Betty Rubble

Betty Rubble is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones and its spin-offs and live-action motion pictures. She is the black-haired wife of caveman Barney Rubble and the adoptive mother of Bamm-Bamm Rubble. Her best friend is her next-door neighbor Wilma Flintstone. Betty lives in the fictional prehistoric town of Bedrock, a world where dinosaurs coexist with cavepeople and the cavepeople enjoy primitive versions of modern conveniences such as telephones, automobiles and washing machines. She speaks with a Midwestern accent. Betty's personality was based on the stock character of the lead character's best friend's wife, commonly seen in 1950s television (other prominent examples including Trixie Norton of The Honeymooners, which by conflicting accounts was a major inspiration for The Flintstones, and Ethel Mertz of I Love Lucy). Much like Trixie or Ethel, Betty spent a lot of her time socializing with Wilma, and the two would often end up working together to bail their husbands out of whatever scheme of Fred's had landed them in trouble, sometimes scheming with each other. Character Betty typically follows the lead of Barney or Wilma, so may appear to be the least developed character in the show. In spite of this, Betty is portrayed as having a distinctly emotional marriage with Barney, which often includes pet names and more obvious affection than the dynamic and energetic interaction between Fred and Wilma. Occasions when Betty leads the action are extremely scarce: one episode centers around her working undercover as a gentle old lady to earn money for a present for Barney; in another, the plot focuses on her and Wilma's suspicions of Barney being involved with another woman (who turns out to be Fred in a disguise in order to attend a ball game free of charge). This lack of protagonism (her continuous presence almost becoming a backdrop for supporting characters Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm and Dino) makes Betty less of the lead than the show's general concept might imply.