The New Fred and Barney Show Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The New Fred and Barney Show Blu-ray Movie Review

Bros before hoes.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III January 30, 2026

After lurching forward and sideways with The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and The Flintstone Comedy Hour in the early 1970s, Hanna-Barbera literally went back to the drawing board with The New Fred and Barney Show (1979), an attempt to recapture the franchise's original dynamic from the previous decade. Later grouped together with Marvel's The Thing and cartoonist Al Capp's The Shmoo as part of a package deal, only 17 episodes of The New Fred and Barney Show were produced over two short seasons. They're presented here à la carte on Warner Archive's new Blu-ray set, which will pique the interest of die-hard H-B fans who haven't seen these cartoons in decades, if at all.

If you squint hard enough, The New Fred and Barney Show plays a lot like the original 1960s series: it's got plenty of returning voice actors and a similar sitcom vibe (both covered below), familiar sound effects, and of course the studio's dreaded laugh track, which is doubly annoying since Fred and Barney constantly chuckle at most of their own jokes too. The theme song adds new lyrics and a little style to its time-tested melody, but not much. A handful of episode plots are even lightly recycled from earlier adventures... so if it's not obvious enough already, there's a lot more "old" than "new" in The New Fred and Barney Show, which begins with everyone behind the microphone.

Although he first voiced the character of Fred Flintstone as far back as 1965 (and regularly served as his singing voice, subbing in for original voice actor Alan Reed), long-time actor Henry Corden didn't officially take over the role full-time until the death of Reed in 1977, meaning that The New Fred and Barney Show was his first time behind the microphone for a full TV series. He'd continue voicing Fred for several decades, from countless Pebbles cereal commercials through Ubi Soft's The Flintstones: Bedrock Bowling, released for Sony's PlayStation in the summer of 2000. Everyone else from The New Fred and Barney Show's main voice cast was also returning in one form or another: Mel Blanc (Barney Rubble, Dino) and Jean Vander Pyl (Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone) had both served as the original voices of their respective characters since the franchise's inception, and Gay Autterson took over as Betty Rubble in 1971.

As with the majority of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, The New Fred and Barney Show leans heavily on its voice cast and sturdy visual designs rather than compelling stories, although this Saturday-morning show has an even more limited approach to animation than earlier takes on the material. As the title and cover art suggest, it also lacks the family focus of the original, limited as it was, and thus has even more of a "boy's club" feel. While this is fine in small doses (and certainly within the boundaries of this show's short run), The New Fred and Barney Show needed a bit more variety -- and maybe a few new regular male characters -- to really carve out a unique identity.

Luckily, these 24-minite episodes at least attempt a little change by having Fred and Barney meet a variety of one-off characters while also bringing in light supernatural elements while retaining familiar Flintstones tropes like then-recent technology and pop culture trends. While most of its best episodes are more down-to-Earth like "Moonlighters" (Fred and Barney resort to part-time jobs after receiving a pay cut from Mr. Slate), "Barney's Luck" (a lucky coin works out great for Barney, but has the opposite effect on Fred), and "It's Not Their Bag" (our heroes find a sack of stolen cash), it's easy to enjoy some of the more offbeat material such as "Fred & Barney Meet the Frankenstones" and "Blood Brothers", with the former even re-appearing in a few spin-offs and TV specials through the 1980s.

So yes, there's some fun to be had with The New Fred and Barney Show, but it still doesn't stand out too far from the glut of mid-tier cartoons that Hanna-Barbera cranked out for several decades. Nonetheless, there's an added appeal of rarity here, given that this 17-episode series never got an official home video release until now. And what a fine effort it is: Warner Archive's new Blu-ray set serves up the whole run on two discs, complete with opening and closing credits as well as episode title cards, all scanned in 4K from the original camera negatives. All 17 episodes play in their original production order (not broadcast order, for those following along on Wikipedia, IMDb, or various fan-run sites); they're listed on the back cover as well each disc's menu, seen in screenshots #24 and 25 of this review.

The New Fred and Barney Show Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sourced from new 4K scans of the original camera negatives (something of a rarity, given the scattershot nature of Hanna-Barbera's vaulted elements), all 17 episodes of The New Fred and Barney Show look very good. It's a pleasing presentation with bold colors and smooth linework, very fine but perceivable film grain, and a clean appearance that's free from age-related damage. Various shots and scenes run softer than others; this could be due to either the use of a few secondary source materials, optical zooms, or baked-in issues, but in any case aren't distracting and, at the very least, will make fans appreciate just how impressive the wide majority of this material looks. Considering this is the first official home video release of The New Fred and Barney Show, the last time most fans saw these cartoons was via reruns or on VHS (or perhaps even during their original run on a very modest color or black-and-white tube TV), and there's no doubt that these 1080p transfers visually outperform earlier versions by a wide margin.

The New Fred and Barney Show Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mixes are likewise nicely rendered, easily repurposing the modest Saturday-morning audio that fans originally heard blaring from small TV speakers back in the day, long before surround sound was the norm. As such, this is far from a demanding presentation but Warner Archive's remastering efforts shine yet again with crisp dialogue and bright music that's balanced nicely without fighting for attention. Again, no discernable age-related damage could be heard along the way, aside for trace amounts of hiss (indicating that excessive noise reduction hasn't been applied) and one brief moment of warped music during one of the opening title cards, which was likely tied to the source material. In all other respects, this is about as good as it gets under the circumstances.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during all 17 episodes.

The New Fred and Barney Show Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This two-disc release ships in a dual-hubbed keepcase; no inserts are included, but an episode list is printed on the back cover. There are no extras either, but that's perfectly fine given this set's rock-bottom price tag.

The New Fred and Barney Show Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Arriving almost two full decades after The Flintstones became a pop culture phenomenon in the early 1960s, Hanna-Barbera's The New Fred and Barney Show tried to recapture the original series' charm while obviously focusing more on its two title characters. This was an interesting experiment and had its charms, yet the show's limited perspective also narrowed the width of its appeal. Nonetheless, The New Fred and Barney Show's rarity will certainly pique the interest of animation fans, as Warner Archive's new Blu-ray set marks the series' first official home video debut and, for many, will be their very first exposure to it. For that reason, it's heartily Recommended to the right crowd.