The Flintstones: The Complete Fourth Season

Far from becoming creatively extinct, this groundbreaking series delivered some of its benchmark episodes in the 1963-64 fourth season, most notably "Ann-Margrock Presents," featuring the voice of Ann-Margret as the famed entertainer whom Fred unwittingly hires as a babysitter for daughter Pebbles. This is the season in which Barney and Betty Rubble welcome club-happy "Little Bamm-Bamm" into their lives, while Fred continues to be a doting dad. In "Reel Trouble," he bores everyone with his incessant home movies of Pebbles ("Now she's waving hello"), and in "Daddy's Little Beauty," he enters her in a beauty contest over wife Wilma's objections. Several of the 26 episodes from this season rank among Fred's best half hours, including "Once Upon a Coward," in which Fred is held up; "Ten Little Flintstones" with mechanical-voiced alien Freds; and "Bedrock Hillbillies," in which the vacationing Flintstones and Rubbles find themselves embroiled in the long-standing feud between the Arkenstone Flintstones and the Hatrocks. Another series favorite is "Cave Scout Jamboree," with its multicultural (and outrageously accented) rendition of "Old McDonald." "Bachelor Daze" flashes back to how Fred and Barney and Wilma and Betty met, each posing as wealthy guests at the swank hotel where they're all actually working. And "Operation Switchover," in which Fred and Wilma trade places for a day, is a classic battle-of-the-sexes episode. Add some great extras, including episode commentaries, and featurettes on music director Hoyt Curtin and the series' place in popular culture, and you have a DVD set that really rocks! Recommended. (D. Liebenson)