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This is the 15th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The world of “The Jetsons” is fundamentally a conservative vision of the future. Whenever I mention this people tend to give me a strange look. But what I mean by “conservative” is not some political “red versus blue” or “Democrat versus Republican” idea, but rather conservative in the advocacy of the status quo — aside from technology, that is. The show projects into the future what was seen by some in 1963 as the ideal American family. They may have flying cars and vacations to the moon, but the family still consists of a husband, wife, two kids and a dog. Mom is a homemaker, Dad has a (relatively) steady job. Daughter is boy-crazy, Son is rambunctious and inquisitive but not a troublemaker. And the dog is… well, it turns out the dog is a millionaire. At least in the 15th episode he is.

The 15th episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired on January 6, 1963 and was titled “Millionaire Astro.” The conservative element in this episode has to do with an issue that made plenty of headlines in 2012 — income inequality. Over the years, more daring forms of American futurism — everything from Edward Bellamy’s 1887 socialist utopian novel Looking Backward to the 1987-94 TV show “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — have envisioned eras with vastly different economic structures (including the obsolescence of money). But within the Jetsons world, billionaires still exist. The billionaire in question here may be quite unlovable, but there’s a familiarity viewers have with the gag — rich people still exist in the future and your attempts to win in a court of law against them are essentially worthless.

The mansion of billionaire J. P. Gottrockets in the January 6, 1963 episode of The Jetsons

George teeters on the edge of middle class and working class (what many Americans often call “lower-middle class”) while the techno-utopian future hasn’t produced tangible quality of life improvements wherein everybody feels like they’re living in the lap of luxury. George works just a few hours each day, but his standard of living is far below others like the local billionaire, J. P. Gottrockets. This episode is Astro’s origin story. We learn that Astro’s original owner was Gottrockets. Astro’s given name was Tralfaz, but after running away Elroy picks him up and we learn that he loves life with the Jetsons much more than his old life with Gottrockets. After a court battle over custody of Astro, Gottrockets has Astro return to his estate. But Astro is bored with his original owner’s wealth. All the steaks he can eat, all the bones he can gnaw on, all the fire hydrants he can… sniff. The narrator explains that Astro was “Doomed to a life of dull, depressing wealth and luxury.” Thus, it’s the age-old lesson that money can’t buy happiness (although those with lots of money seem to be doing just fine).

Technologically, things have advanced. But socially, economically and culturally “The Jetsons” represents a future that is not unlike the world of 1963. They are stuck in time. This of course has a very practical reason: the people of 1962-63 when the first (and only original) season aired needed to watch something with which they could relate. But as the most important piece of futurism of the 20th century, it’s interesting to note that it represents an idealized society that is increasingly anachronistic with each passing year.

Astro (aka Tralfaz) on his fancy automatic dog-walker at J.P. Gottrockets’ house

Postcard from the Chicago Electrical Show circa 1908 [Source: Novak Archive]

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which concluded last week in Las Vegas, is where the (supposed) future of consumer technology gets displayed. But before this annual show debuted in 1967, where could you go to find the most futuristic gadgets and appliances? The answer was the American electrical shows of 100 years ago.

The first three decades of the 20th century was an incredible period of technological growth for the United States. With the rapid adoption of electricity in the American home, people could power an increasingly large number of strange and glorious gadgets which were being billed as the technological solution for making everyone’s lives easier and more enjoyable. Telephones, vacuum cleaners, electric stoves, motion pictures, radios, x-rays, washing machines, automobiles, airplanes and thousands of other technologies came of age during this time. And there was no better place to see what was coming down the pike than at one of the many electrical shows around the country.

The latest appliances and gadgets from the 1919 New York Electrical Show illustrated in the December 1919 issue of Electrical Experimenter magazine [Source: Novak Archive]

The two consistently largest electrical shows in the U.S. were in Chicago and New York. Chicago’s annual show opened on January 15, 1906, when less than 8 percent of U.S. households had electricity. By 1929, about 85 percent of American homes (if you exclude farm dwellings) had electricity and the early adopters of the 1920s — emboldened by the rise of consumer credit — couldn’t get their hands on enough appliances.

The first Chicago Electrical Show began with a “wireless message” from President Teddy Roosevelt in the White House and another from Thomas Edison in New Jersey. Over 100,000 people roamed its 30,000 square feet of exhibit space during its two weeks at the Chicago Coliseum.

“Wireless telephone” from the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Novak Archive]

Just as it is today at CES, demonstration was the bread and butter of the early 20th century electrical shows. At the 1907 Chicago Electrical Show the American Vibrator Company gave out complimentary massages to attendees with its electrically driven massagers while the Diehl Manufacturing Company showed off the latest in sewing machine motors for both the home and the factory.

Decorative light was consistently important at all the early electrical shows, as you can see by the many electric lights dangling in the 1908 postcard at the top of this post. The 1909 New York Electrical Show at Madison Square Garden was advertised as being illuminated by 75,000 incandescent lamps and each year the number of light bulbs would grow greater for what the October 5, 1919, Sandusky Register described as “America’s most glittering industry” — electricity.

The highlights of the 1909 New York show included “air ships” controlled by wireless, food cooked by electricity, the wireless telephone (technology that today we call radio), washing and ironing by electricity and even hatching chicken eggs by electricity. They also included a demonstration of 2,000,000 volts of electricity sent harmlessly through a man’s body.

The electric washing machine from the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Novak Archive]

The hot new gadget of the 1910 Chicago show was the “time-a-phone.” This invention looked like a small telephone receiver and allowed a person to tell time in the dark by the number of chimes and gongs they heard. Musical chimes denoted the hour while a set of double gongs gave the quarter hours and a high pitched bell signified the minutes. The January 5, 1910, Iowa City Daily Pressexplained that such an invention could be used in hotels, “where each room will be provided with one of the instruments connected to a master clock in the basement. The time-a-phone is placed under the pillow and any guest wishing to know the hour has to press a button.”

Though the Chicago and New York shows attracted exhibitors from all over the country, they drew largely regional attendees in the 1900s and 1910s. New York’s show of course had visitors from cities in the northeast but it also drew visitors from as far away as Japan who were interested in importing the latest American electrical appliances. Chicago’s show drew from neighboring states like Iowa and Indiana and the show took out ads in the major newspapers in Des Moines and Indianapolis. An ad in the January 10, 1910, Indianapolis Star billed that year’s show in Chicago as the most elaborate exposition ever held — “Chicago’s Billion Dollar Electrical Show.” The ad proclaimed that “everything that’s now in light, heat and power for the home, office, store, factory and farm” would be on display including “all manner of heavy and light machinery in full working operation.”

Dishwashing machine from the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Novak Archive]

Chicago’s 1910 Electrical Show was advertised as a “Veritable Fairyland of Electrical Wonders” with $40,000 spent on decorations (about $950,000 adjusted for inflation). On display was the The Wright airplane exhibited by the U.S. Government, wireless telegraphy and telephony.

During World War I the nation and most of it’s high-tech (including all radio equipment, which was confiscated from all private citizens by the U.S. government) went to war. Before the war the New York Electrical Show had moved from Madison Square Garden to the Grand Central Palace but during WWI the Palace served as a hospital. New York’s Electrical Show went on hiatus, but in 1919 it returned with much excitement about the promise of things to come.

The electric truck on display at the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Novak Archive]

The October 5, 1919, Sandusky Registerin Sandusky, Ohio described the featured exhibits everyone was buzzing about in New York, such as: “a model apartment, an electrical dairy, electrical bakery, therapeutic display, motion picture theater, the dental college tube X ray unit, the magnifying radioscope, a domestic ice making refrigerating unit, a carpet washer which not only cleans but restores colors and kills germs.”

Model homes and apartments were both popular staples of the early 20th century electrical shows. Naturally, the Chicago show regularly featured a house of the future, while the New York show typically called their model home an apartment. Either way, both were extravagantly futuristic places where nearly everything seemed to be aided by electricity.

The model apartment at the 1919 New York Electrical Show included a small electric grand piano with decorative electric candles. A tea table with an electric hot water kettle, a lunch table with chafing dishes and and electric percolator. The apartment of tomorrow even came with a fully equipped kitchen with an electric range and an electric refrigerator. Daily demonstrations showed off how electricity could help in the baking of cakes and pastry, preparing dinner, as well as in canning and preserving. The hottest gadgets of the 1919 NY show included the latest improvements in radio, dishwashing machines and a ridiculous number of vacuum cleaners. The December 1919 issue of Electrical Experimenter magazine described the editors as “flabbergasted” trying to count the total number of vacuum cleaners being demonstrated.

The “electric light bath” at the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Novak Archive]

After WWI the electrical shows really kicked into high gear, and not just in New York and Chicago. Cleveland advertised its electrical show in 1920 as the biggest ever staged in America. Held in the Bolivar-Ninth building the show was decidedly more farm-centric, with the latest in electrical cleaners for cows getting top billing in Ohio newspapers. The Cleveland show included everything from cream separators that operate while the farmer is out doing other chores to milking machines to industrial sized refrigerators for keeping perishable farm products fresh.

The “electric dairy” from the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Novak Archive]

The 1921 New York Electrical Show featured over ninety booths with over 450 different appliances on display. Americans of the early 1920s were promised that in the future the human body would be cared for by electricity from head to toe. The electric toothbrush was one of the most talked about displays. The American of the future would be bathing in electrically-heated water, and afterward put on clothes that had been electrically sewn, electrically cleaned and electrically pressed. The electrical shows of the early 20th century promised that the American of the future would only be eating meals that were prepared electrically. What was described by some as the most interesting exhibit of the 1921 New York Electrical Show, the light that stays on for a full minute after you turn it off. This, it was explained, gave you time to reach your bed or wherever you’re heading without “hitting your toes against the rocking chair” and waking up the rest of your family.

The “electric vase light attachment” from the 1919 New York Electrical Show [Source: Matt Novak]

The Great Depression would stall that era’s American electrical shows. In 1930 the New York Electrical Show didn’t happen and Earl Whitehorne, president of the Electrical Association of New York, made the announcement. The Radio Manufacturers Association really took up the mantle, holding events in Chicago, New York and Atlantic City where previous exhibitors at the Electrical Shows were encouraged to demonstrate their wares. But it wasn’t quite the same. The sale of mechanical refrigerators, radios and even automobiles would continue in the 1930s, but the easy credit and sky’s-the-limit dreaming of the electrically minded would be relegated to certain corners of larger American fairs (like the World’s Fairs of 1933 in Chicago and 1939 in New York) where techno-utopian dreams were largely the domain of gigantic corporations like RCA and Westinghouse.

This is the 14th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The 14th episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired in the U.S. on December 30, 1962, and was titled “Test Pilot.” This episode (like so many others) centers around the competition between Spacely Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs. Both companies have developed an invincibility suit which can supposedly withstand anything from gigantic sawblades to missiles being fired directly at it. The only trouble is that neither Mr. Spacely nor Mr. Cogswell can find any person brave enough (or dumb enough) to act as a human guinea pig and test the suit’s ability to keep its wearer safe.

George goes to the doctor for an insurance physical and gets some bad news. George swallows a Peek-A-Boo Prober Capsule which travels around the inside of his body showing the doctor (in a rather humorous way, of course) how George’s various organs are holding up. “You just swallow it and it transmits pictures to a TV screen,” the doctor explains. Through a series of mix-ups the doctor diagnoses George as having very little time to live. George then takes “live each day as if it were your last” quite literally and begins making hasty decisions — giving his family money to spend frivolously and telling off his boss, Mr. Spacely.

Mr. Spacely realizes that George’s newfound bravery may be just what he needs to test out the invincibility suit. Mr. Cogswell tries to poach the newly heroic Jetson for his company since he’s had no more luck than Mr. Spacely in finding a test pilot. Mr. Spacely wins out and George goes on testing the suit without a care in the world, acting rather calm for a man who believes that he’ll soon be six feet under. (Or six feet over? I don’t think “The Jetsons” ever addresses if people of the 21st century are buried or cremated or shot into space or something.)

After many death-defying tests, George discovers that the diagnosis was wrong and that he’s not going to die. George then reverts back to the lovable coward he always was and does his best to get out of the last test which just so happens to involve two missiles being shot at him. In the end, it wasn’t the missiles or the sawblades that destroyed the suit, but the washing machine — and George remarks that they should have included a “dry-clean only” tag.

The doctor shows George his “Peek-A-Boo Prober Capsule” (1962)

The 1950s was an exciting decade for medicine with many important innovations — from Salk’s polio vaccine to the first organ transplant. These incredible advancements led many to believe that such marvelous medical discoveries would continue at an even more accelerated rate into the 21st century, including in how to diagnosis different diseases.

As Dr. Kunio Doi explains in his 2006 paper “Diagnostic Imaging Over the Last 50 Years” the science of seeing inside the human body has developed tremendously since the 1950s. The biggest hurdle in diagnostic imaging at mid-century was the manual processing of film which could be time consuming:

[In the 1950s] most diagnostic images were obtained by use of screen-film systems and a high-voltage x-ray generator for conventional projection x-ray imaging [...]. Most radiographs were obtained by manual processing of films in darkrooms[...], but some of the major hospitals began to use automated film processors. The first automated film processor [...] was a large mechanical system with film hangers, which was designed to replace the manual operation of film development; it was very bulky, requiring a large space, and took about 40 min to process a film.

The January 17, 1960 edition of the Sunday comic strip Our New Age by Athelstan Spilhaus offered an optimistic look at the medical diagnostic instruments of the future:

The strip explains that one day patients might step into an “examination booth” while outfitted with a suit that measures all kinds of things at once — your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and so on. This suit will, of course, be connected to a computer which will spit out data to be analyzed by a doctor. The prescription will then be “automatically” printed out for the patient.

Just as we see with George Jetson, “automatic” diagnosis in this comic strip from 1960 doesn’t mean that humans will be taken completely out of the picture. Doctors of the future, we were told, will still play a vital role in analyzing information and double-checking the computer’s diagnosis. As Dr. Doi notes in his paper, we’ve made tremendous strides in the last 50 years of diagnosis. But I suppose we’re still waiting on that invincibility suit.