Barney Rubble Co-Opts Black Musician Culture To Steal Breakfast Cereal
In 1955, Pat Boone’s first Billboard number-one single was a constipated white-bread cover of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That A Shame.” (True legend: Boone’s producers talked him out of titling his version “Isn’t That A Shame” in his unremitting disgust for Domino’s improper grammar.) The man’s career flourished as southern Pentecostals instantly preferred his Baptist covers of blues-shouts 45’s by the likes of Little Richard, Big Joe Turner, and Nat King Cole; many of Boone’s versions even outsold the originals. But one or two things have changed in our cultural landscape since the mid-50’s: these days Boone continues to fume at young musicians’ disrespect for George W. Bush, while many of the rest of us are welcoming our first African-American major-party Presidential candidate in our nation’s history. Isn’t that a shame, Pat?
It would be easy to dismiss Boone’s 1950’s cultural dominance as primitive. Unfortunately, there has been a thief of more contemporary black American musicianship; someone almost as square and pasty as Boone, but more primitive still. To his credit, of course, he’s an animated caveman … not interested so much in Billboard chart dominance as he is in dazzling his next-door neighbor with the mystic allure of black artists’ pop-cultural awesomeness long enough to steal a bowl of Fruity and/or Cocoa Pebbles and running off into the sunset.
In his pursuit of Fred Flintstone’s all-too-attainable breakfast, Barney Rubble occasionally imitated white artists as well; he once notably crooned out a raspy number as pompadoured blue-collar hero “Rock Rockstone,” and on another occasion he sported a multicolored Mohawk and pogo’d around Fred’s breakfast table snarling “Shake it shake it shake it, shake it in your bowl” in an anarchic Cockney accent while Dino accompanied him on a stone-age keytar (this is true). But here are three major examples in which Barney’s cereal jones takes things to an arguably more racist level.
1. Jam Master Barney (1989)
It’s worth pointing out early on that each of Barney’s efforts outdate their inspiration by approximately three years, which might be how long it took for a not-particularly-kid-oriented act like Run D.M.C. to penetrate Saturday-morning culture in the eighties. Of course, the Flintstones characters living in a prehistoric era sort of screws with that timeline in its own right, but it wasn’t until 1989 (probably during a Saturday-morning airing of Rude Dog and the Dweebs) that Barney blatantly stole Run D.M.C.’s act. It’s Fred, however, who opts to be illin’ by scratching out a turntable rhythm with a pterodactyl beak.
2. Pebble Rain (1986)
Now this is bizarre. In 1986, Fruity Pebbles introduced purple nuggets–“grape,” they dubiously claimed–and the logic followed that Barney should lust over the cereal’s new Purple Flavor by draping himself in sequined frills and imitating Purple Rain-era Prince. Fred is incredulous at the motorbike-straddling appearance of the androgynous singer at his breakfast table (gasping out only “Say, aren’t you–?,” undoubtedly for legal purposes), until Barney’s rhinestoned purple wig is eaten, inspiring Fred to antagonism of Morris Day-like proportions. Unfortunately, Barney’s vocal impersonation omits the provocative falsetto squeals and moans and OW-uh’s that really would have lent his disguise more credibility.
3. M.C. Rubble (1992)
Barney is a more fluid dancer here than he has been in the past, upgrading his efforts in time with 1992’s increased visibility of PG-rated rappers on MTV. Here, Barney portrays slick hip-hop dancer “C.D. Rapper,” rhythmically urging “Fruity Fruity Pebbles, here I come / I’ll teach ya to dance if ya gimme some.” This doesn’t work any better for Barney than his transparent Prince / D.M.C. guises but fortunately, as a YouTube commenter so shrewdly points out, “oh shit the Parachute pants saved Barney’s life oh my god that shit gut busting LOL.”
(P.S. It was around this same time that Hammer himself starred in a fast food commercial which had much the same punchline; he and his posse–-including the dude with the weird-ass hair–plummeted off a building ledge, but their gigantic pants inflated and served as a flotation device that gently set them down before a monolithic glowing Taco Bell. On a personal note, I remember a kid from camp who brought and wore his Hammerpants nonstop throughout the entire week, on nature hikes and everything. This was in 1990, a full two years before Barney thought it would be timely to wear Hammerpants himself.)
This race-baiting Fruity Pebbles trend seems to have come to a close in the newer Pebbles commercials I’ve been able to dredge from YouTube. We are a more enlightened people these days, and while it doesn’t carry the weight of the shift in Fruity Pebbles trends, Obama’s candidacy supports this. Also, it’s simply in the interest of better taste that we have been spared a weed-saturated Snoop Barney or a Fiddy-Cent Barney with a bullet wound for each fruity flavor (to say nothing of a Wesley Willis Barney).
Barney Rubble Co-Opts Black Musician Culture To Steal Breakfast Cereal 
