I’m tired of stupid factoids. Things that aren’t true but people pass around as if they are true because they’re boring people with nothing to say, otherwise. Today, I specifically am annoyed at the suggestion that no one can remember that section of the The Flintstones song. I remember reading that online maybe a year ago, and then this past week, as part of its continuing quest to devise the most asinine, endlessly repeated non-ad between show filler in existence, the Boomerang channel comes up with this. It’s a two minute muted clip show which flashes nigh readable, nigher need-knowable flintstones trivia mcnuggets set to the sound of one of those homeless bum remixes which takes a few seconds of original music and infects it with a disproportionate period of toneless drum beats. Then right at the end these words appear really slowly, like it’s the most important thing I could possibly know, even though it’s telling me I don’t know, and it’s not even right!

There! Again! Don’t these people realize that boomerangs only come back when they totally miss their mark?
It’s very possible that this article is the same place I read that comment the first time, and the promope in question is the one I cited earlier, meaning the ‘toid is only being retoided a single time, rather than three times and assumedly a great deal more, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make me mad.

Surely we agree that one cannot forget what one has never known, and I suggest that a majority, if not all people never knew what that line was to begin with. I certainly never did. I used to think it was “through the courtesy of friends we meet.” Which is stupid and makes no sense, but the same can be said of The Flintstones / each and every attempt to revive interest in them after their initial broadcast career forty years ago, before those even get made. If I was skeptical that the Flintstones were only the family down the street through the courtesy of friends they met, my mishearing “let’s ride with…” as “that’s right! We’re the family down the street” must have suggested to me that they, the singers, who were therefore also the Flintstones –despite there only being two Flintstones proper with speech capabilities and at least three singers, none of whom sounded like Fred– knew it was a bit odd. “Yes, that’s right. It is just as you heard. The affable acquaintances that we sometimes encounter have generously allowed us to be a closely related group of people who live together in a place along the same road as you do.” How could I forget that?

For me, the least remembered was “One day, maybe Fred will win the fight” because it, along with “and/then the cat will stay out for the night” are only mentioned during the closing sequence. The aspect of the end lyrics being slightly different is an aspect which most lyric listers neglect altogether. A reasonable person would be surprised how often Flintstone lyrics get listed. Although the notion of Fred winning the fight took me more iterations of the theme song to identify than that of the cat remaining out, I surely knew it was there and so if I disremembered one I forgot the other, and a successful recollection of either likeways always brings the partner.

We are not all presented at our introduction into formal education, the earliest point at which we are assumed to have developed comprehension skills, with a clear recitation of the The Flintstones’ theme song words. And I’m glad, because it’s a stupid song with stupid words. I could barely handle that repulsive song about “three banana in banana tree” when I was in the kinder garten. Number rhumba all. day. long. ?! No! Not even for part of a day! The dumbest part was that it only went up to three. What good does that do me? Maybe the song ends sooner, but education wise you’re not doing your duty if you don’t get me up to at least seven, the most common amount for a pair of dice to show. I was a big gambler in my yufe. And realistically, what are the chances of me encountering a banana tree with only three bananas growing on it? They grow in bunches, and even if only three came to a bunch, you wouldn’t take all but one, would you? No, so a single bunch of 3 must be the extent of its powers, and such a low yield plant –they aren’t even trees! Fool– would never survive in the highly competitive banana business. Which isn’t really all that competitive at all, due to the few companies handling it all, ousting all mom-and-pop governments which dare challenge them.

The most consumed, mass produced fruit in the world and I hate it. I didn’t even know they were dying out until today, all because a couple bananerds in the 1920s couldn’t handle a few seeds in their soup. And bananas aren’t dying out, really. Just the single type that’s sold to Americans. Gah, that’s so typical. Putting all your money behind one thing and expecting it to last forever. Stupid Americans. Stupid Bananas. Stupid Flintstones.

I only learned what the line actually was when, for my own nefarious research purposes I read the scripts of various situation-comedies. One among them was the pilot of Full House, at the end of which the episode’s non-Olsen cast sings the Flintstones theme song. The show opening version, even though that show is just ending. Although as the pilot, in a sense the show is just beginning. But if I saw that today I’d demand that it end right there. This is not worth arguing with you about.

If that was half as horrible to see and hear as I imagined it to be in my mind, it would probably just fall under acceptable levels of sappiness, but it’s unlikely to only be half as horrible as I imagined it. I was too simple a fool to cringe at Full House when I watched it during its prime seasons; this was around the same time I came up with “through the courtesy of friends we meet” after all, but gash, I was shocked at how awful that script was. Anyway, they all knew the right words to the song and that was the first I’d ever seen them printed out. Since then, I have not once forgotten. Nor have I forgotten what I used to think they were. So, in a sense, I remember those words most of all.