Yellow Dog: Thanks for meeting with us at such a late notice, Bill.
Bill Flinstone: No problem, Isaac. By the way, I loved your piece on Bugsy Bugsy Ice. You really got to the heart of the man's music.
Yellow Dog: Thanks. Bill, let me cut to the chase. What really went on at the Hanna Barbera studios in the 1960's? The Flinstones were taking the country by storm. The Jetsons were in the planning stage. Yogi Bear was peaking. And you?
Bill Flinstone: I was actually the first to be hired to do the Flinstones. I had to audition in my underwear. Orginally, the cast was really going to dress like cavemen, practically naked, eat live animals, have anal sex. You know, the way the cavemen were. Then the censors came along and ruined everything.
Yellow Dog: Tell me about the pilot you did.
Bill Flinstone: Fred was in the toilet, and I had two tickets to the Led Zeppelinstone concert. I burst into the bathroom, and Fred ends up shitting on himself. The network wasn't pleased.
Yellow Dog: It wasn't long after that that you weren't bumped, was it?
Bill Flinstone: That's right. I did a few more episodes, all of them rejected by the studio. They said that I farted. They said that my nose was too big. They said that mainstream America wasn't ready yet for my "style" of cartoon humor."
Yellow Dog: Give me an example.
Bill Flinstone: Well, there was the third episode, the second to last I did, and Fred was getting ready for the big bowling match. He had spent his last dime on a new bowling bowl rather than buying Wilma an anniversary gift. So, he goes off to win his trophy, and Wilma stays home crying, contemplating divorce. Then I show up looking to borrow a wrench, and one thing leads to another, and well, me and Wilma end up in the bedroom rolling around in the sheets.
Yellow Dog: Not your typical Flinstones episode.
Bill Flinstone: No, but the point is, it worked. The crowd was roaring in the aisles. There was one part, Wilma peaks up from under the saber tooth tiger sheets, and with this look in her eye that only Wilma could do, says, "That's not it." It was a scream.
Yellow Dog: When did you finally know it was over?
Bill Flinstone: I was hanging out with George Jetson (he was a nobody in those days doing tidy bowl commericals) over at Walt Disney's summer place in Burbank when I saw the first episode. I hadn't even been invited to the cast party to screen it. I was stunned. My scene in the bathtub had been cut. No one had told me anything. I knew I was out.
Yellow Dog: That's a sad story.
Bill Flinstone: You're telling me. And the worst part of it is that they made me give back the pelican dishwasher that I had originally gotten as a welcome to the cast gift.
Yellow Dog: The one that said, "It's a living?"
Bill Flinstone: The very one.
Yellow Dog: Did you have a drug stage? Or is that just a dirty rumor?
Bill Flinstone: The press has been unkind to me. Especially Rolling Stone. Then came the TV Guide piece. A little hash doesn't make you a drug addict nor a bad actor. I could tell you about Barney.
Yellow Dog: Please do. Our readers love that stuff.
Bill Flinstone: I can't. There's a law suit pending.
Yellow Dog: Now what, Bill? Oprah? Sally? Gerlaldo?
Bill Flinstone: Probably. I'm working on a deal to cut a heavy metal album with all of the old Hanna Barbera has beens. You know, Hucklery Berry Finn, Boo Boo, that cat in the detective hat.
Yellow Dog: Will you ever retire the dream? Will you ever forget that you too could have been a Flinstone?
Bill Flinstone: Listen, in my heart, I'll always be a Flinstone. As far as I'm concerned, there's still a Yabba Dabba good time to be had. A gay old time.
