The Dinosaur, According to Fred : Fred Flintstone and the rest of the Bedrock denizens are helping teach kids in a new display at the Natural History Museum.

Fantasy aside, dinosaurs and humans never coexisted. So what’s Fred Flintstone doing in the dinosaur exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History?

He and the rest of Hanna-Barbera’s Bedrock denizens are helping give kids the straight scoop on Tyrannosaurus rex and friends in a new “Flintstones Din-o-scovery” interactive display, meant to complement the museum’s collection of fossilized bones and reconstructed prehistoric skeletons, the only dinosaurs on display in Los Angeles, says the museum’s chief of education, Joan Grasty.

Yet despite the new addition of the brightly colored, free-standing panels and displays, illustrated with the familiar ‘toons, and despite buttons to push and little doors to open, the big draw is still the ‘saurs themselves, according to several pint-sized paleontologists on a recent visit.

The museum’s fully reconstructed mamenchisaurus, a long-necked behemoth cast from remains found in China, is especially popular, as is the triceratops skull.

“They’re all different sizes,” marveled 8-year-old Alan Arevalo, attending with his Hobart Elementary School classmates. “Dinosaurs are cool. That’s why I told my dad to buy me the movie of ‘Jurassic Park,’ ” he added, as he briskly finished up a crayon rubbing of a triceratops.

Five-year-old Max Kushner of Long Beach was being coaxed by his nanny, Pam Cross, to open rows of small panels to reveal the answers to dinosaur-related questions printed on the outside of each: What did dinosaurs eat? Did they swim and fly?

Max’s hesitation wasn’t shyness, however. He already knew the answers, and he earnestly shared them with an inquiring reporter.

“I read all the dinosaur books,” he explained solemnly. “I have them at home.” His favorite is the stegosaurus--”He has a sharp tail.”

When Hanna-Barbera approached the museum to do an educational exhibit that would commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Flintstones, Grasty said, “our thought was that since for so long the Flintstones have been shown with dinosaurs, this was an opportunity to put in perspective that dinosaurs were dead many years before humans existed, by [having] the Flintstones talk about the skeletons and the remains of the dinosaurs.”

Although “bones are the centerpiece and always will be,” Grasty said, “we were trying to enliven the hall and engage younger children. There was nothing in the exhibit before that really gave information about the dinosaurs.”

Among the displays in the modest new exhibit are “Dino Data,” a prehistoric timeline, and “Din-O-Weight” and “Din-O-Height” stations, allowing children to compare their statistics relative to those of dinosaurs. The weights of different dinosaurs, for example, have been broken down into “kid units.”

There are “Create-O-Saur” stations featuring rubbing blocks embossed with various dinosaur parts to be transferred to paper via crayon and casts of a plant fossil and a sharp-edged T. rex tooth.

“Flintstones Din-o-scovery” will remain up for about a year.

“I would love to have been able to put more touchables in the hall,” Grasty said. “We did get a couple of tooth specimens and a skin specimen in. It’s a shame we didn’t have an opportunity to bring more in, but our time was short in terms of developing the exhibit.”

She said the museum’s dream is to put together a “really comprehensive” dinosaur exhibit one day: “There hasn’t ever really been a major dinosaur hall at the museum. It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time, but we’ve had so many other things on the table we just have not come to a full design for it yet. We certainly have the elements here, in terms of our dinosaur collection.

“The one up now in conjunction with the Flintstones was put in when ‘Jurassic Park’ came out, and the public was very interested. But it was always considered a temporary exhibit,” she explained.

Most of the young grade-school children who were there on that recent weekday visit seemed to have had a good grasp of dinosaur lore before they arrived. Those lucky enough to be guided by Stan Silman, a knowledgeable museum docent with an entertainer’s verve and timing, asked lots of questions: “Where have dinosaurs been found in the United States?” “How do they know how to put the bones together?” “How do they know which bones go together?”

Three pupils from Hermosa Drive Elementary School--Alex Moore, 8; Jennifer Howie, 8; and Nora Hall, 7--were happy to share their particular preferences. Tyrannosaurus rex was Alex’s favorite, while Jennifer liked the deinonychus and Nora liked the “really big fossils.”

So, despite text to the contrary, did all those larger-than-life visuals of Fred, Wilma, Betty, Barney, et al, make anybody think there were humans living at the time of dinosaurs?

“We thought that when we were little,” Alex said.

“But we know there weren’t,” added Jennifer. “Just cavemen and stuff.” Oops.

Don’t worry. Her two companions immediately set her straight.

“FLINTSTONES DIN-O-SCOVERY,” Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd. Dates: Tuesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Prices: Adults, $6; ages 12-17 and senior citizens, $3.50; ages 5 and under, free. First Tuesday of each month is free for all. Phone: (213) 744-DINO.