What a goofy dingbat Fred was! Poor Wilma was always having to clean up the messes left by her hubby's hijinks. But despite his wild-eyed schemes, his bluster and his missteps, Wilma kept loving him. The show was created by animators Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. Many critics believed that the show was a cartoon copy of The Honeymooners, the comparison never added up in my mind. While Ralph and Alice Kramden were a dour pair, Fred and Wilma were always the life of the party.

Maybe that's why 50 years after it hit the air the stone aged family still resonates, particularly for the baby boomers who grew up with them and their stalwart neighbors, Barney and Betty Rubble.

Today, five decades to the day that the cartoon premiered on ABC on September 30, 1960, Google gives a nod to the cartoon series on the top of its home page.

"Bedrock was the modern city of the past... and I wanted to live in it!,'' writes Google Doodler Mike Dutton on the Googleblog. "Unfortunately, that didn’t quite pan out, but to be able to pay tribute to one of my favorite childhood TV shows in the form of a Google doodle is easily the next best thing."

"On the 50th anniversary of its first airing, we gladly salute “The Flintstones” for inspiring our imaginations and encouraging us to think outside of the box, even if it means taking a look back now and then,'' Dutton continues. "I hope you’ll join the rest of us here at Google in a little nostalgia to mark this fun occasion!"

Happy anniversary, Fred & Wilma. Thanks for being more "real" role models than The Bradys.