Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are growing up together, and Fred and Barney repeatedly turn their children’s milestones into competitions. Fred organizes Pebbles’s first birthday and a Water Buffalo Lodge party at the same time, with the caterer sending the wrong entertainment to each gathering. When the lodge holds a beautiful-baby contest, the parents’ pride turns into a quarrel that the children themselves do not share. A rodeo visit brings another bout of Fred’s jealousy: Pebbles is impressed by Wilma’s former boyfriend, so Fred enters the competition himself to win her attention back. Meanwhile, Hoppy, the Rubbles’ new pet, irritates Fred until the animal helps the families out of danger at a picnic.
The Flintstones also get new neighbors when the unusual Gruesome family moves into Tombstone Manor. Fred and Wilma try to be civil, and Fred and Barney discover that watching the Gruesomes’ young Gobby can be a startling experience. The neighbors return when the Hatrocks, a feuding hillbilly family known to Fred, overstay their welcome; Fred tries sending them to the Gruesomes, then finds another way to make the visit unbearable for them. Around these family and neighborhood stories, Fred pursues a string of short-lived ventures: a reducing drink shrinks him, he takes on a movie role as Hercurock, and the Flintstones and Rubbles travel through historical periods at the World’s Fair. These episodes leave the households in place for more Bedrock mishaps.