History WesternAnimation / FredAndBarneyMeetTheThing

* PowerIncontinence: "To Thing Or Not To Thing" has Benjy transforming back and forth at random all day (with a shortened and rock-less version of his usually TransformationSequence), while out with his friends. Somehow, nobody notices.

* BeachEpisode: "Beach Party Crashers"

* CryptidEpisode: One of the first episodes is "Bigfoot Meets the Thing". Subverted in Bigfoot is just one of the Yancy Street Gang in a costume. Double-subverted when the real Bigfoot falls in love with the guy in the (female) costume.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening heavily implies (and several episodes later confirm) that this is the same adult Ben Grimm from the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his normal adult self. Now he's stuck as either a scrawny geek or a monstrous pile of rocks, neither of which he likes (but he likes being the Thing less).
** To a lesser degree, the robot Clunk from "The Thing Meets The Clunk". It's a robot designed and programmed to help people, but in practice it combines strength equal to the Thing with absolutely no common sense, leading him to cause more disasters than he stops.

* TransformationSequence: A particularly elaborate one, and another one for reversion. While he normally only transforms two or three times per episode (plus maybe one reversion sequence), in "The Great Decepto", where he transforms to or from the Thing ''seven times'', the first four in the span of a minute and a half.

* CelebrityLie: Used weirdly in "Decepto the Great". Benjy can't seem to produce the Thing for a school show, even though he ''is'' the Thing. (Every time he tries, he winds up scaring a comic-relief janitor character - seend only in this episode - and he changes back to try to calm him down instead of going on stage)

''The New Shmoo'' (originally a separate series) stars the titular creature from ''LilAbner'' as the TeamPet of a trio of teenagers in yet another of Creator/HannaBarbera's own [[RecycledINSPACE apings]] of the ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' formula.

* CelebrityLie: Used weirdly in "Decepto the Great". Benjy can't seem to produce the Thing for a school show, even though he is the Thing. (Every time he scares a comic-relief janitor character added for this episode, he changes back to try to calm him down instead of going on stage)

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening heavily implies (and several episodes later confirms) that this is the same adult Ben Grimm as the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his normal adult self. Now he's stuck as either a scrawny geek or a monstrous pile of rocks, neither of which he likes (but he likes being the Thing less).

* SecretIdentity: Only Kelly Harkness and her father know that Benjy is the Thing.
* TransformationSequence: A particularly elaborate one.

** To a lesser degree, the robot Clunk from "The Thing Meets The Clunk". It's a robot designed and programmed to help people, but in practice it combines strength equal to the Thing with intelligence equal to [[Bizarro franchise/Superman]], leading him to cause more disasters than he stops.

** To a lesser degree, the robot Clunk from "The Thing Meets The Clunk". It's a robot designed and programmed to help people, but in practice it combines strength equal to the Thing with intelligence equal to [[Bizarro franchise/Superman]], leading him to cause more disasters than he stops.

''The New Shmoo'' stars the titular creature from ''LilAbner'' as the TeamPet of a trio of teenagers in yet another of Creator/HannaBarbera's own [[RecycledINSPACE apings]] of the ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' formula.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening heavily implies (and, as noted above, an episode later confirms) that this is the same adult Ben Grimm as the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his normal adult self. Now he's stuck being either a scrawny geek or a monstrous pile of rocks, neither of which he likes (but he likes being the Thing less).

* BlessedWithSuck/CursedWithAwesome: the main character is, in reality, neither the scrawny geek Benjy nor the monstrous but popular Thing. He's the adult Ben Grimm, unable to change back to his normal self. The audience is apparently supposed to see his condition as CursedWithAwesome, but Benjy clearly feels differently. As he says in "To Thing or Not To Thing":

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening heavily implies that this is the same adult Ben Grimm as the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his normal adult self. Now he's stuck being either a scrawny geek or a monstrous pile of rocks, neither of which he likes (but he likes being the Thing less).

* {{Hammerspace}}: The orange rocks that turn Benjy into the Thing seem to appear out of nowhere.

* BlessedWithSuck/CursedWithAwesome: the main character is, in reality, neither the scrawny geek Benji nor the monstrous but popular Thing. He's the adult Ben Grimm, unable to change back to his normal self.

* CryptidEpisode: One of the first episodes is "Bigfoot Meets the Thing".
* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening heavily implies that this is the same adult Ben Grimm as the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his adult self. The episode "To Thing or Not To Thing" outright states this:
--> '''The Thing''': I've had it being Benji or boulders! I want to be me again, test pilot Ben Grimm.
* {{Hammerspace}}: The orange rocks that turn Benji into the Thing seem to appear out of nowhere.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening and one of the episodes ("To Thing or Not to Thing") heavily imply that this is the same adult Ben Grimm as the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his adult self, just between a rock monster or a scrawny geek.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/FredAndbarneyMeet.jpg

''The New Shmoo'' stars the titular creature from ''LilAbner'' as the TeamPet of a trio of teenagers in yet another of {{Hanna-Barbera}}'s own [[RecycledINSPACE apings]] of the ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' formula.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Well, maybe not "horribly", but the opening and one of the episodes of the Thing heavily imply that this is the same adult Ben Grimm as the comics, but with a cure that had gone wrong, so he's unable to transform back into his adult self, just between a rock monster or a scrawny geek.

''The New Shmoo'' stars the titular creature from ''LilAbner'' as the TeamPet of a trio of teenagers in yet another of {{Hanna-Barbera}}'s own [[RecycledINSPACE apings]] of the ''ScoobyDoo'' formula.

* NamesTheSame: Two Bettys--Barney Rubble's wife and Benji Grimm's friend.

* TheSeventies: The Stone Age technology equivalent here is updated for the seventies, including the presence of microwave ovens ([[BambooTechnology a dragon in a box spewing rings of fire to cook food rapidly]]) and CB radios.

* {{Crossover}}: Averted! Fred and Barney [[InNameOnly never actually meet the Thing]], the shorts of one NEVER crossover with the shorts of the other.

In 1979, ''Fred and Barney Meet the Thing'' was an hourlong Saturday morning cartoon on {{NBC}} in which, ironically, neither Fred Flintstone nor Barney Rubble ever met the Thing. It consisted of a half-hour of ''TheFlintstones'' and a half-hour of ''The Thing''. Eventually it was expanded to 90 minutes with the addition of a half-hour ''Shmoo'' segment, at which point the title of the show was changed to the equally inaccurate ''Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo'' (although it did happen in the "Bedrock Cops" shorts on ''TheFlintstoneComedyShow'').

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* Crossover: Averted! Fred and Barney never actually meet the Thing, the shorts of one NEVER cross over with the other.