This article is about the fictional character from The Flintstones. For the song by The Twang, see Barney Rubble (song)"Barney Rubble" is a song by The Twang. It is the first single from their second album Jewellery Quarter. It was released on July 27, 2009. The song features a sample from Give It Up by The Goodmen....
Barney Rubble, is a
fictional characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
in the television animated series
The FlintstonesThe Flintstones is an animated American television sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 on ABC. The series was the first prime-time animated series aimed at adults. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions , The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next door...
. He is the diminutive blonde-haired
cavemanA caveman or troglodyte is a popular stock character based upon popular concepts of the way in which early prehistoric humans or homininans may have looked and behaved. The archetype of "cavemen" originates with the discovery of Neanderthal remains...
husband of
Betty RubbleElizabeth Betty Rubble is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones and its spin-offs and live-action motion pictures. She is the black-haired wife of caveman Barney Rubble and the adoptive mother of Bamm-Bamm Rubble...
and adoptive father of
Bamm-Bamm RubbleBamm-Bamm Rubble is the adopted son of fictitious characters Barney and Betty Rubble. He is most famous in his infant form on the animated series The Flintstones, but has also appeared at various other ages, including as a teenager on the early 1970s spinoff The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and as...
. His best friends are his next door neighbors,
FredFrederick Joseph "Fred" Flintstone is a fictional character who originated in the animated sitcom The Flintstones on ABC. He is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles Flintstone...
and
Wilma FlintstoneWilma Pebble Slaghoople Flintstone is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones. She was the red-headed wife of caveman Fred Flintstone, daughter of Pearl Slaghoople, mother of Pebbles Flintstone and a grandmother...
.
Barney's personality was based on that of Ed Norton on the 1950s television series
The HoneymoonersThe Honeymooners is a situation comedy television show that was created by Marvin Marx, and shot before a live audience which debuted as a half-hour series on October 1, 1955...
, played by
Art CarneyArthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. Carney portrayed the upstairs neighbor and sewer worker Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners.-Personal life:Carney, youngest of six sons , was...
.
This article is about the fictional character from The Flintstones. For the song by The Twang, see Barney Rubble (song)"Barney Rubble" is a song by The Twang. It is the first single from their second album Jewellery Quarter. It was released on July 27, 2009. The song features a sample from Give It Up by The Goodmen....
Barney Rubble, is a
fictional characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
in the television animated series
The FlintstonesThe Flintstones is an animated American television sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 on ABC. The series was the first prime-time animated series aimed at adults. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions , The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next door...
. He is the diminutive blonde-haired
cavemanA caveman or troglodyte is a popular stock character based upon popular concepts of the way in which early prehistoric humans or homininans may have looked and behaved. The archetype of "cavemen" originates with the discovery of Neanderthal remains...
husband of
Betty RubbleElizabeth Betty Rubble is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones and its spin-offs and live-action motion pictures. She is the black-haired wife of caveman Barney Rubble and the adoptive mother of Bamm-Bamm Rubble...
and adoptive father of
Bamm-Bamm RubbleBamm-Bamm Rubble is the adopted son of fictitious characters Barney and Betty Rubble. He is most famous in his infant form on the animated series The Flintstones, but has also appeared at various other ages, including as a teenager on the early 1970s spinoff The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and as...
. His best friends are his next door neighbors,
FredFrederick Joseph "Fred" Flintstone is a fictional character who originated in the animated sitcom The Flintstones on ABC. He is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles Flintstone...
and
Wilma FlintstoneWilma Pebble Slaghoople Flintstone is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones. She was the red-headed wife of caveman Fred Flintstone, daughter of Pearl Slaghoople, mother of Pebbles Flintstone and a grandmother...
.
Barney's personality was based on that of Ed Norton on the 1950s television series
The HoneymoonersThe Honeymooners is a situation comedy television show that was created by Marvin Marx, and shot before a live audience which debuted as a half-hour series on October 1, 1955...
, played by
Art CarneyArthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. Carney portrayed the upstairs neighbor and sewer worker Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners.-Personal life:Carney, youngest of six sons , was...
. As such, Barney tended to be much more jovial-minded and easygoing than his friend Fred, who was slightly smarter than Barney in some matters and slightly dimmer than him in others. Like Ralph Kramden on
The Honeymooners, Fred was constantly on the lookout for get-rich-quick schemes, while Barney, like Norton, found life satisfactory as it was but participated in said schemes because Fred was his friend. Usually after Fred had hatched one of his plans, Rubble would usually show his agreement by laughing dumbly and saying "er huh huh.. ok Fred!" or "huh huh huh... whatever you say Fred!"
Barney's interests included
bowling Bowling is a Sport in which players attempt to score points by rolling a bowling ball along a flat surface either into objects called pins or to get close to a target ball. There are many forms of bowling, with one of the most recent being ten-pin bowling and the earliest dating back to ancient...
, playing
poolCue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
,
pokerPoker is a sport from the family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bets and how many rounds of betting are allowed...
, tinkering around in Fred's garage and playing
golfGolf is a precision club-and-ball sport, in which competing players , using many types of clubs, attempt to hit balls into each hole on a golf course while employing the fewest number of strokes. Golf is one of the few ball games that does not require a standardized playing area...
, though there were episodes where Barney did not know how to play golf. He, like Fred, was also a member of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos lodge and its predecessor in earlier episodes, the Loyal Order of Dinosaurs. He is also a talented
pianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers....
and
drummerA drummer is a person who plays drums, particularly a drum kit , marching percussion or hand drums. The term percussionist applies to a musician performing on any percussion instrument, but usually refers to one who plays classical or Latin percussion. Most bands for Rock, Pop, Jazz, R&B etc...
. In the first episode of the original series he was an inventor of a hand-powered helicopter. Though clearly depicted as being in better shape than Fred, he isn't shown to be quite as enthusiastic sportsman as Fred is. This distinction can be attributed to Fred's fondness of food, though Barney is shown to be at least as capable of excessive appetite on a number of occasions.
Biography
While the mid-1980s
spinoffA spin-off is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one, such as television series based on a pre-existing one, or a new company formed from a university research group or business incubator...
series
The Flintstone Kids depicts Barney as a child, the series seems to be mostly
apocryphaApocrypha comes from the Greek word , which means those having been hidden away. The general term is usually applied to the books that were considered by the Church as useful, but not divinely inspired...
l due to its presenting Barney as a childhood friend of Wilma and Betty (vs. the original series' assertion that they first met as young adults). Still, the series' assertions that Barney had at least one younger brother, Dusty, was a childhood friend of Fred, and was the son of
artistThe definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. the worlds best artist is a man named mitchell peter lay who is often loved by the ladies. The common useage in both everyday speech and...
Flo Slate Rubble and car dealer Robert "Honest Bob" Rubble might be taken as valid. The original series also suggested in one episode that Barney was the nephew of Fred's boss, Mr. Slate, though subsequent episodes and spinoffs don't seem to support this claim. As a kid Barney worked in "Rock City". Both Barney and Fred worked as Bellboys in a Hotel where they meet Wilma and Betty who were working as cigarette Girls
As young adults, Barney and Fred worked as
bellhopA bellhop, also bellboy or bellman, is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out.Bellhops often wear a uniform , like certain other page boys or doormen....
s at a resort, where they first met Wilma and Betty. Eventually, Barney married Betty (as Fred did Wilma).
Several episodes and spinoffs suggest that Barney, along with Fred, spent some time in the army early in their marriages.
While the subject of Barney's occupation (or even if he had one) was never given during the original series, subsequent spinoffs suggest Barney went to work at the Slate Rock and Gravel Company
quarryA quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel...
alongside Fred at some point after the original series; possibly in some office role. An episode of the original series does have a brief scene of Barney working at the Granite Building. When speaking to an upper-crust snob in another episode, Betty declares Barney is in "top-secret" work; but that might have been a cover for a low-level job or unemployment, or perhaps an in-joke meaning that Barney's job was unknown even to the show's writers. It could also be possible that both Fred and Barney work at the quarry, but may work in different sections of it, under different bosses. In one episode, Barney's boss tells him to "put down his broom," which implies some sort of janitorial works is involved. In a majority of spin-offs and movies, Barney has been portrayed as working in the quarry as a dino-crane operator, alongside Fred.
Around the fourth season of the original series, Betty and Barney found an abandoned infant on their doorstep, by the name of "Bamm-Bamm." A court battle ensued between the couple and a wealthy man who also had wanted to adopt Bamm-Bamm. Barney and Betty were successful in their efforts to adopt Bamm-Bamm because the wealthy man gave up (after winning the case) upon learning his wife became pregnant, after which he became a staple character on the series. For a number of episodes after Bamm-Bamm's debut, there is no sign of him on the show. In the fifth season, the family buys a pet hopparoo (a combination of a kangaroo and dinosaur) named
HoppyHoppy is a fictional character on the The Flintstones television series. Hoppy is a pet hopparoo owned by the Rubble family. Hoppy debuts in the fifth season episode Hop Happy .-Character history:...
.
After Bamm-Bamm became a teenager, Barney joined the police force with Fred. Both characters were paired with the
ShmooA shmoo is a fictional cartoon creature. Created by Al Capp , they first appeared in his classic comic strip Li'l Abner on August 31, 1948, and quickly became a postwar national craze in the USA....
from
Li'l AbnerLi'l Abner was a satirical American comic strip appearing in many newspapers in the United States and Canada, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through November...
. He later became grandfather to Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm's children, Chip and Roxy.
Although he was friends with Fred, even he (Barney) lost his patience with him sometimes. The best example comes in
I Yabba-Dabba Do!I Yabba-Dabba Do! is a made-for-TV animated movie based on the original series, The Flintstones and its spinoff, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show...
: after losing his patience with Fred for ruining Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm's wedding, he decided to leave Bedrock. He changed his mind after Fred apologised.
In several of the original episodes of the series, Barney can be seen with his eyes depicted as two ovals or (occasionally) circles shown only as dark circular outlines. Other episodes show his eyes as being completely filled in with black, very similar to Wilma's eyes. However, there was only one occasion where he was seen with whites in his eyes, in the episode "A Haunted House Is Not A Home". This briefly took place when Barney is seen gargling in the bathroom. Fred, disturbed by this noise, walks into the bathroom where he bonks Barney on the head, and we can see the whites in Barney's eyes.
Marriage
Unlike Fred, Barney has never been shown with any woman aside from his wife. However, an exception for this is made in
The Flintstones in Viva Rock VegasThe Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is a 2000 motion picture and prequel to the 1994 film based on the Hanna-Barbera animated classic, The Flintstones, produced by Amblin Entertainment, Hanna-Barbera Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures....
when he is invited to go to a buffet with Roxy, though he is not married to Betty at this point, but they are dating. Betty sees Barney wiping cream off Roxy after he accidentally knocks a cake onto her. Betty is hurt, mistakenly believing this to be an intimate gesture. Another exception is made in
A Flintstones Christmas Carol when an actress named Maggie appears and every man at the Quarry, including Barney, is surprised over her beauty.
Portrayal
Mel BlancMelvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
was the principal voice of Barney Rubble, although
Daws ButlerDaws Butler was a voice actor born in Toledo, Ohio. He originated the voices of many famous animated cartoon characters, including Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, and Huckleberry Hound.Daws Butler trained many working actors including Nancy Cartwright and Joe Bevilacqua...
(who previously voiced Ned Morton, a mouse version of Ed Norton (the inspiration for Barney Rubble), in the
Looney TunesLooney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theaters from 1930 to 1969. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and is Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. The regular Warner Bros...
short
The Honey-Mousers) briefly assumed the role while Blanc recovered from a car wreck. Since Blanc's death,
Frank WelkerFranklin W. "Frank" Welker is a veteran American actor, who specializes in voice acting. He is responsible for a broad spectrum of character voices and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in American television and motion pictures.Welker is listed as number one on the...
,
Jeff BergmanJeff Bergman is an American voice actor who voices several modern day voices of various classic cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, George Jetson, Fred Flintstone and many more....
,
Stephen StantonStephen Stanton is a voice actor and impressionist. He is also known as Stephen W. Stanton, Steven Stanton, and Steve Stanton.-Animation roles:* Robot Chicken - Additional Voices* Family Guy - Additional Voices...
,
Seth MacFarlaneSeth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, composer, writer, producer, actor, singer, comedian, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the characters...
,
Kevin Michael RichardsonKevin Michael Richardson is an American actor and voice artist, who currently stars in the Fox animated series The Cleveland Show.-Early life:...
and
Scott InnesScott Innes is an American author, songwriter, and voice actor.He became known as the new voice of Scooby-Doo in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video movies made between 1998 and 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he also voiced Scooby's best friend Norville "Shaggy" Rogers...
have all performed the role.
In the 1994 live action
FlintstonesThe Flintstones is a 1994 live-action film directed by Brian Levant, and based on the prime time animated series of the same name. It is produced by Amblin Entertainment, Hanna-Barbera Productions and distributed by Universal Studios. The film was poorly received by critics but was a box-office...
movie, Barney was portrayed by
Rick MoranisFrederick Alan "Rick" Moranis is a retired Canadian comedian, actor and musician. Coming to prominence in the 1980s on Second City Television, before moving on to appearances in several Hollywood films including Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of Horrors; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids;...
. In the 2000 prequel,
The Flintstones in Viva Rock VegasThe Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is a 2000 motion picture and prequel to the 1994 film based on the Hanna-Barbera animated classic, The Flintstones, produced by Amblin Entertainment, Hanna-Barbera Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures....
, he was portrayed by
Stephen BaldwinStephen Andrew Baldwin is an American actor and the youngest of the Baldwin brothers.-Early life:Baldwin was born in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb , a breast cancer survivor who founded the Carol M...
. In a
Toshibais a Japanese multinational conglomerate manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company's main business is in infrastructure, consumer products, electronic devices and components.Toshiba-made Semiconductors are among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders...
commercial he was voiced by
Scott InnesScott Innes is an American author, songwriter, and voice actor.He became known as the new voice of Scooby-Doo in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video movies made between 1998 and 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he also voiced Scooby's best friend Norville "Shaggy" Rogers...
.
External links