Baby Pebbles Flintstone Doll by Ideal (1963-4)
The Flintstones was an animated television show that ran in prime time from 1960 to 1966, and has been re-run almost continuously since then. It spawned several spinoff shows and movies. The show featured a stone-age family and their friends dealing with the everyday life and concerns of mid-20th century America. Pebbles, daughter of main characters Fred and Wilma Flintstone, was introduced in 1963, near the end of the third season. Originally, it was planned that Fred and Wilma would have a son, Fred Jr., but the head of marketing for the production company convinced the producers to change it to a girl, because “girl dolls sell a lot better than boy dolls.”
The Ideal Toy Corporation made several different versions of Pebbles, but this 14″ baby with vinyl head and limbs and peach-colored cloth body was the first. Pebbles has rooted red hair and painted features, with side-glancing gray eyes and an open/closed smiling mouth. Her left hand is bent backward. At the top of her head, Pebbles’ hair is rooted in a circular pattern, around a bald spot, and gathered into a ponytail holding her plastic bone in place.
Pebbles wears a cotton flannel diaper held on with safety pins (yes, we gave children sharp objects back then!) and a leopard-print dress with a small bow at the neck. She originally came wrapped in a yellow flannel blanket edged with leopard-print binding.
She is marked “© HANNA-BARBERA PRODS., INC. // IDEAL TOY CORP. // FS-14” on the back of her neck.
Pebbles was one of the last dolls sculpted by Bernard Lipfert, who designed many of the best-loved dolls of all time, including Ideal’s Shirley Temple, Toni and Patti Playpal.
