Happy Halloween, everyone! This episode, A Haunted House Is Not A Home from Season 5, written by Herbert Finn and Alan Dinehart, was actually broadcast around Halloween in 1964. There's lots of grim humor and a few truly creepy moments. Don Messick plays a cuckoo, a bird, the sneaky lawyer Blackstone and Wormstone the creepy gardner whose snippers are sharp! Hal Smith plays Uncle Giggles with the high-pitched cackle that drives Fred and Barney crazy all night long and the tall creepy butler Creepers with a large dagger. Mel Blanc plays the short, creepy baker Potrock carrying an axe 3 times his size!
Plot synopsis: Fred comes home and lands in a hole Dino made in the front yard to bury his bones! Wilma tells Fred about a telegram and Fred has just inherited an estate from his eccentric (if not kooky) Uncle J. Giggles Flintstone. He tells the Rubbles the good news and invites them and Wilma to the hearing of the will. J. Giggles' house is a spooky mansion in the shape of a skull. The lawyer reads the will and tells Fred the condition for the inheritance is he must spend one night in the mansion. "If anything happens to Mr. Flintstone, my estate shall be handed to my servants, Creepers, Potrock and Wormstone." The servants introduce themselves one by one and are handy with their prospective weapons! Wilma and Betty run for it and Fred captures Barney for company. They're served alphabet soup which spells out "Beware!" Just as Fred reads the message, Potrock scares Fred with an axe even bigger than he and uses it to cut a piece of bread for Fred. Fred politely declines. So Fred and Barney decide to go to bed for the night. Fred insists Barney spend the night in the same room. Barney reluctantly agrees. Barney gargles his water as he's brushing his teeth. At 1st, Fred thinks it's the ghost of J. Giggles! When he finds out it's Barney, he bonks him on the head. Barney asks "So what's wrong with a little gargling?" Barney complains about sleeping in a king-size bed. "I'm used to a twin bed." So Potrock splits the bed in two and they have twin beds! When Barney realizes the menacing servants are after them, they go up and down the stairs to be tormented by them and J. Giggles' creepy cackle which makes both their hair stand up! The next morning, Wilma and Betty come for their husbands. They find Fred hiding as a mounted head and Barney inside a cuckoo clock. Fred and Barney tell their wives about how dreadful their night was. "But worst of all was that awful laugh," says Fred. "I wish I could describe it!" And once again, they hear the laugh, which seems to have come from a picture of J. Giggles' picture. Fred throws a vase at it and out of the picture pops Uncle J. Giggles! He reveals the whole death of him was a farce to see if Fred was worthy of his estate. Fred is so mad he chases after J. Giggles and his 3 servants with the hatchet he has somehow acquired by Potrock!
What I liked: I guess I liked best the element of suspense and surprise throughout this episode. Fred responds when he falls in Dino's bone holes when asked by Wilma what he's doing. "Wilma, I always come home with a bone in my mouth!" It's funny to see Barney's eyes change as he's clobbered ny Fred for gargling too loud. The mysterious moving knight seems to have been inspired by a Bug's Bunny cartoon entitled Hair Raising Hare. The knight later.shooota.an arrow.at Fred's backside as his back is turned. The eyes on the J. Giggles picture move and watch the arrow! J. Giggles is a hoot with that menacing cackle heard throughout the episode and Creepers, Potrock and Wormstone are creepily hilarious! I would've loved to have seen them in another episode but at least you get to see the creepy mansion again in the episode Dripper. And as always, Hoyt Curtin's musical scores are perfect here, some taken from Jonny Quest and some from Season 1 of The Flintstones. 10 bowls of alphabet soup out of 10!
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