THE JETSONS

'''The Jetsons''' was a prime-time animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and aired on Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962 to March 3, 1963. Like ''The Flintstones'', it was a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period. While the Flintstones lived in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons lived in a retro-futuristic utopia of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.
The original series, comprising 24 episodes, was made between 1962 and 1963 and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987. The series was extensively merchandised and followed by two made for-TV movies and two theatrical feature films.

Contents

Synopsis

Time period

Voice cast

''The Jetsons'' media

Episodes

Films

Further appearances

Parodies

Comics

Games

DVD releases

Trivia

''The Jetsons'' today

''The Jetsons'' in other languages

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Synopsis

George Jetson works 3 hours a day and 3 days a week for a short, tyrannical boss named Mr. Spacely, owner of the company Spacely Space Sprockets. Typical episodes involve Mr. Spacely firing and rehiring or promoting and demoting George Jetson. Mr. Spacely has a competitor, S.K. Cogswell, owner of the rival company Cogswell Cogs. All homes and businesses are raised high above the ground on narrow poles, in a style reflective of the architecture of Seattle's Space Needle and the distinct Theme Building of the Los Angeles International Airport. George commutes to work in a flying saucer with a transparent top. Daily life is characterized as being comically leisurely due to the incredible sophistication and number of labor saving devices. George's work day consists of pressing a single computer button. Despite this, characters often complain of travails and difficulties of living with the remaining inconveniences.
Other Jetson family members include Jane Jetson, the wife and homemaker; teenage daughter Judy and preteen son Elroy. Housekeeping is seen to by a robot maid, Rosie; she only appears in two episodes of the original 1960s show, excluding her appearance in the closing credits, but makes many appearances on the 1980s show.
The family dog Astro can mumble, like later cartoon dogs Scooby-Doo and Muttley could (voice actor Don Messick played all three). Astro's catch phrases are "Ruh-roh!" and "Right, Reorge!"
Names of locations, events, and devices are often puns or derivatives of contemporary analogs with explicit futuristic or space-age twists. The same technique was used in The Flintstones with archaic or stone-age twists.

Time period

Though no dates are ever specified, ''The Jetsons'' was originally supposed to take place in the year 2062.^[1] '' confirms this by placing the series "at the turn of the 21st century". In the movie ''The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones'', Elroy wanted to time travel into the future to visit the 25th century, indicating the Jetsons live no later than the 24th century.

Voice cast

★ George Jetson - George O'Hanlon

★ Jane Jetson - Penny Singleton

★ Elroy Jetson - Daws Butler and, also voiced, Patric Zimmerman

★ Judy Jetson - Janet Waldo

★ Astro the Dog/RUDI/Uniblab - Don Messick

★ Rosie the Robot Maid/Mrs. Spacely - Jean Vander Pyl

★ Mr. Spacely - Mel Blanc

★ Henry Orbit - Daws Butler (Howard Morris in a few of the original episodes)

★ Orbity - Frank Welker

''The Jetsons'' media

Episodes

Main articles: List of The Jetsons episodes

Films

★ ''The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones'' (1987)

★ ''Rockin' with Judy Jetson'' (1988)

★ '' (1990)
In May 2007, director Robert Rodriguez entered talks with Warner Bros. to film a live action film adaptation of ''The Jetsons''. He had also met with Universal Studios to direct a film adaptation of ''Land of the Lost''. Rodriguez was uncertain which project he would pursue next, though the latest script draft for ''The Jetsons'' by Adam Goldberg was further along in development.^[2]

Further appearances

★ ''The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (ride)'' Elroy Jetson is kidnapped by Dick Dastardly and Muttley and it is up to ride guests to save him. (1989)

★ ''Space Stars'', Astro appeared in the segment ''Astro and the Space Mutts''

★ '' (Spümcø, Macromedia Flash)

★ '' (Spümcø, Macromedia Flash)

★ ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' episode "" (2002)

★ ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' episode "" (2004)

★ Some characters appear in Electra-Sol commercials.

Parodies

★ ''Family Guy'', George is shown walking Astro on the automatic dog walker and gets stuck. Later, he chastises Jane for not hearing him screaming for help for 45 minutes. The show's opening was spoofed in another Family Guy episode, "Meet the Quagmires". As in the original series, Jane takes George's wallet instead of the money he gives her. However, George catches Jane trying to take his wallet and stops her from leaving his car. He then promptly reprimands her. Later in the episode, Jane falls from the sky and is apparently killed when Death arrives. Unlike the previous spoof, which featured the Jetson characters in Family Guy versions, this version featured them in their original designs. Family Guy also featured Elroy Jetson, only older and drunk.

★ ''The Fairly Oddparents'', in the Nickelodeon TV movie ''Channel Chasers'', when Timmy Turner first went in TV, he went into a cartoon that is a spoof of The Jetsons, but instead was called "The Futurellis." Two parodies of George Jetson and Astro can be seen in this TV movie.

★ ''Animaniacs'', in the show's episode, "Star Warners" (a parody of the ''Star Wars'' trilogy), you can see "alien" versions of the Jetsons, who were trying to watch something funny on TV.

Comics

★ ''The Jetsons'' #1-36 (Gold Key Comics, January 1963 – October 1970)

★ ''March of Comics'' #276 (1965), #330 (1969), #348

★ ''The Jetsons'' #1-20 (Charlton Comics, November 1970 – December 1973); 100-page no-number issue

★ ''Spotlight'' #3 (Marvel Comics, 197x)

★ ''The Jetsons'' #1-5 (Harvey Comics, September 1992 – November 1993); Big Book #1-3, Giant Size #1-3

★ ''The Jetsons'' #1-17 (Archie Comics, September 1995 – August 1996)

★ ''The Flintstones and the Jetsons'' #1-21 (DC Comics, August 1997 – April 1999)

Games

★ ''The Jetsons' Ways With Words'' (Intellivision)

★ ''The Jetsons and the Legend of Robotopia'' (Amiga, 1990)

★ ''The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper'' (NES, 1992)

★ ''The Jetsons: Robot Panic'' (Game Boy, 1992)

★ ''The Jetsons: Invasion of the Planet Pirates'' (Super NES, 1994)

★ ''Jetsons the Computer Game'' (arcade game)

★ ''Mealtime Malfunction'' (Apple)

★ ''Space Race''

★ ''Flintstones Jetsons Time Warp'' (CD-i)

★ ''The Jetsons: By George, in Trouble Again'' (DOS, 1990)

DVD releases

★ Warner Home Video released season 1 of ''The Jetsons'' on DVD in R1 on November 8, 2004. It is unknown if the last two seasons will be released at some point.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date	Additional Information
Season 1	24	November 8 2004	★ Commentary on 2 episodes ★ The Jetsons: The Family of the Future ★ Space Age Gadgets ★ Rosie the Robotic Maid ★ Nuclear Family Album

Trivia

★ The Jetsons' phone number is VENUS-1234. ''(See Telephone exchange names for more about this number convention.)''

★ The sprockets produced by Spacely and the cogs produced by Cogswell are virtually identical; they are basically gear wheels. Their extremely simplistic and basic necessity in mechanics, and their similarities, juxtaposed with Cogswell's incessant offers to hire George away from Spacely, gives the show an eerily campy feeling.

★ Two characters on ''The Jetsons'' bear striking resemblances to characters from other Hanna-Barbera cartoons - Mr. Spacely, George's boss, looks like ''Magilla Gorilla'' character Mr. Peebles, the owner of the pet shop where Magilla lives; and Spacely's business rival, W.C. Cogswell, resembles Mr. Slate, Fred Flintstone's boss on ''The Flintstones''.

★ An episode of Hanna-Barbera's ''The Flintstones'', featured (via the Great Gazoo's help) the Flintstones and Rubbles visiting 25th century Bedrock, which greatly resembled the Jetsons' future. A made-for-television film was made in the 1980s that would pair both the Flintstones with the Jetsons (the aforementioned ''The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones'').

★ George Jetson was ranked #4 in ''TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (1 August 2004 issue).

★ Penny Singleton, who played Blondie in the 1940s movie series, was the voice of Jane Jetson. The ''Blondie'' comic strip is often cited as a significant influence on ''The Jetsons''.

★ The Jetsons live in the Skypad Apartments of Orbit City.

★ The syndicated version features an opening jingle using ''The Jetsons' door bell with the words "Hanna-Barbera Presents" under the "Hanna-Barbera Swirling Star" logo from the 1980s (the "Hanna Barbera Presents" logo was also used for The Smurfs).

★ The interior of Los Angeles International Airport's Theme Building was redesigned to have a Jetsons motif because the Theme Building's exterior had influenced the architecture seen in the show.

★ The style of space age architecture and design circa the 1950s and 1960s that is reminiscent of ''The Jetsons'' is known as Googie architecture.

★ ''The Jetsons'' theme song was used in a 1990's television commercial for America Online.

★ The lead/solo trumpet part for ''The Jetsons'' theme song was played by Bud Brisbois.

★ Astro's "real" name was "Tralfaz," but every time he said it, he would pronounce it "Tralfaz-blecch."

★ The phrase "You're fired!", has been used by Mr. Spacely on the Jetsons before both Donald Trump and the WWE. Often on episodes, Spacely can be heard saying "Jetson, you're fired!

★ A robot employed by Spacely to maximize the efficiency and productivity of the employees, George Jetson in particular, was named "Uniblab". This was a spoof on the name UNIVAC, which was a catch-all phrase for mainframe computers built by that company. Uniblab's tagline was "Back to work (click), back to work (click). Everybody (click) work work work work (click) work work (click)!"

''The Jetsons'' today

★ A live-action adaptation, produced by Warner Bros, is currently due in 2009[1].

★ Boomerang is currently airing only the 1960s episodes regularly, while some of the 1980s episodes are available for viewing on In2TV. However, Boomerang does air the 1980s episodes occasionally in Boomeroyalty marathons. Also the first 2 seasons of the Jetsons are available to download on Apple's iTunes store, or at the Xbox 360 marketplace.

''The Jetsons'' in other languages

★ Chinese: ''

★ Chinese (Hong Kong): ''

★ Finnish: ''

★ French: ''

★ German: ''

★ Hungarian: ''

★ Italian: ''

★ Japanese: '' (Space Family Jetson)

★ Polish: ''

★ Portuguese: ''

★ Romanian: ''

★ Spanish: ''

★ Swedish: ''Familjen Jetson''

★ Turkish: ''Jetgiller''

See also

★ ''The Flintstones''

★ ''Futurama''

★ ''Design for Dreaming''

References

1. The Jetsons: Did you Know…?
2. Future or past for Rodriguez?

Further reading

★ ''Hanna-Barbera Cartoons'', by Michael Mallory, 1998, published by Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., distributed by Publishers Group West. ISBN 0-88363-108-3

External links

★

★ ''The Jetsons'' fansite

★ ''The Jetsons'' at the Big Cartoon DataBase

★ ''The Jetsons'' at TV.com

★ Review of a screenplay for a live-action Jetsons movie

★ Full episodes of "Jetsons" free at AOL Video