Fred and Barney Meet The Thing

Fred and Barney Meet The Thing is a 60-minute Saturday morning animated package show produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 8, 1979 to December 1, 1979 on NBC. It contained the following segments:


 * The New Fred and Barney Show (a revival of The Flintstones)
 * The Thing (based on the Marvel Comics superhero)

Despite the title, the two segments remained separate and did not crossover with one another. Fred, Barney and the Thing were only featured together during the show's opening title sequence and in brief bumpers between segments. The unusual combination of a Marvel superhero and The Flintstones was possible because, at this time, Marvel Comics owned the rights to several Hanna-Barbera franchises and were, in fact, publishing comic books based upon them; The Flintstones was one of these.

For the 1979-80 season, the series was expanded to ninety-minutes with the addition of The New Shmoo episodes and retitled Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo.

The Thing
The first segment, a very loose adaptation of Marvel Comics' character The Thing, consisted of stories following the Thing as a teenager named Benjy Grimm (voiced by Wayne Morton). He transforms into the rock-skinned superhero Thing (voiced by Joe Baker) by touching together magic rings and reciting the words "Thing ring, do your thing!" When the Thing spoke, his voice is identical to Jimmy Durante.

The stories centered mostly around Benjy at Centerville High School with his friends Betty (voiced by Marilyn Schreffler), her rich boyfriend Ronald Radford (voiced by John Erwin), Betty's kid sister Kelly (voiced by Noelle North) and teacher Miss Twilly (voiced by Marilyn Schreffler). Kelly was the only person who knew about Benjy's secret.

Other members of the Fantastic Four did not appear in the show, and the portrayal of the Thing and his origin story differed greatly from the original comics.

Twenty-six 11-minute episodes of The Thing were produced; 2 shorts aired per show.

The Thing segments are owned by Time Warner, but the character is owned by Disney due to its purchase of Marvel Comics in 2009.

Voices

 * Wayne Morton – Benjy Grimm
 * Joe Baker – The Thing
 * Noelle North – Kelly
 * Marilyn Schreffler – Betty, Miss Twilly
 * John Erwin – Ronald Radford
 * Art Metrano – Spike
 * Michael Sheehan – Turkey
 * John Stephenson – Dr. Harkness

Fred and Barney
The "Fred and Barney" half of the show consisted of seven new 30-minute episodes combined with reruns of The New Fred and Barney Show, which was a 1970s revival of the original Flintstones series.

Voices

 * Henry Corden – Fred Flintstone
 * Jean Vander Pyl – Wilma Flintstone, Pebbles Flintstone
 * Mel Blanc – Barney Rubble, Dino
 * Gay Autterson – Betty Rubble
 * Don Messick – Bamm-Bamm Rubble
 * John Stephenson – Mr. Slate