The Jetsons - Clockwise: Rosie, George, Jane, Judy, Elroy, and Astro The Jetsons was an animated prime-time television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1962 to 1963. After being re-run on Saturday morning for decades, new episodes were produced in 1984, 1985, and 1987 for syndication. The show is essentially the futuristic counterpart of The Flintstones; both cartoon series, created by Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera, were family sitcoms projecting contemporary American situations into the far-flung past, or as in this case, the future.
George Jetson worked for a short, tyrannical boss named Cosmo G. Spacely, owner of the company Spacely Sprockets. Mr. Spacely had a competitor, W.C. Cogswell, owner of the rival company Cogswell Cogs. All homes and businesses were raised high above the ground on narrow poles, and George commuted to work in a flying saucer with a transparent top. In the original closing credits, he came home and tried to walk Astro, the Jetsons' family dog. But when Astro noticed a cat by the electronic dog walk, the dog began to chase it and George got caught into the dog-walk; Astro (and the cat) both watched this happen. This was obviously a counterpart to the Flintstones' closing credits in which the cat put Fred Flintstone out for the night. When new episodes were made in 1984, 1985 and 1987, the credits were consistingly static picture captions entirely of static captions (like most of H-B's 1980s shows of the time). This sequence also replaced the original "Jane, stop this crazy Thing!" credit sequence when the original 1960s episodes entered syndication during that time.
Again, like the Flintstones, much of the show's humor came from the way the cartoon portrayed simple 20th Century living. While the Flintstones lived in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons lived in a universe of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.
Other Jetson family members included Jane Jetson, the wife and homemaker, raising teenage daughter Judy and preteen son Elroy. Housekeeping was seen to by a robot maid, Rosie.
The family dog Astro could mumble, just as Scooby-Doo later on could. This is not surprising as the voice actor for both characters was Don Messick. Astro's best known line indicates impending trouble: "Ruh-ro!"
The second episode, "A Date With Jet Screamer," featured a catchy tune called "Eep, Opp, Ork Ah-ah!"
The original series of 24 episodes was made between 1962 and 1963, but its continuing popularity led to a further 51 episodes being produced in the 1980s (42 made between 1984 and 1985, and nine more in 1987). Jetsons: The Movie was released in 1990.
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