On Sept. 30, 1960, television viewers were introduced to Fred Flintstone, Wilma Flintstone, Barney Rubble and Betty Rubble when “The Flintstones” premiered on ABC.

Set in the fictional Stone Age community of Bedrock, the animated sitcom followed the Flintstones and their neighbors as they dealt with everyday family, work and social life — just with dinosaurs, stone-age technology and prehistoric animals mixed in.

The series premiere, “The Flintstone Flyer,” aired at 8:30 p.m. on ABC. The Paley Center for Media lists the premiere as a 25-minute animation and comedy program.

What made “The Flintstones” unusual was not simply its prehistoric setting. The series was created as a prime-time sitcom, rather than as children’s programming. It was patterned after the popular family sitcom “The Honeymooners” and used its Stone Age setting to portray contemporary family life.

The show would go on to run for six seasons and 166 episodes before its original run ended in 1966.

More than six decades later, Bedrock remains one of television’s most recognizable fictional communities, and Sept. 30 marks the date when the “modern Stone Age family” first arrived in American prime time.