“One of these days, Fred Flintstone… POW! Right to the moon!”
The Honeymooners star and creator Jackie Gleason didn’t actually file a lawsuit containing that threat, but he definitely considered it. After all, The Flintstones wasn’t only a hit animated sitcom set in the Stone Age — it was an unapologetic copy of Gleason’s popular TV series. Hanna-Barbara even hired Alan Reed, who occasionally imitated Gleason when producers needed dubbed dialogue, to voice the Ralph Kramden-esque Fred.
That said, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the men behind the animation, don’t have their stories straight when it comes to how much The Honeymooners influenced their hit cartoon. Barbera, for example, chalked up the similarities to pure coincidence. “I don’t remember mentioning The Honeymooners when I sold the show,” Barbera said, the voice of innocence. “But if people want to compare The Flintstones to The Honeymooners, then great. It’s a total compliment. The Honeymooners was one of the greatest shows ever written.”
Don’t Miss
But partner Hanna sold out Barbera when he revealed the real skinny. “At that time, The Honeymooners was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, the funniest. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with The Flintstones,” he admitted. “The Honeymooners was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.”
Gleason got neither credit nor compensation for inspiring the hit show. That’s why “we thought of suing them,” Gleason told Playboy in 1986. “But I said, ‘Oh, shit, let’s not go through that.’”
Why did Gleason change his mind?
“Jackie’s lawyers told him he could probably have The Flintstones pulled right off the air,” according to his friend, voice actor Henry Corden. “But they also told him, ‘Do you want to be known as the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air? The guy who took away a show so many kids love and so many parents love, too?’”
The Honeymooners were also the basis of an even more flagrant rip-off, the Warner Bros. cartoon The Honey-Mousers, featuring “Ralph Crumden” and “Ned Morton” as scheming rodents.
This one didn’t stick in Gleason’s craw, though — the one-off parody was similar to a spoof on Saturday Night Live or Mad Magazine, and Gleason reportedly told the cartoon’s director to “go ahead and make as many of ‘em as you want.”
Gleason’s Honeymooners inspired several other comedies through the years, none of which lined his pockets. The King of Queens is another rip-off, er, homage to Gleason’s original, Louis C.K.’s Lucky Louie based its set on the Kramden apartment and several TV shows, including The Simpsons, 21 Jump Street and Moonlighting, did single-episode parodies. There’s even a porn version, called, of course, The Honeymoaners.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Gleason must be blushing up in sitcom heaven.