Fred and Barney embark upon the Water Buffalo Lodge fishing expedition aboard the H.M.S. Bountystone, commanded, of course, by tyrannical Captain Blah. There is a $10 prize from the Water Buffalo Lodge treasury for the largest catch, which Fred intends to achieve.
After three hours of casting their fishing lines with not a single hook nibble from the
creatures of the deep, Fred and Barney opt to part company from their brother Water Buffalos. While Blah is preoccupied romancing a mermaid, Flintstone and Rubble borrow a H.M.S. Bountystone lifeboat and row it to a secluded spot in hope of better luck in their fishing enterprise. They encounter what they believe is an island and park their boat there. But their chosen place for a quick lunch and further fly casting is alive. It is the back of the legendary whaleasaurus, Adobe Dick!
Fred and Barney send out a smoke signal for help, but they spell it wrong.
Irked by the two cavemen positioned on his hulky body, Dick goes into attack mode and swallows alive Fred and Barney, who, while rowing in panic their boat away from the fearsome Adobe's prior location, unwittingly choose to hide in a cave that is really the fully opened maw of the monster of the deep! Fred and Barney try to send a smoke signal to ask for help, but they spell it wrong. In Dick's stomach, Fred and Barney read a message on one of Dick's molars from a long-dead fellow victim of the notorious whaleasaurus, a certain Jonah, and conclude correctly that they are Adobe Dick fodder. They manage to escape the whaleasaurus's stomach and mouth by tickling Dick's tonsil. Dick pursues them as they row their boat in haste toward bona fide land, becomes tired, and slumbers on a beach.
With his Polarock camera, Barney attempts to photograph Fred standing beside the huge beast of the sea, but while stepping backward to frame his snapshot, Barney falls off of the top of a cliff. His cry in the fall awakens Dick, who darts into the water and into the horizon, never to be seen again. Fred is heartbroken to have lost yet another opportunity for fame.
Happily, Barney discovers after he and Fred return to their homes that he did in fact photograph Fred with Adobe before his tumble from the cliff. Fred's rapt anticipation that his ostensibly incredible "fish story" will be verified to Wilma and to the world is dashed as Barney is shocked to discover that his thumb obstructed the camera frame!
The mermaid is very similar to the titular protagonist, Princess Ariel from Disney's 1989 animated feature film, The Little Mermaid.
The title and character is a spoof and a reference to Moby Dick from the 1851 novel of the same name, about the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaler "Pequod", commanded by Captain Ahab who had an obsession with the great white whale named Moby Dick. Richard Basehart played the wandering sailor Ishmael in the 1956 movie adaptation.
A message, "Rots o' Ruck, Jonah", along with the name "Jonah" derives from the Old Testament book of the same name. He was swallowed by a whale as part of God's plan to go directly to Nineveh rather than Tarshish.
The references in this episode are Playrock Magazine (Playboy), Brigitte Bardrock (Brigitte Bardot), and Mickey Marble (Mickey Mantle).
