Fred Flintstone was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and Alan Reed. Bill and Joe, after seeing large adult audiences for kid-focused syndicated series like “The Huckleberry Hound Show”, decided to try an animated series for adults. They went through all sorts of different historical eras (one of them, ancient Rome, was launched a decade-plus later on Saturday morning as “The Roman Holidays”); they worked out all sorts of different family combinations (there was originally going to be a Fred Jr.!); they tried all variety of names (Fred and WIlma were going to be The Flagstones but that seemed too close to Flagston, the surname of comic strip suburbians Hi and Lois).
This pitch film, created before Reed, Mel Blanc or Bea Benederet were cast, features June Foray as Betty, Jean Vander Pyl already in place as WIlma, and Daws Butler as both Fred and Barney. (Butler would come to the rescue and voice Barney for a series of episodes in the first season following Mel Blanc’s near-fatal auto accident.)
According to Wikipedia:
Alan Reed (born Herbert Theodore Bergman; August 20, 1907 – June 14, 1977)[1] was an American actor,…in many films, including Days of Glory, The Tarnished Angels, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Viva Zapata! (as Pancho Villa), and Nob Hill, and various television and radio series.
Reed contributed a vital ingredient to the character of Fred Flintstone: An ad-libbed exclamation of “Yabba Dabba Doo!” That became Fred’s catchphrase, not to mention the catchphrase for two of the unhealthiest cereals in breakfast history, yabba-dabba-delicious though they may be.
You might notice I put “The Two Faces Of Fred” in my title instead of, say, “The Two Voices.” Well, that’s because these guys did an awful lot of on-screen acting! And it’s fun to spot them. Here’s Alan Reed on “The Beverly Hillbillies”…Alan is easy to spot because he really didn’t do a “cartoon voice” as Fred…it’s basically his voice with extra punch. But not much!
And here’s Alan in a 1956 movie, “Timetable”.
And last but not least, from our favorite, “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, Alan Reed as an auctioneer…
Alan Reed’s most famous performance, in the end, was Fred Flintstone. He voiced the character in the original six-season prime time run on ABC. He voiced Fred in the theatrical film “The Man Called Flintstone”. He was Fred in 70’s Saturday morning series like “Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm”, playing second fiddle to Jay North and Sally Struthers:
Alan Reed passed away in 1977. In a scenario that has played out countless times before and since, an irreplaceable talent had to be replaced to keep a beloved character alive.
Hey, remember that movie I was telling you about? “The Man Called Flintstone”? Check this out:
Good ol’ Fred and Barney, singing in “A Man Called Flintstone” with the voices of Mel Blanc and…………………..Henry Corden. At some point Hanna-Barbera enlisted Corden to be the singing voice of Fred Flintstone (Alan Reed freely admitted he was not a singer). Corden can be heard singing for Fred in unique appearances like Fred and Barney’s duet in an “Alice In Wonderland” special.
So when Reed died, Corden seemed a natural pick to take on the role. Wikipedia sez:
Henry Corden (born Henry Cohen; January 6, 1920 – May 19, 2005) was a Canadian-born American actor and singer, best known for taking over the role of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed‘s death in 1977.[1] He took over the role as Fred Flintstone full time starting with the syndicated weekday series Fred Flintstone and Friends for which he provided voice-overs on brief bumper clips shown in-between segments.
Like Reed, Henry Corden has an interesting resume of screen appearances. Unlike Reed, Corden’s natural speaking voice sounds very little like Fred Flintstone. So you have to really listen for it. Such as this 1961 “Wagon Train” where he’s a bank robber in cahoots with Dick York!
And a secret agent keeping his eye out for Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs…
And that bastion of hippie-bashing uprightedness, “Dragnet ‘6X”! Corden appeared in two 60’s Dragnets: First, as a furrier who’s been robbed (you can almost hear the tiniest hint of Fred here):
And as a fussy concert musician-turned-apartment manager:
Henry Corden ended up voicing Fred Flintstone longer than Alan Reed, doing some lines for a Flintstones video game as late as 2000. Along the way, he voiced Fred for some historical moments–the wedding of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and the excitement of Pebbles expecting a new arrival; several Christmas specials and other continuations of the franchise; and the celebration of the series’ 30th anniversary.
Corden also kept Fred Flintstone alive in noteworthy appearances like this brief but adorable “SImpsons” cameo:
And there is one other note regarding the two Freds. They worked together in 19 episodes of the original “Flintstones” series, from 1963 to 1966. Henry Corden was one of several “utility voices” Hanna-Barbera used in all of their series (along with, depending on the year, Howard Morris, Daws Butler, Don Messick, Paul Frees, Allan Melvin, and others). It’s really something else to hear the two of them in an episode, because Corden usually gets cast as loud, ornery types–grouchy neighbors and such. So you have Fred Flintstone, and a random guy who acts and sounds a heckuva lot like Fred Flinststone.