Flintstones Theme Park. Custer, South Dakota

Fred and Barney riding the dinosaur

I visited the Flintstones Theme Park intending to kill some time on the way to Mt. Rushmore.

I also half-planned on visiting this park because I so enjoy primary colors.

I was not prepared for a display like the one above, which to my mind shows Fred and Barney engaged in an unwholesome act.

In Star Trek, I know that Commander Spock and Captain Kirk were rumored to be gay lovers. This theory, for what I know about it, gets its substance from the Roman episode.

Peppermint Patty and Marcy, from the Peanuts cast, are widely rumored to have been lesbians. I always wondered about Linus.

And if you ever listen to the Jim Rome Show, you're sure to hear talk of how Bert and Ernie were not simply living together.

But I never thought of Fred and Barney in that way until I visited the Flintstones Theme Park in Custer, South Dakota.

I rationalized it with the fact that the Flintstones was a spoof of "The Honeymooners," and even though the Flintstones was a cartoon it was a show meant for grown-ups.

So if I was a grown-up I would look at this vignette of Fred and Barney and I'd think "Oh, it's the cowboy thing. They're riding a dinosaur like it's a bull, or a bucking bronc."

But I'm not an adult. I am a child. Why else would I have gone by myself to a Flintstones Theme Park? And because I am a child I look at this and think what a teenager would think. And why does that dinosaur look so confused and apathetic?

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