Bernard "Barney" Rubble is the
deuteragonistIn literature, the deuteragonist is the second most important character, after the protagonist and before the tritagonist. The deuteragonist may switch from being with or against the protagonist depending on the deuteragonist's own conflict/plot.-History:Greek drama began with simply one actor,...
of the television animated series
The FlintstonesThe Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
. He is the diminutive blonde-haired
cavemanA caveman or troglodyte is a stock character based upon widespread concepts of the way in which early prehistoric humans may have looked and behaved...
husband of
Betty RubbleElizabeth 'Betty' Jean 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 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 an...
. His best friends are his next door neighbors,
FredFrederick Joseph “Fred” Flintstone, also known as Fred W. Flintstone or Frederick J. Flintstone, is the protagonist of the animated sitcom The Flintstones, which aired during prime-time on ABC during the original series' run from 1960-66. He is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles...
and
Wilma FlintstoneWilma Anna 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 an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...
, played by
Art CarneyArthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
.
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...
, who voiced Barney, first used the Barney Rubble voice when imitating Norton in the 1956
Looney TunesLooney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
cartoon
Half-Fare HareHalf-Fare Hare is a 1956 animated Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny.- Plot :Bugs Bunny boards the Chattanooga Choo Choo and finds Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, from "The Honeymooners" TV show...
. Like Ralph Kramden on
The Honeymooners, Fred was constantly on the lookout for
get-rich-quick schemeA get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to acquire high rates of return for a small investment. The term "get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 1900s....
s, 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 and saying "er huh huh... OK, Fred!" or "huh huh huh... whatever you say, Fred!"
Barney's interests included
bowlingBowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
, 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 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 bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
, tinkering around in Fred's garage and playing
golfGolf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
(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.-Choice of genres:...
and
drummerA drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
. 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 a sportsman as Fred is. This distinction can be attributed to Fred's fondness of food, though Barney is shown to be almost as capable of excessive appetite on a number of occasions. His catchphrase, once repeated by
PebblesPebbles Flintstone is a fictional character, the red-haired daughter of Fred and Wilma Flintstone...
is "Scooby-dooby-doo!", which was used for
another Hanna-Barbera cartoon character of the same nameScoobert "Scooby" Doo is the eponymous character and the protagonist in the Scooby-Doo animated television series created by the popular American animation company Hanna-Barbera...
.
Biography
While the mid-1980s
spinoffIn media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
series
The Flintstone KidsThe Flintstone Kids is a 30-minute animated television series spin-off of The Flintstones which followed the adventures of Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty as children with their pet Dino.-Premise:...
depicts Barney as a child, the series seems to be mostly
apocryphaThe term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
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
artistAn artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Flo Slate Rubble and car dealer Robert "Honest Bob" Rubble might be taken as valid. It is suggested in the original series that Barney grew up at 142 Boulder Avenue in Granitetown. 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". 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, who were working as cigarette girls. 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. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
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 television series The Flintstones. Hoppy is a pet hopparoo owned by the Rubble family.-Character history:...
.
When Bamm-Bamm grew into 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 , it 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 is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, 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...
. 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 film based on the original series, The Flintstones and its spinoff, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show. It premiered on ABC on February 7, 1993. Many attribute this movie's inspiration to the success of the remake of Father of the Bride...
": 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 are three occasions where he was seen with whites in his eyes, in the episodes "The Engagement Ring," "Ventriloquist Barney" and "A Haunted House Is Not A Home". In "The Engagement Ring," the whites in Barney's eyes appear when Fred suggests that he spar with a fearsome boxer in order to earn enough money to buy Betty a belated engagement ring. In "Ventriloquist Barney," the whites in Barney's eyes appear when he describes the terrifying facial features of wrestler Bronto Crushrock. In "A Haunted House Is Not A Home," the whites in Barney's eyes appear when Fred hits him on the head after Barney frightens him by gargling in the bathroom too loudly.
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 comedy film and prequel to 1994's The Flintstones based on the hit cartoon series of the same name, produced by Amblin Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera and distributed by Universal Studios...
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 ButlerCharles Dawson "Daws" Butler was a voice actor originally from Toledo, Ohio. He worked mostly for Hanna-Barbera and 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...
(who previously voiced Ned Morton, a mouse version of Ed Norton (the inspiration for Barney Rubble), in the
Looney TunesLooney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
short
The Honey-Mousers) briefly assumed the role while Blanc recovered from a car wreck. Since Blanc's death,
Frank WelkerFranklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...
,
Jeff BergmanJeff Allen Bergman is an American voice actor, who provides the modern day voices of various classic cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, George Jetson, Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear, and Huckleberry Hound.-Life and career:Originally from Philadelphia,...
,
Stephen StantonStephen Stanton is an American voice actor, impressionist and visual effects artist. He is well known as an "audio double" or "voicematch" for actors: Alec Guiness, John Cusack, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Nicolas Cage, Robert Downey Jr., and Peter Cushing among many others...
,
Kevin Michael RichardsonKevin Michael Richardson is an American actor and voice actor who currently stars as Cleveland Brown, Jr. in The Cleveland Show...
, Brad Abrell,
Seth MacFarlaneSeth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, 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 shows' various characters.A native of Kent,...
, and
Scott InnesScott Innes is an American author, songwriter, voice actor, and radio personality.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 and owner Norville "Shaggy" Rogers...
have all performed the role.
Hamilton CampHamilton Camp was an English-American singer, songwriter, actor and voice actor.-Early life:Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister. He became a child actor in films and onstage...
voiced Barney in
The Flintstone KidsThe Flintstone Kids is a 30-minute animated television series spin-off of The Flintstones which followed the adventures of Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty as children with their pet Dino.-Premise:...
.
In the 1994 live action
FlintstonesThe Flintstones is a 1994 American live-action comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television series of the same name about a Stone-Age man, his family and his best friend. The film was directed by Brian Levant, written by Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein and Steven E...
movie, Barney was portrayed by
Rick MoranisFrederick Allan "Rick" Moranis is a Canadian comedian, actor, musician, and a magician. Moranis came to prominence in the late 1970s on the sketch comedy show Second City Television, and later appeared in several Hollywood films including Strange Brew; Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of...
. In the 2000 prequel,
The Flintstones in Viva Rock VegasThe Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is a 2000 comedy film and prequel to 1994's The Flintstones based on the hit cartoon series of the same name, produced by Amblin Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera and distributed by Universal Studios...
, he was portrayed by
Stephen BaldwinStephen Andrew Baldwin is an American actor, director, producer and author. One of the Baldwin brothers, he is known for his roles as William F. Cody in the western show The Young Riders and as Stuart in the movie Threesome...
. In a
Toshibais a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
commercial he was voiced by
Scott InnesScott Innes is an American author, songwriter, voice actor, and radio personality.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 and owner Norville "Shaggy" Rogers...
.
Appearances
Barney has made cameo appearances on the show
Dexter's LaboratoryDexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
,
Family GuyFamily Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
and in the movie
Better Off Dead.
External links