The Flintstones
The Flintstones

―Fred Flintstone

Frederick J. "Fred" Flintstone, once known as Fred W. Flintstone, is the protagonist of the original series, The Flintstones and the rest of the franchise.


Fred is the handsome husband of Wilma, father of Pebbles and best friend of Barney Rubble, who lives at his house in Bedrock, at 345 Cave Stone Road (in some episodes, 1313 Cobblestone Way or 222 Rocky Way).



Fred and Barney in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.


Due to his impulsive, bellicose, childish, insane and ill-tempered behavior and obstinate and naive nature, Fred Flintstone seems to be accident-prone. He is able to create the biggest bewilderment, even with the most innocent and mundane action.

Fred is mainly a kind-hearted and selfless man, although he gets mad and aggravated quite a lot, usually when his immature friend Barney pesters and bugs Fred, or even laughs at him by going. Other than that, Fred can have other emotions too. His laugh is "Ho, heh, he, he, he, he". He starts crying in some episodes, like "The Babysitters", when Barney tears up the tickets, in "Dino Disappears", when Dino runs away, and "The House That Fred Built", when Fred discovers that 1,000 bucks down the drain wasn't funny anymore.

Positive Qualities


Although Fred often bugs Wilma with his childish behavior, he proves to be a very caring and loving husband and father. Flintstone is even known to go to great lengths to please his family or owe somebody an apology when he goes too far.

Fred is devoted to his daughter and cares for her more than Wilma herself in addition. He’s fatherly and can be overprotective with her at times though.

Physical Appearance

Fred is a chubby but handsome caveman with fair skin, tan beard stubbles, black hair, thick black eyebrows and a large nose. He wears a raggedy, a deep sky blue or an aqua teal-green necktie and a short-sleeved orange and black-spotted loin cloth with a torn hemline.

Occupations and Interests


Water Buffaloes

Fred, like Barney, was also a member of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos Lodge (named "the Loyal Order of Dinosaurs" in three episodes), and both Fred and Barney were rather popular with the other members and even had some degree of influence over the Lodge's events, with Fred briefly even becoming Grand Poohbah on one occasion.

Bowling and other sports








Military Service

Several episodes suggest that Fred, along with Barney, spent some time in the army early in their marriages, though said references may be to Fred and Barney's military service in the episode "The Astra' Nuts" which was very short lived and ended with them being unsuccessfully launched to the moon. However other episodes such as "The Mailman Cometh" suggest that Fred was a sergeant in the army and that he only had a desk job involving paper clip injuries (which could conceivably have taken place during "The Astra' Nuts"), while episodes that took place before "The Astra Nuts" such as "The Big Bank Robbery" have Fred reveal that he wasn't in the army and learned all his army experience from watching war movies on the Late, Late Show. Fred would later be briefly forced into recruitment back into the army in the episode "Army Dazed" and his last instance of military service was in the 1978 comic "Fred the Barbarian" where he served in the Barbarian Corps against his will, however like in "The Astra' Nuts", he is able to leave the service after the misunderstanding is revealed.


Fred inventing a new soft drink in his garage turned laboratory.







Fred as a newborn.

Fred and Barney as babies from an old photo from "Feudin' and Fussin'".

Not much of Fred's life growing up is known, and while the mid-1980s spin-off series The Flintstone Kids depicts Fred as a child, the series seems to be mostly apocryphal. In most media, Fred was born to two loving parents, Edna Hardrock, a very affectionate mother who loved taking pictures of him on a bear rug as a baby and making him seaweed fricassee and Ed Flintstone, a playful father who loved spending time with his son and playing with his son's toys. Fred has known Barney since infancy, with them even being taken on strolls together as babies they were even on the same sports teams together back in their high school days, all the while getting into all sorts of shenanigans even back then.

Fred with Wilma, Betty and Barney seeing a movie in the Cinderama on their first date.

Fred and Barney would first meet their future wives Wilma and Betty at the Honeyrock Hotel sixteen years prior to the episode "Bachelor Daze" (although "Fred Strikes Out" implies they may have met before then, possibly having lost track of each other after childhood or simply the result of a retcon). There Fred and Barney had just started working as bellboys and it was also the day when Fred had received his first razor blade from his father. One day they were goofing off and pretending to be millionaires in a fancy car they were watching when they first met Wilma and Betty (who also worked at the hotel as maids) who were also goofing off and pretending to be rich girls while hanging out in a fancy car that wasn't theirs.

It was essentially love at first sight for the youths, but both parties were too afraid to pursue their relationships further out of fear that they would be exposed as lowly hotel workers. In the end though, the truth was revealed at the hotel party that night and both parties were greatly relieved to find out they weren't rich, and after being fired for goofing off, they were picked up and taken home by Wilma's mother, Pearl Slaghoople who was less than pleased with her daughter's new boyfriend, Fred, as Fred and her had briefly met at the hotel and got off to a very rocky start which would unsure Fred a very unhappy relationship with his future mother-in-law. Their exact age during this time is unknown other than being teenagers, but Fred eventually started going to the same high school as Wilma around this time and took her to the prom.

Fred and Barney about to be launched in a rocket as part of their mistaken military duty.

Fred proposed to Wilma and married her several years after their first meeting, presumably after high school which Fred dropped out from, with Barney and Betty presumably following shortly after according to "Bachelor Daze" (although how many years they've been together is uncertain, with them being married around thirteen, eleven, ten or eight years, or even less depending on the episode or media). Fred's wedding day proved to be a hectic one when his mother-in-law threw him out of the house after he made a crude comment about her hat, forcing Fred and Wilma to elope and get married in Rock Vegas. They would then spend their honey moon touring across the country and visiting every race track they could find, where Fred gave into his gambling fever over and over, winning big at the Hialeah Race Track but then losing all of his winnings at the Hollyrock Park Race Track. Wilma then had Fred "cured" of his gambling addiction by betting against him in a Poker game and winning, forcing Fred to go see a psychiatrist after losing (as explained by Wilma in "The Gambler"). Fred and Wilma then moved from Arkanstone to the town of Bedrock and it would remain their home ever since.

After marriage and moving into Bedrock, Fred got a job at Slate Rock and Gravel Company years prior to the episode, "The Missing Bus", where he would begrudgingly remain from then on (although how many years he's worked there varies between media, but usually around ten years or less). With their new home and jobs in place, Fred and Barney would spend most of their lives going through many shenanigans and trials, while Fred also tried to balance out his married life, often trying to avoid Wilma's scrutiny or trying to keep her pleased while also getting his needs met. Fred's job would be even more troublesome, as Fred was constantly getting fired and re-hired by his disgruntled and hot-tempered boss Mr. Slate, and although Fred was often able to get a raise, a bonus, or even a promotion to foreman, it would usually become undone eventually due to his own failings or Mr. Slate's own foul disposition.

The most eventful day of Fred and Wilma's lives after marriage came on the day that Wilma announced to Fred that she would be having a baby, much to Fred's unparalleled joy. For the next 9 months, Fred would spend every waking moment preparing for the arrival of his baby, buying all manner of toys and doing all he could to make as much money as possible and raise the standard of living for his family. He even attempted to hire housekeepers and nursemaids to help Wilma which met with very mixed success, especially due to constant interference by his mother-in-law Pearl, who briefly stayed with the Flintstones during this time to help her daughter and to also make Fred's life a constant nightmare.

In the end though, it would all pay off on the eventful day when Wilma finally gave birth to their newborn baby daughter, a day that Fred would never forget, for it was just as hectic as it was a blessing. The couple would then name their daughter Pebbles Flintstone after Fred and Barney remarked that she was a "pebble off the old Flintstone" rather than a "chip off the old block".

Fred and Barney meet The Great Gazoo.

Fred's life from there continued to be a hectic one with many more shenanigans alongside Barney while also knowing the joys of fatherhood and getting to see his best friend Barney also become a father after the unexpected delivery of his adopted son Bamm-Bamm Rubble. Fred and Barney would get to go on even more fantastic adventures after meeting the mysterious alien known as The Great Gazoo, and although their time together was short, it would prove to be a very troubling but exciting time for everyone.

From then on Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty would still be inseparable as the years rolled by, and Fred's tiring occupation would become more bearable when his best friend Barney finally joined him at his workplace. Their greatest joy though was watching their children grow up to become teenagers and a lovely couple, who would fittingly enough become much like their parents, with Pebbles often acting as the scheming and adventurous planner, much like her father before her and much to her father's mixed feelings, while Bamm-Bamm would act as the unwilling but loyal sidekick in all her schemes, much like his father before him and much to his father's amusement.

Eventually, Fred and Barney decided to pursue a new career path for themselves by joining the Bedrock Police as part-time officers. It was there that Fred and Barney would first meet the mysterious Shmoo, who proved to be a loving and faithful police partner and pet to the duo both on and off duty, with the creature even briefly living with Fred.

Many more years passed and now the Flintstones' and the Rubbles' children had grown to adulthood with the lives of their own, with Fred's daughter Pebbles becoming an ambitious secretary at the Pyrite Advertising Agency. However, the Flintstones and the Rubbles would receive some life changing news that when Bamm-Bamm announced that he and Pebbles had finally become engaged, a union which would finally seal the Flintstones and the Rubbles together as family forever more.



Young Fred with his own parents, Ed and Edna Flintstone.


What is known is that Fred was the grandson of famed Stone War I hero Rockbottom "Rocky" Flintstone. Fred also had a good relationship with his father, sharing his toys with him as a child and even receiving his first razor from him.

The Flintstone family came from "Arkanstone" where they had been engaged in a feud with the "Hatrock" family which had been caused by an ancestor of Fred's making a wisecrack of a Hatrock family portrait ("I don't know what the artist got for doing that painting but he should have gotten life"). In "The Bedrock Hillbillies", the feud ended when Fred helped rescue Slab (and Pebbles) from going over a waterfall only to start up again when Fred made the very same wisecrack.


Love Interests




Television shows

Films and specials

Video games



Television shows, films and specials



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  • According to Arnold in the episode "Wilma's Vanishing Money", Fred's clothes are actually made from goatasaurus fur.
  • Fred mainly used four bronto-cranes while on duty at the quarry which were named Mildred, Hugo, Rocky, and Lulu Belle. With Lulu Belle being his most frequently used bronto-crane in both the show and other media such as comics.
  • Fred appeared as a supporting character in the 1995 series, Johnny Bravo, in the 2004 episode "A Page Right Out of History".
  • A more primitive and hostile but non-canon version of Fred appeared in the 2000 series, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, in the 2006 episode "Modern Primitives" as an unfrozen caveman that went on a rampage. Aside from being Fred's last supporting role in a Cartoon Network show, 2006 would also be the year that Joseph Barbera passed away.

See also