Betty Rubble (Elizabeth Jean "Betty" Rubble (nÊe McBricker/O'Shale)) is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones and its spin-offs and live-action motion pictures. She is the black-haired woman married to caveman Barney Rubble and the adoptive mother of Bamm-Bamm Rubble. Her best friend is her next-door neighbor Wilma Flintstone. Betty lives in the fictional prehistoric town of Bedrock, a world where dinosaurs coexist with cavepeople and the cavepeople enjoy primitive versions of modern conveniences such as telephones, automobiles and washing machines. She speaks with an Midwestern accent. Betty's personality was based on the stock character of the lead character's best friend's wife, commonly seen in 1950s television (other prominent examples including Trixie Norton of The Honeymooners, which by conflicting accounts was a major inspiration for The Flintstones, and Ethel Mertz of I Love Lucy). Much like Trixie or Ethel, Betty spent a lot of her time socializing with Wilma, and the two would often end up working together to bail their husbands out of whatever scheme of Fred's had landed them in trouble, sometimes scheming with each other.
