The Flintstones, a Hanna-Barbera animated series, is one of the most successful animated television series of all time, originally running in American prime time for six seasons, from 1960 to 1966, on the ABC network.

The show is set in a town called Bedrock, in the Stone Age era, but with a society identical to that of the United States in the mid-20th century.

The setting is in a fantasy world where dinosaurs, sabre-tooth tigers and other extinct animals (most of which were long gone by the time humans appeared) co-exist with suburban humans, who use technology similar to that of the 1960s, often implemented with animals. The characters ride around in automobiles made out of stone or wood and animal skins, and powered by gasoline although foot-power is required to start the vehicles.

In general, the show displayed a casual attitude towards time, for the sake of amusement. Although the characters were set in the Stone Age, that never stopped the show's producers from making a Christmas episode during the original series' run (and several more Christmas specials in the decades that followed).

One source of the show's humour was the ways animals were used for technology; for example, the characters would take photographs with a camera; then the inside of the camera box would be shown to contain a bird carving the picture on a stone tablet with its bill. In a running gag, the animals powering such technology would look at the audience, shrug, and remark "It's a living," or some similar phrase.

Being set in the Stone Age allowed for endless gags and puns that involved rocks in one way or another, including the names of the various characters being "rock" puns; some such names included celebrities such as "Cary Granite" and "Stony Curtis."

The series directly drew from The Honeymooners for its main quartet of characters: the blustering Fred Flintstone and his ever-patient wife Wilma Flintstone (née Slaghoople, though Pebble was also given on occasion) modeled after the Kramdens, and their friendly neighbors Barney Rubble and wife Betty Rubble (née Betty Jean McBricker) modeled after the Nortons.

Later additions to the cast included the Flintstones' infant daughter Pebbles Flintstone and the Rubbles' abnormally strong adopted son Bamm Bamm Rubble. The Flintstones had a pet dinosaur named Dino (pronounced DEE-no, and which barked like a dog), and the Rubbles had a kangaroo-like animal named Hoppy. Fred Flintstone worked at a quarry and worked for several different bosses, the best known of which was the bald Mr. Slate