The Flintstones was a Prime Time TV program aimed at adults and children. This program was on Prime Time and its sponsor was a cigarette manufacturer. In those days, cigarette makers were allowed to advertise on television, and the company chose to advertise on an animated TV show, which just happened to have an audience of millions of children. The commercial was supposedly aimed at adults - wink, wink.

The audience of the Lawrence Welk Show were adults also, but the cigarette manufacturers didn't sponsor that show. That demographic audience of The Lawrence Welk Show were set in their ways.  The audience of The Flintstones were nearing the age of a beginning smoker. Make the viewer WANT & NEED the product by showing them smoking was supposedly cool. Repeat it every week and a lie becomes TRUTH. Don't believe me, ask Georgw W. Bush.

Below is a Flintstone cigarette commercial. After that is a PSA commercial that Fred Flintstone did for American Cancer Society. Feeling guilty, Fred?









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