The key to The Flintstones was its surfeit of hate. Fred, if truth be told, hated Wilma, who hated Fred, who hated his job, where he was hated by Mr. Slate. Barney didn’t hate anyone, but everyone treated Barney like a flesh piñata.

Hate was the key. And lies. Every single episode of The Flintstones hinged on some sort of untruth someone told someone else, prompting shenanigans. Modern research shows that Faces of Death had a less deleterious effect on childhood delinquency than just 10 minutes exposure to The Flintstones.

If you took Fred and Wilma as your marriage role models, you’re divorced now. You might be in prison. Depends if your plan to plant subliminal messages in your husband’s brain while he slept actually worked, coercing him to commit robbery on your behalf.

It was nasty stuff. When we were kids, the reruns were on during the lunch hour so, what the hell, what else were we going to watch? The news?

Kids really only loved one character on The Flintstones. Dino. Dino was pure. His brand of love was unhindered by malice or greed. Dino was also purple, which kids love.

We also liked the Great Gazoo, but only because he tormented Fred, who really was an awful fake human being.

The Flintstones turns 50 years old on Thursday. The show first aired Sept. 30, 1960. The series lasted six seasons. Just long enough to warp many, many young minds. Here are some of the things The Flintstones taught us:

• That a man can make a living wage and support his family doing a job he despises, which also happens to be environmentally unsustainable.

• If you are caught in a lie (as Fred inevitably was in minute 7 of every show), tell a more outrageous lie. This is how Mussolini got into power.

• It’s all right for a man to wear a leopard-skin dress. As long as he also wears a tie.

• That if your household appliances were living creatures and could talk, they would tell people how awful you are.

• Time spent with your family is wasted time. Time spent golfing, bowling or carousing with a bunch of idiots in buffalo-skin toques revives the flagging spirit.

• You have a best friend for a reason. And that reason is to bully him mercilessly.

• Red meat, consumed in huge portions, makes you fat. Fat men attract women far above their station in terms of attractiveness, but they’ll never let you forget it.

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• You should appreciate your wife. But only after you fall asleep (drunk?) at a picnic and have a terribly realistic nightmare in which everyone has moved on without you. Coincidentally, they’re all happier.