The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone – review

Director: Ray Patterson

First aired: 1979

Contains spoilers


The Flintstones was one of the first adult aimed syndicated cartoons. In a way it feels as though this had more of an awareness of the child following the show had gathered but, in truth, it is probably that expectations have changed over the years. This special was released on VHS but not (at time of review) on DVD – though it still airs on Boomerang, from time to time.

The show starts with Fred (Henry Corden) and Wilma (Jean Vander Pyl) getting ready to go out – in fancy dress. Fred is, essentially, a prehistoric chicken, and Wilma a rabbit. They are aiming to go to the TV show Deal or Don’t, with Monty Marble (Casey Kasem), where contestants are chosen by costume. Barney (Mel Blanc) is dressed as a daisy and Betty (Gay Autterson) is a bumble bee.

The first contestant chosen is Barney, he is given $1000 and asked whether he will trade it for what is behind the curtain. He doesn’t, to Fred’s disgust. Fred is then given the same opportunity and choice… he is about to keep the money but, having been called a chicken, takes the curtain. He has won an all expenses trip to Rocksylvania and the grand opening of the tourist hotel. Barney is offered the same prize and accepts.

They arrive and are met at the station by Igor (Don Messick) who drives them to the hotel. There is the sound of wolves but Igor assures them there are no wolves only werewolves – the one thing that Count Rockula (John Stephenson) was scared of. To protect himself he built a Frankenstone Monster (Ted Cassidy) – hereafter referred to as Frankenstone as that is what the cartoon called him. Rockula vanished 500 years ago.

The party at the hotel is a costume party and their costumes have been provided, Fred and Wilma are Count and Countess Rockula, and Barney and Betty are Frankenstone and the Bride of Frankenstone. The boys end up in Rockula’s laboratory at one point and see the real Frankenstone – though Fred believes it to be part of the hotel’s theme. Unusually, the awakening of the monsters is not down to Fred and Barney.

A lightening bolt awakens Frankenstone and he wakes the Count up – 400 years later than he should have done. Of course the Count is less than happy with party revellers in his castle and scares everyone away. Everyone, that is, except the Flintstones and Rubbles as they went to bed early.

Now the show does owe a little to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet Frankenstein - though in gags and not in storyline. Actually the inclusion of a mummy gag has more to do with the Monstrous Monkee Mash. It would have been very easy for the writer to go down a borrow a brain for the monster line – honestly either Fred or Barney would have done!

However the crux of the story is that Wilma actually looks like the Countess. There is a moment of mistaken identity but that is quickly sorted out. Instead the Count decides she will be his new bride and, given that even in Rocksylvania it is illegal to marry a woman already married, she needs to be a widow.

Lore wise we don’t get too much. There is reference to a werewolf/vampire divide – though as I mentioned it is the vampire fearing the werewolf. Rockula can turn into a bat (and this is achieved with quite a pyrotechnic effect). He must be in his coffin during the daylight hours (thus a rooster impersonator can be a boon in evading vampires!). That’s about it.

Of course, there is how the vampire is defeated but… well I won’t overly spoil that for you but it is less a vampiric issue and more a battle of the sexes! This is fun, but is vampire-lite as it were. I think the cartoon treads the line between adult and children’s entertainment badly and it falls, now, definitively on the children’s entertainment side. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I don’t think it was designed as that. 6 out of 10 as a kid’s cartoon.

The imdb page is here.