When The Flintstones debuted on ABC — which it did on September 30, 1960 — it had a different theme song than the one we all know. It was an instrumental called "Rise and Shine." Commencing with Season Three, the whole opening was changed and there was a new song — "Meet the Flintstones" complete with lyrics performed by the Randy Van Horne Singers. When the first two seasons were later rerun anywhere, the old opening was replaced with the new one.
In fact, there was a time when the video of the old one was lost. No one at Hanna-Barbera (or, later on, the Time-Warner beast that had consumed H-B) could locate a decent copy of that video. My old buddy Earl Kress — a guy I miss a lot — finally found one when he was working on a project for the studio. It was on a reel of tape or film that was labeled as containing something else.
The video on which you're about to click will show you that opening followed by a restored audio version of the song sung for a kids' record by the original cast — Alan Reed, Jean Vander Pyl, Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet. And then there's a look at some of the original designs for the show by Ed Benedict and — well, it all makes me feel about eight years old again, especially that original opening…