''

Smash Hits ''Smash Hits'' was a British music magazine aimed at young adults, originally published by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006, and, after initially appearing monthly, was issued fortnightly during most of that time. The name survived as a brand ...

'' gave it a score of three out of five, saying, "This lacks anything resembling tastefulness yet it's so happy you can't help liking it."

Music video

The accompanying music video for "Meet the Flintstones" was directed by American filmmaker

, and produced by

Bruce Cohen Bruce L. Cohen (born September 23, 1961) is a film, television, and theater producer. He is best known for producing the films '' American Beauty'', ''Milk'', and ''Silver Linings Playbook''. ''American Beauty'' won the Academy Award for Best P ...

and Tom Lowe. Levant also directed the ''

'' film. The video received

and was A-listed on Germany's

in August 1994.

Track listings

* 7-inch single # (Meet) The Flintstones (original LP version) (Fred's edit) – 2:24 # (Meet) The Flintstones (Barney's edit) – 2:28 * 12-inch maxi # (Meet) The Flintstones (Space Cowboy mix 1) – 6:55 # (Meet) The Flintstones (Space Cowboy mix 2) – 6:55 # (Meet) The Flintstones (instrumental) – 6:55

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

Jacob Collier and other covers

On May 1, 2016,

Jacob Collier Jacob Collier (born 2 August 1994) is a British singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and educator. His music incorporates a combination of jazz and elements from other musical genres, and often features extensive use of reharmo ...

released a multitrack vocal jazz version of the song as the second single from his debut album ''

In My Room "In My Room" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Gary Usher for the American rock band the Beach Boys. It was released on their 1963 album '' Surfer Girl''. It was also released as the B-side of the " Be True to Your School" single. The singl ...

''. He won the

Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals The Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as t ...

for the cover at the

59th Annual Grammy Awards The 59th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 12, 2017. The CBS network broadcast the show live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year ...

. The song is also a running gag on the

musical parody Parody music, or musical parody, involves changing or copying existing (usually well known) musical ideas, and/or lyrics, or copying the particular style of a composer or performer, or even a general style of music. In music, parody has been us ...

YouTube channel YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San B ...

SiIvaGunner SiIvaGunner (), formerly GiIvaSunner (), is a comedy music, comedic musical collective based mostly around bait-and-switch YouTube videos claiming to be "high quality Ripping, rips" of video game music that are in reality remixes, Parody music, ...

, where it is frequently incorporated into

bait-and-switch Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, the merchant "baits" the customer by advertising a product or service at a low price; then when the customer goes to purchase the item, they disco ...

videos claiming to be "high quality rips" of

video game music Video game music (VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to t ...

produced by the group.

References

External links

"(Meet) The Flintstones"
Arrangement for jazz guitar {{authority control The Flintstones 1960 songs 1960s jazz standards 1994 singles American jazz songs Animated series theme songs Children's television theme songs Comedy television theme songs Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals Jazz compositions in E-flat major MCA Records singles Songs about fictional characters Songs about families The B-52's songs