Will a child born last year live like George Jetson?
The space age heyday of television saw the rise of flying cars, food replicators, and the 9-hour work week.
The Jetsons premiered on ABC on September 23, 1962. Set in the far future, 101 years after the first human spaceflight, the series follows the Jetson family—George, Jane, and their children, Judy and Elroy—as they live their futuristic yet strikingly natural lives in Orbit City, in a house on adjustable columns, travel in flying cars and ride on moving sidewalks, even in their own home. Although the show only lasted one season, the Jetsons and their bizarre space world are still something of a pop culture landmark, thanks to near-constant airplay, two new seasons in the 1980s, and several TV specials and movies.
And, needless to say, the project had its own merch. A year after The Jetsons premiered, Aladdin Industries released the aluminum lunch box pictured above. Simple, dome-shaped lunch boxes have long been the go-to for factory workers, but this one, featuring members of the Jetson family, Astro the dog and Rosie the robot maid, was aimed at elementary school students.
The show repeatedly raises the topic of the latest technologies in the food industry. In the first episode of the animated series Foodrackacycle, the push-button food-serving machine malfunctions, forcing the Jetsons to hire Rosie, a robot maid with a warm heart and a Brooklyn accent. In one of the following episodes, Jane Jetson uses a rotating Dial-a-Meal to order herself a full breakfast, including pill-shaped burnt toast, but the coffee is still liquid and served in a cup. And in the opening credits, Elroy flies to school in a space capsule, but at the same time he drags a lunch box with him quite to himself of the 20th century.
If the food technology of the Jetsons is still grotesque and overkill, then many other gadgets that they used have become commonplace for us: video communication, electronic readers and tablets, smart watches. I personally am still waiting for a jetpack and a flying car. For a deep dive into Jetson culture and technology, check out Matt Novak’s blog. paleofuture. Back in 2012, on the show’s 50th anniversary, he pulled apart all 24 original episodes. Now, alas, far from all of his analyzes are available, but at least it will definitely be interesting for you to read the reasoning about the first episode.
The Jetsons was the first color television program on ABC. Unfortunately, only viewers in a select few markets—Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco—could see the television series in color. In other cities, it was broadcast in classic black and white. The TV company hesitated with the transition to color broadcasting, not being sure that this technology would not lose its relevance. After all, only 3 percent of Americans owned color TVs at the time.
As a cultural historian with an engineering background, I am amazed at how deeply the Jetsons have penetrated society. While writing this article, I came across an article that cited George Jetson in terms of analyzing the problem of waste disposal, not to mention countless news stories in which the Jetsons were mentioned in the headlines to draw attention to new inventions. In 2007 Forbes made up ranking of the top 25 fictional companies; Spacely Space Sprockets, which employed George Jetson, came in last place with $1.3 billion in annual sales. And the lunch box, which you have already seen in the photo, is kept in the collection of the National Museum of American History.
The Jetsons clearly have some enduring power. In many ways, I attribute their enduring popularity to the fact that for decades the series aired almost non-stop as part of the Saturday morning cartoon program. It was there that I first saw it, and then watched it again and again until the second season of 41 episodes appeared in 1985. Ten more episodes followed in 1987, followed by a flurry of films, TV specials, and VHS and DVD releases. So many kids grew up on the Jetsons from the 1960s to the 1980s that the show became a familiar label for talking about future technology.
In the world of the Jetsons, all this futurism can sometimes fail, but it is never dangerous or scary. Automation finally met the promise of labor savings, and George works only 3 hours a day, 3 days a week. Everyone is living the best life. What’s not to like here?
Happy birthday, George Jetson!
According to die-hard Jetson fans and Internet researchers, George Jetson should have been born right now – in July or August 2022. It is difficult to determine the exact date of birth of the fictional cartoon character of the future, who was born almost 60 years ago, but he still has 18-20 years before he comes of age. However, here is what we know for sure.
The cardboard cover of a board game called The Jetsons Game features a cartoon family of four plus two pets in a spaceship. It aired in 1985, along with the second season of The Jetsons, and more than two decades after the original show aired. The Strong, Rochester, New York.
Speculation about George’s birthday took a new turn last November, when various wikis and memes it was suggested that it falls on either July 31 or August 27, 2022. Although George never celebrated his birthday in any episode, fans have combed through the Hanna-Barbera canon to determine the date, even though it took some math to do so.
According to various online sources, the original promotional material for The Jetsons was set exactly 100 years in the future, i.e. September 2062. From the opening credits, we learn that George is a happily married father of two middle-aged children. His son, Elroy, is in elementary school, and his daughter, Judy, attends Orbit School.
George’s age is revealed in the episode Test Pilot, in which George’s boss sends him to the doctor for his annual checkup. (George needs this physical to get insurance; even in the second half of the 21st century, people don’t have universal health care.) Due to confusion in the lab, George thinks he is about to die, so he agrees to a risky experiment, such as testing the quality of the “Space Life Jacket”, a supposedly indestructible piece of clothing. Eventually George’s doctor discovers the error and informs George that he will live to be 150 years old. George, wearing a life jacket and about to get rocketed, yells, “I have 110 more happy years ahead of me!” So count: he must be about 40 years old.
This means that only 40 years are left before the high-tech era in which the Jetsons lived. Will food replicators be cooking our food by then? Maybe. Will our flying cars be folded into briefcases? Probably no.
