Betty Rubble
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Elizabeth Jean "Betty" Rubble (née McBricker), a fictional character in the popular television animated series The Flintstones, is the brunette wife of caveman Barney Rubble and adoptive mother of Bamm-Bamm Rubble. Her best friends were her next door neighbors, Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Betty lived in the fictional prehistoric city of Bedrock, a world where dinosaurs coexisted with cavepeople and the cavepeople enjoyed "primitive" versions of modern conveniences such as telephones, automobiles and washing machines.
Betty's personality was based on that of Trixie Norton, wife of Ed Norton on the 1950s television series The Honeymooners. Much like Trixie spent a lot of her time socializing with Alice Kramden, Betty spent a lot of her time socializing with Wilma, and the two would often wind up working together to bail their husbands out of whatever scheme of Fred's had landed them in trouble.
Biography
While the mid-1980s spinoff series The Flintstone Kids depicts Betty as a child, the series seems to be mostly apocryphal due to its presenting Betty as a childhood friend of Fred and Barney (the original series asserted that they first met as young adults). Still, the series' assertions that Betty was a childhood friend of Wilma and that her parents ran a convenience store may be taken as valid.
As young adults, Betty and Wilma were employed as cigarette girls/waitresses at a resort. There, they first met, and fell in love, with their future husbands, Fred and Barney (who were working there as bellhops). Eventually, Betty and Barney were married, presumably not long after Fred and Wilma.
Betty became a homemaker, keeping house with such prehistoric aids as a baby elephant vacuum cleaner, pelican washing machine, and so forth. Betty, much like Wilma, also enjoyed volunteering for various charitable/women's organizations in Bedrock, shopping, and (occasionally) getting to meet the celebrities of their world, including "Stony Curtis" and "Cary Granite".
Around the fourth season of the original series, Betty and Barney found an abandoned infant on their doorstep, by the name of "Bamm-Bamm." After a court battle (with the opposing side even hiring noted prehistoric lawyer "Perry Masonary"), the two were allowed to adopt Bamm-Bamm.
When Bamm-Bamm was a teenager, Betty gained employment as a reporter for one of Bedrock's newspapers, the Daily Granite, under the editorial guidance of Lou Granite (presumably a parody of The Mary Tyler Moore Show's Lou Grant). While employed there, she shared various adventures with prehistoric superhero Captain Caveman, who (in a secret identity) also worked for the newspaper.
Later still, after Bamm-Bamm grew up and left home, Betty started a successful catering business with her neighbor and friend Wilma, before becoming a grandmother to Bamm-Bamm's twin children, Chip and Roxy.
Trivia
- For years, Betty was the one Flintstones character that wasn't included in the Flintstones chewable children's vitamins. This was eventually rectified.
- A modern version of Betty (with the same name) is one of Dexter's mother's friends on Dexter's Laboratory, complete with living in a modern-day house.
- From 1960 through 1964, Betty was voiced by Bea Benaderet, who gave Betty her distinct high pitched giggle. She played Kate on Petticoat Junction. Betty has also been voiced by Gerry Johnston, B.J. Ward and Grey DeLisle.
- In a 1980's MTV poll for one of their game shows, Betty was named "The Hottest Flintstone".
- Betty's hairstyle seems to be inspired by Jacqueline Kennedy's famous flip hairstyle that was also worn by Mary Tyler Moore as the Flintstones series was airing. Betty's hair has also inspired a popular the dozens snap: "Your mama so old she used to cut Betty Rubble's hair."
External links
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