"Sports entertainment is fun."
— John Cenastone
The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age SmackDown! is a 2015 direct-to-DVD The Flintstones movie. It is a collaboration between Warner Bros. Animation and WWE Studios and is the first Flintstones production since 2001's The Flintstones: On the Rocks. It's a bizarre curiosity that followed off WWE's previous crossover with Scooby-Doo and ushered in Warner Bros. adding other HB characters into the DTV line.
In Stone Age SmackDown!, Fred Flintstone is looking for a few days off and a paycheck to take his family on vacation. His search for more clams leads him to inadvertently invent Professional Wrestling. Features a number of stone-age parodies of WWE personalities, all of whom voice their own characters.
Interestingly enough, the movie functions as a prequel of sorts to the WWE and professional wrestling itself.
Stone Age SmackDown! provides examples of:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Fred's initial wrestling scheme makes plenty of money for the vacation, but he blows it all on bling and hair gel for himself, then rents out the Bedrock Dome for a massive sports entertainment show with himself as the emcee.
- Actor Allusion: John Cena guest-starring on The Flintstones sounds like the next logical step after Dwayne Johnson compared Cena's appearance to "a big fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles", then Cena temporarily replaced the Flintstones and the Rubbles as the cereal's official spokesperson.
- Anachronism Stew: Obvious for The Flintstones, but being made in 2015, there are now computers, tablets, and cellphones capable of playing solitaire, all of which somehow function despite being made of rocks.
- Aside Glance:
- Pebbles gives one to the audience after Wilma notes her "I start worrying" line about her husband.
- John Cenastone does this before he enacts Duck Season, Rabbit Season on Daniel Byrock he does one earlier as Fred Flintstone has an existential crisis about his life on working at the quarry.
- Author Appeal: Vince McMahon seems to have been an important piece to getting this off the ground. As such Warner Bros had been expanding its use of Hanna Barbera properties beside Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry as a result this managed to basically meet two goals in the middle.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Rey Mysteriopal wears a nice blue suit, until Fred tears it up.
- Berserk Button: The Undertaker does not like Fred taking away his tablet and is growling in annoyance.
- Big "WHAT?!": When Fred reveals to Betty and Wilma that the purpose of their sports entertainment event was to get enough money so that both the Flintstones and Rubbles could go to Rockapulco, Barney says a little more than needed.Barney: Fred came up with the idea after he destroyed the quarry, nearly killed his boss, and had his paycheck taken away.Wilma: He WHAT?!
- Big "YES!": Daniel Byrock begins chanting this after going through a Duck Season, Rabbit Season flyer exchange.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Considering this might the first installment of the franchise to actually show the dinosaurs at the quarry struggling in pain as they're forced to work, but with nothing being done of it, supposedly this was the intent.
- Boxing Kangaroo: Fred's original plan to raise money involves having people fight against Hoppy. Then CM Punkrock got involved...
- The Bus Came Back: Hoppy has returned for a new production after not being seen since the 1970s.
- Cat Fight: Averted. The Boulder Twins retreat in fear after being confronted by Wilma.
- Comically Missing the Point: Fred takes away The Undertaker's tablet, which pisses The Deadman more than anything. Fred, who is trying to get the wrestlers psyched up for a match, just states "That's more like it!"
- Covers Always Lie: Daniel Bryan is barely in the movie, and he never fights The Undertaker.
- Digital Destruction: Received a second Blu-ray release on the last disc of the Flintstones complete series boxset, albeit in standard definition with the audio downmixed from DTS-HD MA 5.1 to Dolby Digital 2.0. None of the bonus features from the individual Blu-ray made it, either, unless one takes into account that "The Engagement Ring" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" appear elsewhere in the boxset. The DVD boxset The Flintstones: 2 Movies & 5 Specials also uses the 2.0 soundtrack.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Just as Fred is about to tell Wilma he's canceling the vacation, Wilma appears in a bikini.
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: John Cenastone puts one on Daniel Byrock when John's trying to give Daniel a flyer—he even gives an Aside Glance to the audience before he enacts it.
- Exact Words: When Betty and Wilma confront Fred about his sport event.Wilma: You said you weren't going to try to double our clams in some harebrained scheme.
Fred: Actually, I said I wasn't going to try to double our clams in some harebrained poker game. I did, however, double our clams in a harebrained sports entertainment event. - Here We Go Again!: The movie ends with Barney and Fred running off to participate in a karaoke contest whose winner gets onto Prehistoric Idol.
- How Did You Know? I Didn't: After Fred tears off Rey Mysteriopal's suit, he's left in a pair of boxers that are akin to wrestling shorts. He questions how Fred even knew he was wearing them with Fred said he didn't and waves it off by saying it was a lucky guess.
- Idea Bulb: Fred gets the idea to invent wrestling after people paid clams for Barney's tussle with CM Punk.
- Identical Grandson: With the Punny Name that each of the wrestlers have, it's difficult to say if they are the ancestors of the modern-day wrestlers, but they do look quite similar to them (or, at least, to the other animated versions of them).
- They even have the same occupation.
- Jerkass: CM Punkrock insults Hoppy, causing the poor guy to tear up before Barney decides to lay the smack-down on him.
- Last-Name Basis: Both Mr. Slate and CM Punkrock address others by their last names because they "prefer the formality of last names." Though CM Punkrock calls Marble Henry by his full name.
- Motive Decay: Fred initially gets into all this in order to get more family vacation money. He succeeds, but then he gets greedy.
- Mythology Gag: John Cenastone suggests that music is his thing, harking back to Cena's Dr. of Thuganomics gimmick and rap album he produced.
- This special continued what had been a trend of the 70s, 80s and 90s Flintstone spinoffs to update the technology of the real world present day into Flintstomes Bamboo Technology despite little time passing in universe.
- When Rey Mysteriopal is introduced in his wrestling match, he places his hands in front of his face before moving them back, an image from his 2004-2005 Titantron video.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A character resembling and sounding like Phil Silvers pays good money at the Boulder Twins' kissing booth.
- Papa Wolf: Barney's interactions with Bamm-Bamm aren't shown, but when CM Punkrock starts abusing Hoppy to serious jeers, Barney loses it and knocks CM Punkrock out with a suicide dive.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Bam-Bam was always this, but here's to put it in perspective: he puts a Metronomic Man Mashing to Mark Henry, whose Red Baron is The World's Strongest Man!
- Punny Name: Most WWE characters have prehistoric pun names. John Cenastone, Marble Henry, CM Punkrock, Daniel Byrrock, Nikki and Brie Boulder, Rey Mysteriopal, and Vince McMagma. The only one who doesn't is The Undertaker. The implication being all the other Wrestlers are Stone Age equivalents of the their voice actors... but The Undertaker being undead is just the The Undertaker himself.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Boulder Twins fled when Wilma and Betty were about to give them a smackdown.
- Shout-Out: The Stonebucks logo looks like Squiddly Diddly.
- The Smurfette Principle: The Boulder Sisters are the only female wrestlers in the film and they don't add much to the plot. It should be noted that the film was released before the "Women's Revolution" which saw the Bellas and other divas given more serious storylines and longer matches.
- Super-Strength:
- John Cenastone was capable of lifting and even throwing a stegosaurus over his head.
- Bamm-Bamm gets to demonstrate his when Henry tries to attack Barney from behind. Fred is most impressed, and Barney immediately tells him not to get any ideas.
- Stealth Pun: The Undertaker doesn't have a Punny Name, but what's his Finishing Move? The Tombstone Piledriver.
- "Take That!" Kiss: The Boulders lift and kiss Fred to keep the match going. The sisters then drop him and mockingly pose after riling up the crowd.
- Tempting Fate: At home, Wilma muses to Betty that a Fred scheme is actually working as intended for once. Barney then points them to the TV, and they see Fred getting manhandled by wrestlers.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Barney's reaction on having to fight The Undertaker. Then again, who can blame him?
- Your Size May Vary: Rey Mysterio is billed at 5'3 but he seems to be a head taller than Fred.
- Zany Scheme: Fred accidentally invents pro wrestling and decides to run with it in order to get more money for a family vacation.
