Smithsonian.com

This is the 18th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

“The problem with these skyways is that by the time they’re built they’re obsolete. This traffic is the worst I’ve seen yet,” George Jetson proclaims as he zips around in his flying car.

The 18th episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired on January 27, 1963, and was titled “Jane’s Driving Lesson.” As one might expect with a title like that, the episode deals with the flying cars of the year 2063. Specifically, female drivers of the year 2063.

Jane Jetson gets a driving lesson in the 18th episode of “The Jetsons” (1963)

This episode wears its sexism rather proudly at every turn, playing it for laughs as men are constantly terrified of women behind the wheel — or the yoke as the case may be. George pulls up behind a young woman driver and becomes confused by her hand signals. “Women drivers, that’s the problem!” George shouts at the woman.

When we looked at the 15th episode of “The Jetsons,” titled “Millionaire Astro,” I wrote about the social and economic conservatism of the show. This episode is another example of the show’s conservatism, again not in the “red state versus blue state” political sense, but rather in its affirmation of the social status quo. But where did this myth that women are worse drivers than men come from?

Michael L. Berger writes in his 1986 paper “Women Drivers!: The Emergence of Folklore and Stereotypic Opinions Concerning Feminine Automotive Behavior” about the history of the stereotype that women are poor drivers. Much like in the way that the “women are bad drivers” jokes are presented in “The Jetsons,” there is a long history of using humor to perpetuate this sexist rhetoric:

For although often presented in a humorous context, folklore concerning women drivers, and the accompanying negative stereotype emerged for very serious social reasons. They were attempts to both keep women in their place and to protect them against corrupting influences in society, and within themselves.

As Berger points out in his paper, the idea that women were bad drivers was very much rooted in class and wealth. However, the stereotype didn’t really gain traction until the 1920s, when middle class American women started to have access to automobiles. Up until that point it was only a wealthy handful (whether male or female) who could afford such a luxury like a car:

As long as motoring was limited to wealthy urban women, there was little criticism of their ability as drivers. These were women of high social and economic station, who made a vocation of leisure-time pursuits. If they chose to spend their time motoring around the city rather than at home giving teas few would criticize. Such changes posed little or no threat to the established social order, and hence there was no need for a negative stereotype.

In the 1910s prices of cars were coming down and many men were going off to fight the first World War, leaving women with both the “need and opportunity” to learn how to drive for those who hadn’t already:

By the end of [WWI], there existed the real possibility that the automobile could be adopted by large numbers of middle-class women. It is from this period, and not that of the initial introduction of the motor car, that we can trace the origins of the women driver stereotype and the folklore of which it is a part.

Jane Jetson was very much the American middle-class everywoman of 2063 — the woman that women of 1963 were supposed to identify with on the show, and in turn the woman that girls of 1963 were supposed to see as their future.

Jane’s driving was so bad, even a bank robber begged to be in jail rather than spend more time in the car with her.

Jane receives a driving lesson during the episode but when the instructor wants to stop off to check his safe deposit box (and his life insurance policy) a bank robber emerges and jumps in. Jane continues on driving, believing that he must be  just another driving instructor. The bank robber is terrified of Jane’s driving and by the end of the episode he’s begging to be put in jail rather than endure more time in the flying car with Jane.

After George finds Jane at the police stations the status quo is restored (George is again behind the yoke) and Jane explains, “You know George, I don’t really care much about driving anyway.”

George responds, “Well, it’s probably better if you don’t Janey. Driving requires a man’s skill; a man’s judgement; a man’s technical know-how.”

“And what about a man’s eyesight, George?” Jane replies just before George realizes he went through a red light and crashes into a parked car. This, like so many of these “women are bad at stuff” tropes from midcentury sitcoms, is meant to be the kicker. The audience is given a sly wink — isn’t it ridiculous that a man could be just a terrible as a woman behind the wheel?

Thanks to an unsympathetic judge (the parked car George plowed into was owned by the judge) George has to start taking the flying bus. Interestingly, the only other time in the series that we see a bus stop (other than early in this episode) is in the first episode, when Rosey tries to sullenly run away.

George waiting at the bus stop after his driver’s license is suspended (1963)

Much like other episodes of “The Jetsons,” we’re left to wonder what kind of real-world impact a different depiction of the future may have had on the world we live in today. Obviously, the episode is little more than one long “women are terrible drivers” joke and it’s easy to dismiss it as such, but it was seen repeatedly throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s by kids all over the world. Time and again we see “The Jetsons” used as a way to talk about the future in which we’re currently living.

Today men like Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, point to products like the iPhone and say “we’re living The Jetsons with this.” What if the Jetsons points of reference people use in the 21st century weren’t just technological? What if someone could point to other forms of progress and say, “This is the Jetsons. We’re truly living in the future with this.”

People in a space colony of the future (by Rick Guidice, 1977)

The February 26, 1977 edition of the Herald-Star in Steubenville, Ohio published dozens of predictions for the year 2000 made by the people of Steubenville, a working class town in eastern Ohio (and the birthplace of Dean Martin). Some of these letters came from local middle school kids 10-12 years old and they provide a fascinating snapshot of the era; unique in their ability to reflect the pessimism stirred by a down economy and shaken faith in government in a post-Watergate, post-Vietnam War era, while also laying bare the irrational optimism of youth.

Many of the predictions are clearly influenced by the energy crisis, with many kids predicting there will be tough times ahead without access to cheap energy. However, there’s also optimism about space exploration and more than one reference to women as astronauts. Even though Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963, the first American woman (Sally Ride, who died this past summer) wouldn’t become an astronaut until 1983 — a full six years after these kids were making their predictions.

Interestingly, for being middle schoolers these kids sure seem concerned about high taxes. All of these kids are now between 45 and 48 years old and if you happen to be one of them, I’d love to hear from you. How do you feel reading your predictions from the vantage point of “the future”? How do you feel about the years to come?

Some of the letters from the February 26, 1977 Herald-Star appear below:

New Great Depression

I think that by the year 2000 we will be in a great depression. People are saying that we are running out of fuel. People will be using machines to do everything. And machines run on fuel. If we run out of fuel we won’t be able to run the machines and people will be out of jobs. So we can save fuel. Everybody should try to save by turning their heat to 68 degrees.

Debbie Six, 12 (Harding School)

We’ll Find More Oil

My view of the future is that we will find more gas and oil. No one will be poor and we all will live in peace! Also in the future, I think they will find some mechanical device that could make kitchens, dining rooms and etc. You’d just push a button and WHAM!! An instant living room or WHAM!! an instant milkshake. And that’s my view of the future!

Emma Conforti, Age 11 (Harding School)

Robot Maids, Robot Teachers

In the year 2000, we will have all round buildings. We will have a robot teacher, a robot maid, and all workers will be robots, too. We will have a pocket computer that has everything you can name. We will even be able to push a button to get anything you want!

Marty Bohen, Age 10 (Harding School)

Electric Cars and Ladies on the Moon

The year 2000 might have everybody walking instead of riding in their cars because there might be a gas shortage by then, and the cars give out a lot of pollution. Or there might even be electric cars instead of gas cars. The year 2000 may send ladies to the moon to explore and look and see if there are people living on the moon. And when you work you will push buttons and robots will come out and do the work for you. And there will be lower prices and taxes, I hope.

Tim Villies, 10 (Harding School)

Cures For Every Sickness

In 2000 I will marry a doctor and maybe have kids. I would like my husband to be a doctor because he would be helping people and would still want to be close to my family. As for a job for me I would help the crippled boys and girls. I would still like to have my same friends. And the most important thing for there to be is no wars and killings. I hope they could find cures for every sickness. And everybody will care for each other.

Monica Katsaros, Age 10 (Harding School)

 The Last Five Years Haven’t Been So Good

I think 2000 will be a good year. I hope so because the last five years haven’t been so good with people dying and getting shot and murdered. I will be a grown man by then and will be married. I’ll probably have kids. I hope it will be a good America.

Michael Beal, Age 10 (Harding School)

Women Astronauts

In the year 2000, I think there won’t be any crimes of any kind. Shorter school days and lower taxes. I hope there will be lower taxes and no crimes because I’ll be 33 years old and I am sick of crimes and high taxes. I hope woman can be astronauts. I also hope there won’t be any pollution. And I also hope there will be town in space, where people live in space capsules.

Lora Ziarko, Age 10 (Harding School)

Cars That Float On Air

I think the future will be better than it is now. The pollution problem will be solved and there will be cars that float on air. I will be 34 in the year 2000. I will have a good job designing modern houses with push-button controls for everything to make it easier on everyone.

You could push a button and a bed would unfold from the wall. Everything would run on solar energy so you wouldn’t have to worry about the fuel shortage. You wouldn’t have to go to school. It would be on TV and living would be much easier for everyone.

John Vecchione, Age 11 (Harding School)

Young People Unemployed

I think by the year 2000 we will be riding bikes or driving solar-energized cars. By then more younger people will be unemployed. The price of gas will go up and so will the price of coal, silver, gold and oil.

Pietro Sincropi, 10 (Harding School)

Living on Mars

I think it is going to be an all-new world. People are going to be able to live on the moon and on Mars. Man is going to have computers to do the work for him. It is going to be a computer run world.

Tracy McCoy, Age 12 (Harding School)

Most of the World Will Be The United States of America

In the year 2000 I will be 34 years old. And actually I don’t think kids will have to go to school, because I believe that families will have computers to educate students. That’s all for education. I also believe that most of the world will all be the United States of America. I also believe that business and industry will be up 75 per cent. And as for culture, the Model T will be an old artifact. And, if you have children or grandchildren, they’ll all be more interested in culture than ever.

Mike Metzger, Age 10 3/4 (Harding School)

I Hope By Then Things Will Get Better

I think that everything by the year 2000 will be different. I hope the violence will all be stopped. I hope that the computers don’t take over people’s jobs. I hope by then things will get better.

Mary Gallo, Age 12 (Harding School)

Screenshot from the third episode of The Jetsons, The Space Car (originally aired October 7, 1962)

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

Each and every year at least one company goes knocking on the doors of the major news outlets and announces to the world that the futuristic vision of a flying car will be a practical reality within a few short years. Some of these companies appear to be making these promises in earnest, fully recognizing that their flying cars — should they ever hit the market — will be wildly expensive and essentially just road-legal airplanes. Other flying car companies are far more sketchy and have gotten into hot water with the FEC over their questionable fundraising practices.

But any way you look at it, a flying car in every garage is still a long way from becoming a part of the average American’s reality.

The Jetsons didn’t invent the flying car, but it sure did a lot to cement the idea of the airborne automobile into the American imagination. The third episode of “The Jetsons” is the show’s first in-depth look at the cars of the future. Titled “The Space Car,” the episode originally aired on Sunday October 7, 1962.

The episode opens with a seemingly sentient computer doing its best to wake George from his slumber. The family all meets for breakfast in the dining room and George does his best to cook a meal by push-button. In true early-TV sitcom fashion George fails miserably at this task. Jane talks to her friend by videophone and then we’re introduced to two shady-looking characters who will serve to create confusion with their cops and robbers hijinks. George and Jane set out to buy a new car and arrive at Molecular Motors where they and the viewers at home are treated to a car salesman’s pitch from the year 2062.

The fold-up flying car of the future as imagined in the third episode of The Jetsons

Longtime readers of Paleofuture will, of course, be familiar with dozens of flying cars that predate the 1962 arrival of The Jetsons on the small screen. From the fully functional (if impractical) Aerocar of the early 1950s to Hugo Gernsback’s 1923 vision of a two-wheeled flying car, we’ve seen hundreds of predictions for the flying car of the future throughout the 20th century. Plenty of flying cars would follow the Jetsons as well, like when two men in California died in 1973 after they tried strapping airplane wings on a Pinto.

The car shopping montage in this episode appears to have been inspired by the tone and style of Tex Avery‘s late-1940 and early-’50s “Of Tomorrow” cartoons. Avery’s cartoons looked at the TV, house, farm and car of tomorrow with an irreverent flare. Many of the sight gags from “The Space Car” pay homage to this style of dissecting the various goofy caricatures of futuristic thinking, adhering to the comedic (and often sexist) stylings of the time.

In fact, the “mother-in-law” joke we see in The Jetsons is identical to that of Tex Avery’s “Car of Tomorrow” cartoon short, right down to the color of the car.

(Left) The Jetsons episode from Oct 7, 1962 (Right) The Tex Avery short cartoon “Car of Tomorrow” from 1951

The car companies themselves, as much as anyone, were promoting the idea of a radical shift in automobiles in the coming decades. The April 25, 1959 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune relayed the beliefs of Ford VPs, who touted the flying car as one of the many innovations still to come:

Can you imagine an autoist driving up to a “gas” station 50 years from now and receiving replacement energy capsules for his car instead of getting a tank full of liquid fuel?

Also, can you imagine flying automobiles directed by automatic guidance systems?

These were possibilities discussed last week by Dr. Andrew A. Kucher, Ford Motor company vice president in charge of engineering and research, in an address at Northwestern University.

Arthur Radebaugh‘s syndicated Sunday comic “Closer Than We Think” was also a likely inspiration for The Jetsons’ vision of flying cars. The April 6, 1958 edition of the strip imagined cars that would ride on a cushion of air, according to Kucher, who was eager to tout this idea in the press during that time.

The “flying carpet car” from the April 6, 1958 edition of Arthur Radebaugh’s “Closer Than We Think”

Look, pa, no wheels! Use of a thin layer of compressed air may allow autos to hover and move just above ground level.

A pipe dream? Not at all. The concept (already proved) comes from scientist Andrew Kucher, vice-president of engineering at one of our major motor companies. His people are studying how to maintain stability. Special highway engineering is one way. Another is skillful design, evidenced already in experimental ideas from the staff of motor stylist George W. Walker.

Today’s earthbound cars won’t turn into low flying carpets right away. But it may happen sooner than we think!

The episode essentially boils down to the “men can’t cook, women can’t drive, mother-in-laws are terrible” sitcom trope, but the episode serves to further the vision of a technologically advanced society. Unfortunately for The Jetsons, it was on October 7, 1962 that they started to get their bad press. As I mentioned in my first post about the historical significance of The Jetsons, the show struggled as it was up against the tremendously popular “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” Filling in for Jay Fredericks of the Gazette Mail in Charleston, West Virgina, writer L.T. Anderson wrote of his love for what Disney had been doing the past few Sundays on NBC, and his distaste for The Jetsons on ABC in that same time slot: “The Jetsons, a cartoon series about a family of the future, was so bad that my eight-year-old son turned off and said a dirty word.”

The car dealership of the future from the third episode of The Jetsons

Men watch baseball on a color television of the future (July 1922 Science and Invention magazine)

Hugo “Awards” Gernsback was many different things to different people. To his fans, he was a visionary who started some of the most influential (not to mention the first) science fiction magazines of the early 20th century. Ray Bradbury was quoted as saying, “Gernsback made us fall in love with the future.” To his detractors, he was “Hugo the Rat,” known to men like H. P. Lovecraft for being a crooked publisher who sometimes stiffed his writers when payment was due. But above all else, he was a tireless self-promoter.

In 1904, Gernsback emigrated from Luxembourg to the U.S. at the age of 20. Not long thereafter he began selling radio kits to hobbyists, sometimes importing parts from Europe. His radio business and the catalogues he used to promote his wares evolved into a technology-focused magazine empire. Gernsback published over 50 different magazine titles in the course of his life, most of which were hobbyist magazines related to science, technology and the genre he helped popularize for so many in the 1920s: science fiction.

Hugo Gernsback circa 1924 (from the August 1990 issue of Smithsonian)

Gernsback’s name was always prominently displayed on the cover and inside each of his magazines. And each issue featured an editorial by Gernsback himself in the first few pages. Gernsback would often use this platform to give an update on a field of research relevant to the publication — be it TV, radio or even sex. But sometimes he would make wild predictions for the future.

The September 1927 issue of Science and Invention included Gernsback’s predictions for “Twenty Years Hence” — the year 1947. Gernsback couldn’t foresee the calamities of the Great Depression that were just around the corner, nor the tremendous hardships of the Second World War, but his predictions from this time give us a look at the most radical of technological utopianism from the 1920s. Everything from wireless power to a cure for cancer is predicted, though there are many areas — like increased life expectancy, conquering childhood diseases and air conditioning — where Gernsback’s predictions are quite on the nose.

Wireless power

Nikola Tesla and his “wireless light” were featured on the cover of the February 1919 issue of Gernsback’s Electrical Experimenter magazine. Tesla’s ideas about wireless power no doubt inspired Gernsback’s view of the future in this area.

I believe that within twenty years it will be possible to actually send power wirelessly; that is, without the need of intervening pipes or wires. It will only be possible, at first, to send sufficient power to a land or air vehicle to light and heat it, the power being supplied entirely or in part from the ground.

Television

Gernsback was a pioneer in the field of radio and made a number of predictions in his magazines about the future of its cousin: television. In 1927 television wasn’t yet a practical reality in American homes, and was still not imagined as a broadcast medium by many. As such, he envisioned TV as more of a point-to-point communications tool, though as early as 1922 he thought it might be used for broadcasting baseball games like in the illustration above.

In twenty years universal television will be an everyday affair. It will be possible to talk over the telephone to your friend a thousand miles away and see him at the selfsame [sic] time. The same thing will be true in radio, where you will see what is being broadcast at all times. Television still holds some great surprises for us, and the applications in television may well revolutionize our entire mode of living, just as the telephone has revolutionized it.

Disease

It is quite probable that within twenty years, two of man’s greatest scourges, tuberculosis and cancer, will have been done away with entirely, or else they will be controlled in such a manner as to no longer be called dangerous. These two diseases will be conquered just exactly as diabetes has already been conquered during the past few years.

Agriculture

Gernsback believed, like some others of the time, that applying electricity to the soil would allow crops to produce higher yields.

Electrification of crops will be an established fact twenty years hence. There is no reason why the ground can not yield twice as much produce, as has long been shown experimentally. The equipment to double and triple crops by using constant electric currents in the ground where the crops are planted, is not at all expensive, and is easy to tend and harness. As the population increases we must have more vegetable food-stuffs. Electrified crops is the answer to the problem. Incidentally, it will make farming highly profitable, for the reason that a small area will yield a triple or even a quadruple crop.

Life span

The average length of man’s life has been increased from about 40 to 60 years since the middle ages. Man can expect to live much longer as times goes on, due to better personal hygiene, better sanitation, and better understanding of the human machine. I confidently predict that the present average of 60 years will be raised at least five, and perhaps as much as ten years, by the end of the next twenty years.

On the other hand, infant mortality, which has been greatly reduced during the last fifty years, will be reduced still further. There is no reason at all for most infantile diseases. We are slowly conquering them, one by one, and I believe that most of them such as measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, rickets and others will probably have been done away with twenty years hence.

Weather control

Last year we looked at weather control and its possible use as a Cold War weapon, but decades before this superpower struggle, Gernsback imagined that “universal weather control” would be as simple as the flip of a switch.

Twenty years hence, weather control will no longer be a theory. While it may take longer than this to actually have universal weather control, within twenty years it will be possible to at least cause rain, when required over cities and farm lands, by electrical means. But we shall not solve the problem of warding off or creating cold and heat in the open for many centuries.

Air conditioning 

In the December 1900 issue of Ladies Home Journal writer John Elfreth Watkins Jr. predicted that the 20th century would see cold air “turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house.” Almost three decades later Gernsback made a similar prediction and, after World War II, those in hotter climates thankfully saw this vision for the future come true.

Within twenty years our private dwellings and office buildings will be artificially cooled, the same as they are heated in the winter time. There is no good engineering reason why we should have to swelter and cut down our production in the summer time, any more than we should freeze in the winter. The present hot water and steam piping systems will probably be used for the artificial cold circulation.

Air travel

Within twenty years there will be far more airplanes in the air than we have cars on the ground now. There will be a great exodus from the city to the country, not a movement back to the farm, but, most likely, a movement back to the home. Inaccessible and practically valueless plots in the most out of the way places will bring high prices for house building sites, because hills and mountain tops will be more accessible than the valleys.

I do not see the airplane, as it is today, neither do I see the helicopter as the final solution for aircraft. As long as an airplane requires a landing field, or at least, a space for a runway of 100 yards, or more, to either alight or take off, airplanes will not come into universal use. The helicopter idea, to my mind, is not sound. The chances are that we shall have an airplane that will be able to land on rooftops, or even in streets, if necessary. I believe that airplanes will be articulated in such a way that the entire plane can be spun around practically within its own length, and kept on circling in this small space as long as necessary. This would be the equivalent of “standing still,” for an automobile. If a landing were to be made, the airplane could then spiral down by gradually losing altitude. It could rise the same way, always spiralling in a small circle, which need not exceed 50 feet in diameter, and perhaps even a great deal less for smaller machines.

I firmly believe that within twenty years air-liners of a special construction will make the trip from New York to Paris within ten to twelve hours at a maximum, flying through the upper strata of our atmosphere. The flying would be done at tremendously high altitudes, for the simple reason that here there is less air resistance, with a consequent increase in speed and safety. The entire hull for passengers and crew would be practically airtight, as the space would have to be supplied with air at proper pressure, and, due to the tremendous cold at high altitudes, the inside would have to be heated artifically as well, either from the exhaust of the engines, or electrically.

45 RPM record of the Jetsons theme song and “Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah” from 1962 (misspelled “OOP”)

This is the second in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season. Read the recap of Episode 1.

The second episode of “The Jetsons” aired September 30, 1962 and was titled “A Date With Jet Screamer.” Arguably the most famous of all the Jetsons episodes, it’s also certainly the most hedonistic; with sex (well, dating), drugs (cigarettes and booze), rock and roll (lotsa rock and roll) and easy living (just lousy with push buttons) dominating the story arc. This postwar version of wholesome hedonism would come to be the aspirational cliche of Americans decades later — work hard, play hard. But in Jetsonian push-button fashion, this episode aspires to drop the “work hard” part.

Fitter, Happier, More Productive

The problem of too much leisure time was something that some people of the 1950s and ’60s were convinced was just over the horizon. Increased efficiency in postwar factories, along with the rising dominance of unions caused many to assume that we’d be working fewer and fewer hours by the 21st century. The continued maturity of the labor movement was seen as a certainty for the latter half of the 20th century and in an article from the Associated Press in 1950, they make some predictions about labor for the next half century:

There is every reason to believe that the steady growth of organized labor in the first half of 1950 will continue along the same trend in the second half of the century.

Labor developed to where it is today from practically nothing at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s still in the process of growth. The various elements and cliques making up the American economy – labor is just one of them – are learning more and more that the national security and well-being requires them to remain strong and work together.

The article also notes that things like the minimum wage, strict child labor laws and unemployment compensation — unheard of at the turn of the 20th century — would progress much in the same trajectory as they had in first half of the 20th century. The AP article predicts that the American worker may even see a 20-hour work week by the year 2000:

It’s a good bet, too, that by the end of the century many government plans now avoided as forms of socialism will be accepted as commonplace. Who in 1900 thought that by mid-century there would be government-regulated pensions and a work week limited to 40 hours? A minimum wage, child labor curbs and unemployment compensation?

So tell your children not to be surprised if the year 2000 finds 35 or even a 20-hour work week fixed by law.

The Jetsons relaxing at home in the year 2062

This thinking carried on into the late 1960s, like in this Associated Press article from November 26, 1967. But the idea of “forced free time” didn’t sit too well with the political scientist they spoke with.

Those who hunger for time off from work may take heart from the forecast of political scientist Sebastian de Grazia that the average work week, by the year 2000, will average 31 hours, and perhaps as few as 21. Twenty years later, on-the-job hours may have dwindled to 26, or even 16.

But what will people do with all that free time? The outlook may not be cheery.

As De Grazia sees it: “There is reason to fear, as some do, that free time, forced free time, will bring on the restless tick of boredom, idleness, immorality, and increased personal violence. If the cause is identified as automation and the preference for higher intelligence, nonautomated jobs may increase, but they will carry the stigma of stupidity. Men will prefer not to work rather than to accept them. Those who do accept will increasingly come to be a politically inferior class.”

One possible solution: a separation of income from work; perhaps a guaranteed annual wage to provide “the wherewithal for a life of leisure for all those who think they have the temperament.”

Future Fix

A scene from “Jet Screamer” that may be slightly jarring to those of us here in the year 2012 is one in which George lights up a cigarette and sips a martini. Today, there are campaigns by youth smoking prevention groups who have lobbied the MPAA in attempts to weigh smoking as a consideration for a movie’s rating (they’d like movies with smoking to get an automatic R). And some media companies have erased smoking completely from old cartoons. But when this episode aired, smoking in the U.S. was at an all-time high.

The adult smoking rate in the U.S. peaked in 1965 at 42.4 percent. Today the adult smoking rate in the U.S. is just 19 percent.

George Jetson enjoys a cigarette and a martini after work (1962)

Postwar Amusements 

This episode, even more so than the first, seeks to project the late-1950s/early ’60s vision of the American teenager into the future. Judy’s accidental success in winning a contest (despite her father’s attempts at sabotage) mean that the cool young rock star Jet Screamer takes her for a date in his flying car — to a fly-in burger joint. The burgers, cars and teens image of mid-century suburban living mirror a vision of American adolescence that some were already nostalgic for just a decade later in films like American Graffiti, a film that shows 1973′s nostalgia for 1962.

The 1954 book, 1999: Our Hopeful Future by Victor Cohn projected a similar vision of teenage burger and car culture onto the reading public. But in this case it’s a slightly more unrecognizable burger for Americans in the 1950s:

“Where’s Susan?” said John. “Oh, here she comes.”

“Hi,” said the teen-ager. “Gosh, I’m not very hungry tonight. The gang stopped at Joe’s Fly-in for plankton-burgers.”

Jet Screamer drives Judy in his flying car to The Spaceburger drive-in (fly-in?) restaurant

In the years leading up to the Jetsons premiere in September 1962, the United States had seen an explosion in investment in the amusement park industry. Disneyland opened in Anaheim in 1955, attracting 3.5 million visitors in its first year. Pacific Ocean Park opened in Venice, CA in 1958 with 1.2 million visitors in its first year. Pleasure Island opened in Massachusetts in 1959 to large crowds. Freedomland U.S.A. opened in the Bronx in 1960 attracting 1.4 million visitors in its first year. Six Flags Over Texas opened in 1961 with 1.2 million visitors in its first year.

Theme parks were of course not new in the mid-20th century, but postwar they flourished becoming ever more sophisticated with their use of electronics and higher standards of cleanliness and safety. Many of these parks served as family destinations for their respective surrounding states, but of course some like Disneyland had a national draw – which also had a national TV show that competed with “The Jetsons”!

The amusement park “fun pad” of the future from the second episode of The Jetsons

This postwar version of wholesome hedonism was set free in Southern California where high-end amusement parks were sprouting like gangbusters. After the success of Disneyland in 1955, other parks in the Southern California area (where the Hanna-Barbera studios and its employees were located) were built. The photo below is from the Pacific Ocean Park, opened in 1958 by CBS in Venice, California. Like many of the other parks that sprang up mid-century it didn’t have the benefit of national exposure yet worked through high operating costs. Pacific Ocean Park was shuttered after less than a decade in 1967.

Neptune’s Entrance to Pacific Ocean Park circa 1958 (from the book Venice of America by Jeffrey Stanton)

Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah

The early 1960s Billboard charts were filled with the teenage idols and crooners that clearly inspired the character of Jet Screamer. But Jet Screamer himself became a bit of a hit. The song “Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah” is undeniably catchy and is one of those that rattles around in your brain (whether you want it to or not) for days after you hear it. And because of its association with the Jetson family and all the space age optimism burned into the minds of so many kids, you see the song pop up in a number of unexpected places. If you’ve ever visited the History Center of Minnesota you’ll notice that the song is played in an exhibit about space travel. Many years later the song would be covered by the Violent Femmes on an album of Saturday morning cartoon songs covered by popular bands.

Screenshot from the Jetsons episode “A Date With Jet Screamer” originally aired Sept 30, 1962

The second episode of the show has fewer gadgets than the first, but its promise of easy living and constant entertainment is as emblematic of the Jetsons future as any episode in the series: the world of tomorrow will be much like today, only better.