It’s Wilma 2 Fred 0 in the Sunday newspaper comics 50 years ago this month, though Fred actually suffers three defeats. The fourth comic features Fred’s niece. Barney makes a brief appearance this month, Betty and Dino are nowhere to be found.
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My sources for these comics has almost dried up, so I can not find a full version of the February 4th comic. Why Wilma is being snarky in absentia, I haven’t the faintest idea. I suppose we’re supposed to think of Fred as a demanding, thoughtless husband, which he certainly could be in the first season of the cartoon series. By this time, the series had been off prime time for more than a season and Fred had become a little calmer.
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Wilma’s playing semantics in the February 11th comic. “I didn’t say a word,” my butt. She was just tapping her foot in time to some music. Yeah, that’s it. The snowfall we saw in the previous week’s comic is still here; check out the little shrub in the penultimate panel.
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Richard Holliss has, thankfully, the last two comics of the month in his collection and passed them along. February 18th has Wilma being sarcastic when all poor Fred is doing is trying to save money after hearing from other people (“they say” in the opening dialogue) about how little this place charges. If he was forcing Wilma to eat a tough steak, I could see where he’d deserve abuse. We still have snowy climes in Bedrock in this comic.
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The February 25th comic ends with a commentary on the shallowness of teenagers. A guy’s unfit because he can’t dance. Even though he’s trying hard by bringing a dance chart with him. For a change, Fred isn’t grumping about the music teenagers are listening to. I love the question mark over the head of the record needle bird when Wilma talks about “be-rock.” Wilma’s subtly funny in this. Her Swingsville/Daddy-O vocabulary is at least ten years out of date, showing how out-of-touch adults are in the teenaged world. It’s that Generation Gap we used to talk about way back then (in the ‘60s, not the Stone Age).
Next month, Pebbles is a jerk, and Dino makes a return appearance in a funny comic.
My sources for these comics has almost dried up, so I can not find a full version of the February 4th comic. Why Wilma is being snarky in absentia, I haven’t the faintest idea. I suppose we’re supposed to think of Fred as a demanding, thoughtless husband, which he certainly could be in the first season of the cartoon series. By this time, the series had been off prime time for more than a season and Fred had become a little calmer.
Wilma’s playing semantics in the February 11th comic. “I didn’t say a word,” my butt. She was just tapping her foot in time to some music. Yeah, that’s it. The snowfall we saw in the previous week’s comic is still here; check out the little shrub in the penultimate panel.
Richard Holliss has, thankfully, the last two comics of the month in his collection and passed them along. February 18th has Wilma being sarcastic when all poor Fred is doing is trying to save money after hearing from other people (“they say” in the opening dialogue) about how little this place charges. If he was forcing Wilma to eat a tough steak, I could see where he’d deserve abuse. We still have snowy climes in Bedrock in this comic.
The February 25th comic ends with a commentary on the shallowness of teenagers. A guy’s unfit because he can’t dance. Even though he’s trying hard by bringing a dance chart with him. For a change, Fred isn’t grumping about the music teenagers are listening to. I love the question mark over the head of the record needle bird when Wilma talks about “be-rock.” Wilma’s subtly funny in this. Her Swingsville/Daddy-O vocabulary is at least ten years out of date, showing how out-of-touch adults are in the teenaged world. It’s that Generation Gap we used to talk about way back then (in the ‘60s, not the Stone Age).
Next month, Pebbles is a jerk, and Dino makes a return appearance in a funny comic.