50th Anniversary of The Flintstones: Halloween Episodes and Specials

If the Google doodle for today wasn't a clear indication, today marks the 50th Anniversary of The Flintstones!  That's right, September 30, 1960 the Hanna-Barbera animated version of The Honeymooners debuted.  And 50 years later, America is still singing the theme song...

So in a feat of last second thinking, I've decided to do a post on the various Halloween episodes, specials and tie-ins that The Flintstones have had over the years.

The ACTUAL Flintstones Halloween special was called The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone.  It debuted on NBC on October 30, 1980 and the plot revolved around The Flintstones winning a trip on a game show to Rocksylvania.  While there, Fred and Barney accidentally cause Frankenstone to come to life and then are chased all over the place by the monster.  Meanwhile Rockula mistakes Wilma for his long lost love and pursues her to get her to marry him.  It all wraps up in 45 minutes and The Flintstones live happily ever after.  Oops--- spoiler alert.

As a Halloween special it meets some of my "What Makes a Halloween Special?" criteria namely:  it debuted on or near October 31st, it features monsters, costumes and a dark and scary castle... but alas... no jack o' lanterns.  (Even if they didn't have pumpkins in prehistoric times, I thought for sure I'd see Wilma using a pterodactyl beak to carve triangle eye holes in a boulder or something.  The she'd set the crooked-beaked bird down and he'd look at the camera and say "I sure am glad that Halloween only comes once a year."  Then the canned laughter would kick in.  Man, I should have been a Flintstones writer...)
The special overall feels like a cross between The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo minus an unmasking and "I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you damn kids"-moment.

Unfortunately, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone is NOT available on DVD or digital download yet.  There are old VHS copies available on Amazon or some industrious souls have made some nice DVD-R versions for sale on eBay.  You can also poke around the internet and catch it at various times on YouTube or Rapidshare like HERE. 

The Flintstones also delved into other scary and monster-themed territory through regular episodes of the show.  Season 5 really amped-up the monster-themed episodes.  For instance, due to the popularity of The Munsters on TV, Hanna-Barbera introduced some neighbors to the Flintstones called The Gruesomes.  They were sorta The Addams Family by way of Captain Caveman and a sprinkle of Sigmund the Sea Monster.
I'm... I'm dating myself aren't I?
There were two episodes that featured The Gruesomes:  "The Gruesomes" and "Hatrocks and Gruesomes" both of which appeared in Season 5 and are available on the The Flintstones Season 5 DVD set (Amazon link below).

Season 5 also featured the episode "Monster Fred" (Fred gets hit on the head --that ol' chestnut-- and acts like a child and Wilma hires a mad scientist to put his brain back with electric shock causing Fred to become Dino, then Barney).  And spoofing The House on Haunted Hill, The Flintstones did an episode titled "A Haunted House is Not a Home."  Fred's uncle ("Uncle Giggles"... no relation to Dr. Giggles as far as I know...) dies and leaves his fortune to Fred but in order to claim the money he has to stay a night in his uncle's haunted house.  This episode originally aired on October 29, 1964 so I wonder if, technically, it was the Halloween episode of Season 5?

Season 6 featured a TV-crossover with appearances by stars Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York from Bewitched who move in next door.  And the remotely-related-to-Halloween episodes "The Masquerade Ball" and "The Masquerade Party" (both involve mistaken identity hi jinks at costume parties) appear in Season 2 and Season 6, respectively. 

This is the spot I was going to put a quick homage to Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles Halloween-themed boxes and animated commercials----buuuuuuuuuuut my memory doesn't serve because I can't find any such thing.  From the internet research I've done it looks like Kellogg's and General Mills' cereals embrace Halloween and put out special Halloween-edition boxes of their cereals... but not Post's The Flintstones Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles. 
Lame. 
This whole thing seems anti-climactic now. 
So I guess I'll just close by yelling "BARNEY!  MY PEBBLES!"