Fred and Wilma: the latter years - Cartoon Fan Fiction
What happens to cartoon characters when the series ends.
Every time I walked by this now - dilapidated, neo-50s-style structure, located in Tzfat, in northern Israel, I had a weird urge to shout "YabbaDabbaDooo!" This short story grew out of that…
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Adjusting his sabertooth tiger pelt loincloth to cover his exposed shoulders, Fred shivered a bit in the cool autumn dusk as he took a last long look at the old, weed-strewn homestead.
Cracked flowerpots held long-dead palm fronds at the entranceway, and a shabby hair salon on one end and a seedy insurance agents office on the other had long since rented out their once bucolic homestead after Fred lost his job at the quarry.
The boss had finally caught him at quitting time, sliding down the dinosaur crane's back one time too many, as the pterodactyl siren screamed.
But rules are rules, and the inexorable laws of ballistics and gravity still hold, even in Toonville.
Well, mostly.
The foreman, shading his eyes against the setting sun with his clipboard, didn't see Fred hurtling towards him.
Fred, by now a subsonic human cannonball, slammed into his employer to the explosive clatter of crashing bowling pins.
But, while a cartoon character with nothing more broken than his pride, the foreman still pink-slipped his top crane operator on the spot for engaging in one zany hijink too many.
"Ahh - damn," he sighed, expelling smoke as he stubbed out his last cigarette of the day into the open beak of the tiny pterodactyl ashtray on the dashboard.
"...the neighborhood just wasn't the same after Barney and Betty quit town, anyways," he muttered.
After losing his job, Barney felt bereft at the quarry, and the couple later moved east, and into minor, but steady sidekick roles on off-Broadway," Fred recalled, longing for his bowling buddy's cajoling bonhomie.
Wilma, sitting alongside him, her feet also aching from the ride over, but soothed by the warm cracked pavement below their vehicle, turned towards him slowly, and offered, softly, "True - and it sure didn't help when Bam Bam got your job at the quarry and moved in with Pebbles in that hippie commune down in Shangri-la-de-da-Valley."
"Ahh, damn kids," Fred shrugged.
They shared a quiet moment, the setting sun reflected in the car's mirror onto Wilma's now greying curl of hair, forever plastered on her forehead.
Their hands found each other and fingers intertwined on the carved wooden and bone stickshift, as they gazed wistfully at their former home.
Afterward, one get-rich-quick scheme followed another, as the couple moved into a smaller, more economical townhovel.
Both, startled out of their reverie by a flittering sound above, looked up through the torn animal-skin roof, as a sedan-sized flying saucer wobbled a bit as it flew overhead, leaving a jagged contrail against the setting sun. They thought they could see George wave to them below, as he - spry but aging now - momentarily lost control of the craft.
They both waved back and Fred, still the garrulous kidder, smiled sadly and offered a military middle-finger salute to his offstage acting cohort.
Both Fred and Wilma, victims of cartoon industry cutbacks in the 60s, used to play bridge weekly with the Jetsons until George's unfortunate accident with the folding-bed-treadmill-briefcase.
"Nebbich - 15 goddamn takes to get that scene right, the poor schmuck," he mused aloud, recalling watching from off-set as the imperious director - who played himself as the CEO of Spaceley Sprockets - urged George, again and again, to "become the briefcase," as the avid but somewhat physically awkward actor finally screamed out in desperation, "Jane, get me off this crazy thing!"
While workman's comp covered the herniated disc and numerous contusions, his acting roles became fewer as cut-rate Korean animators took over the once US-based Hanna-Barbera scutwork.
Then, one day, Jane abruptly moved out, taking in tow Elroy and Judy, and, of course, housekeeper Rosie the robot.
Good times in Tinsel Town, as they say. Good times.
But Fred, still living off residuals from episodes aired abroad, comforted himself: he still had Wilma, and even Dino, although both had seen better days.
"YABBA DABBA DOO!" he mumbled aloud. Wilma giggled over the old dirty joke they'd adapted for the show from a date during a memorable game of strip poker with the Rubbles when they were all still dating.
"Oh Fred - say it once for me, say it.. like, like John Goodman said it, when he played you in the live-action version," she said, smiling warmly, recalling the film that brought them out of retirement - for a time, at least.
"Alice - you're the greatest!" Fred said with affection, instead, riffing off Jackie Gleason's character's signature line in the Honeymooners - the acting template he'd used to create his on-screen persona.
She smiled wistfully.
"Hey," she said, tousling his thinning, but still black thatch of hair, "Maybe we can swing by Marge and Homer's for some beers and donuts," Wilma suggested, as she revved up her feet.
"D'oh! What a great idea," Fred replied with a wink, skedadling the car out of the driveway.
"Bart and Bam Bam are out breaking something or other tonight, and Lisa took Maggie along to band rehearsal," she added, as she keyed in the Springfield preset on Waze.
A rat-a-tat volley of bongo drums rattled the silence as they hot-footed it off into the sunset, and out of Bedrock one last time.
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