Early concept illustration of Rosey the Robot from the Warner Brothers animation archive (1962)

Earlier this week I had the rare opportunity to meet with archivists from Warner Brothers and got a peek at their archive of Jetsons material. As you can imagine, I was in paleofuture nerd heaven.

I shot a segment here in L.A. with “CBS Sunday Morning” (airing this Sunday April 28th) about the impact of “The Jetsons” on the way that we think about the future in the year 2013. We touched on my recently wrapped project that looked at all 24 episodes of the original series and, aside from being a nervous mess, I think the interview went well! Afterward I was able to travel up to Burbank where Lee Cowan spoke with Sam Register from Warner Brothers animation. They looked at storyboards and talked about some of the tech from the show—some of which has been realized, with many more (as regular Paleofuture readers know) still a fantasy here in the 21st century.

The archivists were kind enough to let me snap a few pictures.

Opening title illustration for The Jetsons from the Warner Brothers animation archive (1962)

“The Jetsons” TV show was produced by legendary animation studio Hanna-Barbera but its library became part of Turner Broadcasting in 1991 and then became part of Warner Animation when Turner was purchased by Time Warner in 1996.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Warner Brothers archive doesn’t include a single animation cel from the original 1962-63 series (though they had some from the 1980s). As the archivists explained to me, the cels weren’t seen as something worth holding on to after an episode was finished. I suppose since the individual cels weren’t considered to be part of the final product, saving cels must’ve seemed to those midcentury animators at Hanna-Barbera like the equivalent to saving mere tools (like, say pencils).

One archivist explained that in the early 1960s many animation studios even had cel washers that would clean paint completely off the cels when a production was finished because the studios saw the plastic as more valuable than preservation. He said that it wasn’t until Disney started selling the animation cels for dirt cheap in the Disneyland park (maybe $7 a pop) that anyone realized there might be a market for these things after a cartoon or movie was finished.

I took a few photos of sketches from the archive (the most fascinating being the early sketch, below, of Judy looking rather sedate and conservatively dressed), but you can see even more if you tune in to “CBS Sunday Morning” on April 21st! April 28th!

Early designs for the Jetson family from the Warner Brothers animation archive (1962)

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

The final episode of the first season (and only season until a mid-1980s revival) of “The Jetsons” originally aired on March 17, 1963, and was titled “Elroy’s Mob.”

In the opening sequence of each episode of “The Jetsons” we see young Elroy dropped off at the Little Dipper School. Down he goes, dropped from the family car in his little bubble top flying saucer; his purple and green lunchbox in hand. Despite this, viewers of the show don’t get many peeks at what education in the future is supposed to look like. All of that changes in the last episode. Here the story revolves around Elroy’s performance in school and a bratty little kid named Kenny Countdown. It’s report card day (or report tape, this being the retrofuture and all) and the obnoxious Kenny swaps Elroy’s report tape (which has all A’s) for his own (which not only has four D’s and an F, but also an H).

Elroy brings his report tape home and naturally gets in trouble for getting such low marks. The confusion and anger are settled after Kenny’s dad makes him call the Jetsons on their videophone and explain himself. But by then the damage had been done. Elroy ran away from home with his dog Astro and proceeded to get mixed up with some common criminals. (Based on the last 24 episodes of the Jetsons you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that maybe 50 percent of people in the year 2063 are mobsters, bank robbers and thieves.)

A robot teaches Elroy Jetson and a class of the future (1963)

All of this trouble with the boys’ report tapes starts in the classroom, where Elroy’s teacher is passing out the tapes. According to little Elroy: “And eight trillion to the third power times the nuclear hypotenuse equals the total sum of the triganomic syndrome divided by the supersonic equation.” Elroy’s teacher, Ms. Brainmocker, praises little Elroy for his correct answer (perhaps gibberish is rewarded in the future?). But we have reason to believe that maybe Elroy’s answer isn’t correct. You see, his teacher is having a tough day because she’s malfunctioning. Because Ms. Brainmocker is a robot.

Aside from the vicious fights over racial segregation in our nation’s schools, one of the most pressing educational concerns of the 1950s and ’60s was that the flood of Baby Boomers entering school would bring the system to its knees. New schools were being built at an incredibly rapid pace all across the country, but there just didn’t seem to be enough teachers to go around. Were robot teachers and increased classroom automation the answers to alleviating this stress?

As Lawrence Derthick told the Associated press in 1959, the stresses of the baby boom would only get worse in coming years with more kids being born and entering school and the number of teachers unable to keep pace with this population explosion: “1959-60 will be the 15th consecutive year in which enrollment has increased. He added this trend, with attendant problems such as the teacher shortage, is likely to continue for many years.”

Other than the Jetsons, what visions of robot teachers and so-called automated learning were being promised for the school of the future?

“Push-button education” in the May 25, 1958 edition of the Sunday comic “Closer Than We Think” (Source: Novak Archive)

Arthur Radebaugh‘s classic futuristic comic strip “Closer Than We Think” (1958-63) looked at the idea of automation in the classroom. Movies, “mechanical tabulating machines” and teachers instructing by videophone were all envisioned for the classroom of tomorrow. Each child sits in front of a console which has a screen displaying equations, multiple colored buttons and what looks like maybe a video camera or microphone mounted on the top-center of the desk.

From the May 25, 1958 edition of “Closer Than We Think”:

Tomorrow’s schools will be more crowded; teachers will be correspondingly fewer. Plans for a push-button school have already been proposed by Dr. Simon Ramo, science faculty member at California Institute of Technology. Teaching would be by means of sound movies and mechanical tabulating machines. Pupils would record attendance and answer questions by pushing buttons. Special machines would be “geared” for each individual student so he could advance as rapidly as his abilities warranted. Progress records, also kept by machine, would be periodically reviewed by skilled teachers, and personal help would be available when necessary.

The Little Dipper School, which Elroy Jetson attends (1963)

But visions of automated classrooms and robot teachers weren’t exactly comforting predictions to many Americans. The idea of robot teachers in the classroom was so prevalent in the late 1950s (and so abhorrent to some) that the National Education Association had to assure Americans that new technology had the potential to improve education in the U.S., not destroy it.

In the August 24, 1960 Oakland Tribune the headline read “NEA Allays Parent Fears on Robot Teacher”:

How’d you like to have your child taught by a robot?

With the recent splurge of articles on teaching machines, computers and electronic marvels, the average mother may feel that her young child will feel more like a technician than a student this fall.

Not so, reassures the National Education Association. The NEA says it is true that teaching machines are on their way into the modern classroom and today’s youngsters will have a lot more mechanical aids than his parents.

But the emphasis will still be on aid — not primary instruction. In fact, the teaching machine is expected to make teaching more personal, rather than less.

In recent years, teachers have been working with large classes and there has been little time for individual attention. It is believed that the machines will free them from many time-consuming routine tasks and increase the hours they can spend with the pupil and his parents.

The article went on to cite a recent survey showing that there were at least 25 different teaching machines in use in classrooms around the United States. The piece also listed the numerous advantages, including instant feedback to the student about whether their answers were correct and the ability to move at one’s own pace without holding up (or feeling like you’re being held up by) the other students in a class.

“Automated schoolmarm” at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair (Source: Novak Archive)

The year after this episode first aired, the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair featured an “automated schoolmarm” at the Hall of Education. The desks and chairs were incredibly modern in design and included plastic molded chairs, a staple of mid-1960s futurism.

From the Official Souvenir Book: “The Autotutor, a U.S. Industries teaching machine, is tried out by visitors to the Hall of Education. It can even teach workers to use other automated machines.”

Robot teacher from the December 5, 1965 edition of the Sunday comic strip Our New Age (Source: Novak Archive)

The December 5, 1965 edition of Athelstan Spilhaus‘s comic strip “Our New Age,” people reading the Sunday paper learned about humans’ ability to understand faster speech. This “compressed speech” was illustrated in the last panel of the strip as something that could easily be delivered by robot teacher of the future.

“Compressed speech” will help communications: from talking with pilots to teaching reading. Future school children may hear their lessons at twice the rate and understand them better!

Fast-talking humanoid robots have yet to enter the classroom, but as I’ve said before, we have another 50 years before we reach 2063.

Watching the “billionth rerun” of The Flintstones on a TV-watch device in The Jetsons (1963)

The Jetson family and the Flintstone family would cross paths in the 1980s but there was also a joking nod to the connection between these two families in this episode. The “billionth rerun” of “The Flintstones” is showing on Kenny Countdown’s TV-watch. “How many times have I told you, no TV in the classroom! What do you have to say for yourself?” the robot teacher asks.

In keeping with its conservative leanings, viewers in 1963 are at least assured of one thing — that it doesn’t matter how much well-meaning tech you introduce into a school, kids of the future are still going to goof off.

This is the 23rd in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The 23rd episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired on March 3, 1963 and was titled “Dude Planet.”

In the year 2063, the people in the Jetsons’ universe work just a few hours a day. When they’re hungry, they just push a button or two and out pops a fully-formed, nutritious meal. Trips to distant planets are commonplace for a middle class family of four. And humanoid robots see to their every earthly need.

But despite all this, the Jetsons are depressed.

Not all of the time, mind you. They have fun playing sports, watching TV, going out to eat, and enjoying a cigarette with their martinis. But no matter how good things may seem for the Jetson family, the show assures us that life in the future will still be a grind. The futuristic machine that magically makes breakfast will undoubtedly break. Your boss at the sprocket factory will still hound you for not working to his satisfaction. The rich and powerful will still use the legal system to their advantage.

What then is a 21st century human to do? How are we to cope with the overwhelming stresses of modern life in the future? We find that the answer for people like Jane Jetson is to retreat into a world of cultural nostalgia.

Jane Jetson is depressed and overwhelmed by modern life (1963)

In the 23rd episode of “The Jetsons,” Jane isn’t feeling well. Life is a drag. Everything makes her irritable and her frustration with the repetition of life in the 21st century manifests itself in lashing out at the people she loves the most.

Jane goes to the doctor (at her husband’s insistence) and the doctor proceeds to run a bunch of tests. Jane tells the doctor about the stresses and general monotony of her life: “every day it’s the same thing, and every morning it’s the same thing,” she begins to explain in what sound like Nine Inch Nails lyrics. The doctor’s diagnosis is that she has buttonitis. “You need a rest,” the doctor tells Jane. “Get away from all those buttons.”

So Jane takes the doctor’s advice and decides to get away from it all. She visits a travel agency (remember those?) and books a trip to a dude ranch — a place where futuristic cityfolk can get away from the pressures of modern life and play cowboy.

People of the Jetsons universe riding robot horses on a “dude planet” (1963)

It’s perhaps notable that Jane doesn’t visit a dude ranch on Earth. Instead, the travel agent tells her to visit the Beat Bar Ranch on the Beta III Dude Planet. “It’s like a page out of the old West,” the travel agent explains.

The fact that there’s apparently no suitable dude ranch on Earth could be a hint that Jetsonian technological development and rapid growth had long since swallowed any semblance of the rustic outdoors that Americans had known at midcentury. The postwar period of growth, with its insatiable thirst for suburban homes, new schools, bigger airports, and more highways was concerning conservationists of the early 1960s. Many believed that this growth meant that the days of outdoor recreation in America were numbered.

In 1962 (the year before this episode aired) a report was delivered to Congress and President Kennedy outlining the future of outdoor recreation in America. The report highlighted this postwar concern about how once-rural land was being allocated — with highways, schools and subdivisions on one side, and open spaces and unpolluted water on the other.

Decade by decade, the expanding population has achieved more leisure time, more money to spend, and better travel facilities; and it has sought more and better opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. But the public has also demanded more of other things. In the years following World War II, this process greatly accelerated as an eager Nation, released from wartime restrictions, needed millions of new acres for subdivisions, industrial sites, highways, schools, and airports. The resources for outdoor recreation — shoreline, green acres, open space, and unpolluted waters — diminished in the face of demands for more of everything else.

In the world of the Jetsons, outdoor recreation is relegated to distant planets. But at least this romanticized version of the “Old West” is still at your disposal.

Jane dances with a robot cowboy at the dude ranch (1963)

The dude ranch is filled with people who we assume are in the same boat as Jane — mentally exhausted and feeling generally disconnected from any sense of personal fulfillment. Their quest to achieve happiness in the 21st century is thwarted by an evolving standard of comfort. Viewers of the show are warned that questions about the meaning of life and one’s self-worth hang over mid-21st century humanity just as they did in the 20th.

Jane heads to Beta Bar Ranch with her friend Helen but neither really seem to be enjoying themselves. It would seem that this escape into a world of nostalgia is no solution to their problems. They try their best to relax and take in the sights (like a cowboy doing his best to wrestle a robotic bull to the ground, and a robot cowboy emerging from a jukebox for a quick dance) but it’s no use. Jane simply misses her husband George too much. On top of that, she’s also jealous of the imaginary party he was throwing when they talked over the videophone.

Jane finds that reveling in nostalgia hasn’t helped her boredom with the tedium of life. Without saying as much, we assume that she resolves to simply put up with the more depressing aspects of life in the future. Happiness is at home, even when it’s not.

Riding a robotic horse on a dude ranch in the 23rd episode of The Jetsons (1963)

Today we often romanticize the past in similar ways as Jane. However, having a lot of money obviously helps one realize her dreams in playing Old West. Billionaire Bill Koch (the lesser known of the three brothers Koch) is currently building his own 50-building old west town on his 420 acre ranch in Colorado, complete with a 22,000 square foot mansion. The town will house Koch’s collection of Old West memorabilia, including a gun owned by Jesse James, Sitting Bull’s rifle, and a photograph of Billy the Kidd that he bought at auction for $2.3 million in 2011.

But 50 years hence it’s unlikely that any real-life Jane Jetsons will be able to get away from it all at Koch’s version of the Old West. Koch has said that he has no plans to make any of it open to the public.

This is the 22nd in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The 22nd episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired on February 24, 1963, and was titled “Private Property.”

Like many that would come before it, this episode of “The Jetsons” centers around the business rivalry between Mr. Spacely and Mr. Cogswell. However, a short scene from the episode featuring Judy and Jane is far more interesting for our purposes than two middle-aged cartoon men yelling at each other about where their property lines begin and end.

Jane “tries on” a green “early galaxy” dress in the 22nd episode of The Jetsons (1963)

Jane and George have tickets to go to a play titled My Space Lady, a reference to the 1950s Broadway musical hit My Fair Lady. In order to determine what to wear to the play, Judy employs a rather Jetsonian method of trying on clothes.

“What are you wearing to the show tonight, Mother?” Judy asks.

“Well, Judy I can’t make up my mind,” Jane replies.

Judy suggests turning on the “dress selector” in order to find an appropriate outfit for the show.

Judy turns on the “dress selector” for her mother (1963)

“Oh we need the facsimile image! It’s the second button from the top, Judy.”

A screen descends from the ceiling in front of Jane and Judy pushes a button to turn on the dress selector projection machine. But when it comes to dresses Jane has is very discerning. “No, not this one, early Galaxy simply isn’t in vogue this season,” she says.

Another dress is projected onto her body. “Ooh, isn’t that a Christian Di-Orbit, mother?” Judy asks in a 21st century nod to mid-20th century French fashion designer Christian Dior.

“Yes, but I wore it at the ballet last month,” Jane replies.

With yet another switch, Jane decides on a dress with the projected image moving along with her arms in perfect synchronization.

Screenshot from the 1993 AT&T concept video “Connections” showing the electronic mannequin of tomorrow

In the 1993 AT&T concept video “Connections” we see a similar scenario play out as the one that would precede it by 30 years on “The Jetsons.” In this case, a woman and her daughter are shopping for a wedding dress. The daughter visits her mom at work and they proceed to “go shopping” by dialing in to Colton’s National Bridal Service.

The service asks the daughter to authorize her electronic mannequin, which brings up an animated avatar of her in a simple white tunic and heels. They can then flip through the different possibilities in wedding dresses, customizing features as they see fit while being able to see what it looks like on her body.

Me-ality machine at the Culver City Westfield mall (Photo: Matt Novak, 2013)

Here in the year 2013, we seem ever closer to that Jetsonian vision of choosing outfits. A number of clothing websites now let you “try on” clothes in a virtual fitting room, while shopping malls are also installing machines that allow you to find your size by way of sizing kiosks. Yesterday I walked down to Culver City’s Westfield mall and tried out their Me-Ality sizing machine.

I began by giving the attendant working the booth my name, birthdate, zip code, and email. Stepping into the booth feels a bit like the TSA’s backscatter “naked” x-ray machines, though the young woman working there assured me theirs is different (read: less cancer-causing?) technology. After a 10-second scan (again, which feels exactly like an airport backscatter scan with its swoopy arm buzzing in front of me) I exit the booth and am shown a computer screen which lists various types of clothing. Touching each button category (jeans, sweaters, etc) brings up stores that may have clothes in my size.

As the Huffington Post notes, the free clothes sizing scan from Me-Ality comes at a cost. Not only is your information shared with retailers, Me-Ality also sells all of the data to researchers and marketers, since it “collects information about the precise heights, weights and body mass indexes of the shoppers who use it, from which it can also determine health risk factors.”

As far as we can tell, Jane Jetson never had her body mass index, email and zip code sold to market research folk. But welcome to the retail future.

This is the 21st in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The 21st episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired on February 17, 1963 and was titled “TV or Not TV.”

Much like both “Elroy’s Pal,” and “Elroy’s TV Show,” this episode ostensibly gives viewers another look behind the scenes of television production. George and Astro are involved in a misunderstanding (isn’t that always the way?) where they think they’ve witnessed a robbery. In fact, it was just a TV shoot for “Naked Planet,” a spoof on the late 1950s ABC show “Naked City.” Thinking that mobsters want to snuff him out, George goes into hiding with Astro at Mr. Spacely’s vacation home in the woods.

That vacation home – Mr. Spacely’s “old fishing cabin” — is one of my favorite examples of Jetsonian architecture. Probably because the building bears a striking resemblance to the villain Vandamm ‘s hide-out in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 film North By Northwest.

Mid-21st century design in a vacation home of the future (1963)

Screenshot from the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest

Sadly, the home in North by Northwest is not a real house that you can visit, but was instead built on an MGM set.

Both the Jetsons version and the Hitchcock version have the signature of midcentury hyper-modernism or, as it came to be known, Googie: dramatic sloping roofs, plenty of glass, steel, maybe a little plastic, and some stone when you wanted a touch of that comfortable earthy flair.

Shopping center from the 21st episode of “The Jetsons” (1963)

Danny Graydon, author of The Jetsons: The Official Guide to the Cartoon Classic, has deemed the look “mid-21st century modern” — a play on the term “midcentury modern,” back when the century in question happened to be the 20th.

The architecture from “The Jetsons” clearly takes cues from architects who worked in the midcentury modern/Googie style, like John Lautner and Oscar Niemeyer. Jetsonian architecture also seems to draw from the work of Charles Schridde in his series of ads for Motorola in the early 1960s which ran in the Saturday Evening Post and Life magazine.

Motorola ad illustrated by Charles Schridde in the early 1960s showing midcentury modern design

TV production studio in the Jetsons universe (1963)

But as I pointed out in my post about Googie architecture from last year, the artists and animators working on “The Jetsons” didn’t really need to leave their own backyards for inspiration. The Hanna-Barbera Studio which produced “The Jetsons” was in Hollywood and in the late 1950s and early 1960s buildings all across Los Angeles had that mid-20th century modern look that would become identified as Jetsonian.

The people working at Hanna-Barbera could find inspiration at Disneyland’s Tomorrowland in Anaheim, dozens of Googie coffee shops in Southern California, and maybe the most iconic Googie building in L.A. (if only for its visibility to tourists), the Theme Building at the Los Angeles International Airport.

The Theme Building at the Los Angeles International Airport (Photo: Matt Novak, 2013)

Another building which clearly inspired the architecture of the Jetsons universe was the Chemosphere. Designed by John Lautner and built in 1960, the home looks like it could take off into the sky like a flying saucer at any moment. The Chemosphere sits in the Hollywood Hills and has been an incredibly popular shooting location for films and TV shows that need a futuristic feel — including a 1964 episode of “The Outer Limits” set in the 21st century.

John Lautner’s Malin Residence “Chemosphere” built in 1960 in Hollywood, CA

The apartment building shot that opens most episodes of The Jetsons (1963)

The architecture of the Jetsons is a reflection of the future, but even more so a reflection of that late-1950s and early 1960s Space Age design we so associate with the golden age of futurism. Well, someone’s golden age.

And just as we’ve seen mention of the Jetsons become a kind of shorthand way to talk about the technology of past futures, so too has “that Jetsons look” eclipsed Googie as the descriptor of choice for people talking about architecture from the futures that never were. People may think you’re saying Google, when you mean Googie. But fifty years after its debut, there’s no mistaking the Jetsons landscape.

This is the 20th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

“We may take it for granted that every well-equipped business office will be in direct communication, by means of large-calibred pneumatic tubes, with the nearest post-office. And however rapidly and however frequently the trains or airships of the period may travel, the process of making up van loads of mail matter for despatch to remote centres, and redistribution there, is far too clumsy for what commerce will demand a hundred years hence. No doubt the soil of every civilised country will be permeated by vast networks of pneumatic tubes: and all letters and parcels will be thus distributed at a speed hardly credible to-day.”

-T. Baron  Russell, A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist (1905)

George crawls into a pneumatic tube which will transport him to Mr. Spacely’s office (1963)

In the 20th episode of “The Jetsons” viewers are treated to a diverse mix of the most Jetsonian of technological wonders. The episode, titled “Miss Solar System,” first aired on February 10, 1963 ,and featured a little bit of everything: videophones, 3D-TV, autonomous cleaning robots, moving sidewalks and pneumatic tubes. But unlike the vertical-lift pneumatic tubes we’ve seen in almost every episode of the series thus far, this episode shows a horizontal pneumatic tube system with multiple points of entry and exit.

In the late 19th century pneumatic tubes were starting to be widely used in department stores, banks and stock exchanges, where small packages and notes could be sent over relatively short distances at a rapid pace. This development was reflected in the futurist fiction of the time, like Edward Bellamy’s influential 1888 novel Looking Backward.

The technology even evolved to sometimes include home mail service and on a much larger scale, pneumatic train transportation. But needless to say, unlike the world of “The Jetsons,” the pneumatic tube doesn’t work so well in the real world as a transportation device for a human unprotected from the dangers of the tube itself.

George Jetson flies through a pneumatic tube transport system (1963)

In the Jetsons universe, the pneumatic tube is a high-speed substitute for the elevator, where stepping into the tube instantly transports someone to another floor. But on occasion the movement is lateral, like in the sequence below.

Like virtually every technology we see in The Jetsons, this futuristic idea had origins elsewhere. By the early 1960s, some organizations were touting this idea of sending people through pneumatic tubes. In 1960, the American Petroleum Institute gazed into its crystal ball and made some predictions on “Petroleum’s 2nd Century.” From the February 7, 1960 Hammond Times in Indiana: “The [American Petroleum Institute] cited, as a long-range possibility, the movement of such diverse items as turpentine, fruit juices and milk through pipelines the way petroleum travels today. Even people might be transported the way sales slips and payments are delivered by pneumatic tube in department stores.”

Of course, this human projectile pneumatic tube system has yet to become a reality here in the 21st century.

George is thrown from a pneumatic tube (1963)

This episode may be the most Jetsonian of the entire series: while it’s ostensibly about the relationship between Jane and George — the give and take of marriage and how we treat family — each of the dozen or so technologies that viewers are promised are sprinkled about; the future tech masquerading as scenery while they’re in fact the star of the show.

This is the 19th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

“Yesterday, I worked two full hours!” George Jetson complains.

“Well, what does Spacely think he’s running? A sweatshop!?!?” Jane replies.

George and Henry push buttons to summon various cleaning robots (1963)

The 19th episode of “The Jetsons” first aired on February 3, 1963, and was titled “G.I. Jetson.” The episode begins with George having a nightmare about his tyrannical boss, Mr. Spacely. Apparently Mr. Spacely  thinks he can get away with forcing people to work what’s considered inhumane hours in the year 2063 — two whole hours a day!

As we’ve seen time and again, this idea of a push-button future of leisure that would ultimately result in considerably fewer working hours was not only a Jetsonian staple — it was a mainstream assumption made by even the most conservative of prognosticators. The idea that the push-button would dramatically reduce the average American’s workload was a given, it was only a question of how quickly it would happen and how we’d occupy all of this new free time. By the year 2000, advances in automation were supposed to give us an average workweek of 30 or maybe even 20 hours. Maybe we wouldn’t even have to work at all.

George and Henry sabotage Uniblab’s power unit to make him malfunction (1963)

This world of little to no work would have its effect on the home and transportation of the future, but it would also impact jobs often considered the most back-breaking — like those in the armed services.

During “G.I. Jetson” George learns via tele-tape (delivered by Western Universe) that he must report for two weeks of training in the United States Space Guard. For a moment, George thinks that this will at least give him some respite from seeing his loathsome boss every day. But, of course, it’s never that simple. Mr. Spacely is also called up for the U.S. Space Guard and pretty soon they’re off to Camp Nebula together.

Once George, Henry, Spacely and the rest of the crew arrive at Camp Nebula poor George and Henry discover that they’ll be working hard. At least by 21st century standards.

“I don’t know about you Henry but all this manual labor has me worn out,” George whines to Henry.

“I don’t know if I can take two weeks of this… oh boy!” Henry concurs.

George Jetson and Henry Orbit (left) working hard in their push-button future (1963) 

With an army of robots at our disposal, the exhausting work of the past might very well be replaced by the tedium of the future. That is, unless our definition of hard work changes.

But lest you think this vision of push-button electrical servants has its origins in the 20th century, take a look at some visions of the year 2000 from 19th-century France. There are conflicting reports of where and why these illustrations were created. But I’m inclined to believe Isaac Asimov, who wrote an entire book about them in 1986 titled Futuredays: Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000. According to Asimov these illustrations were created by Jean Marc Cote in 1899 who was commissioned to produced them for a series of cigarette cards. The company that was intending to release them supposedly went out of business, leaving just one set of cards.

I can’t speak to the veracity of these claims, but lining them up next to stills from “The Jetsons,” we can yet again see that this midcentury cartoon didn’t invent the promise of push-button leisure.

Electric scrubbing in the future as imagined in 1899 [Source: Futuredays by Isaac Asimov]

A military robot washes dishes in “The Jetsons” (1963)

Automated robot barber of the year 2000 imagined in 1899 [Source: Futuredays by Isaac Asimov]

George gets an automatic buzzcut from a robotic barber (1963)

A automated vision of tailoring in the year 2000 from 1899 [Source: Futuredays by Isaac Asimov]

George is automatically fitted for his Army uniform by robotic arms (1963)

Uniblab makes a return appearance in this episode and this deceitful robot is up to all his old tricks. By the end of the episode, George and Henry are yet again sabotaging Uniblab, causing Mr. Spacely a considerable amount of stress and damage to his reputation. And much like the lesson of the 10th episode, viewers are left to decide if the automatons of tomorrow are more foe than friend. Especially when they still make you slave away for two whole hours a day.

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.”

This is the 17th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The January 20, 1963, episode of The Jetsons was titled “Las Venus” and along with the second episode of the series, “A Date With Jet Screamer,” is a great futuristic example of what I’ve come to call “wholesome hedonism.”

What’s this wholesome hedonism that we see continually pop up in the Jetsons universe? Well, it’s sex, drugs and rock and roll. But unlike the more carefree version of these things that would become popularized in American culture during the late 1960s, this was sold as a more socially conservative alternative. The sex was always heterosexual and off-camera; the drugs were strictly all-American cigarettes and olive-filled martinis; and the rock and roll, well that was just mainstream, early ’60s white rock and roll. This version of relaxation — of regular vacations to get away from it all — was expected of middle class Americans of the 1950s and early ’60s, and every kid watching at home was assured that the future would be filled with just as much fun.

The Super Sonic Club in the 17th episode of The Jetsons TV show (1963)

This episode of “The Jetsons” follows the family as they drop off the children on their way to Las Venus, a futuristic stand-in for Las Vegas in the year 2063. George and Jane check into their futuristic hotel room and find robot slot machines, as one might expect in the Vegas hotel of tomorrow. Things are looking like smooth sailing for George and Jane’s second honeymoon until George’s boss calls on the videophone and explains that an executive from General Rotors is in town and that George will have to meet with her. George doesn’t realize it’s a her and, after he does, this apparently poses a problem for a man trying to juggle two commitments.

Today, Las Vegas is known as America’s playground — where there’s a constant push and pull between family-friendly entertainment and anything-goes debauchery. Back when this episode first aired in 1963, Las Vegas was fighting a public relations battle to put a little more “wholesome” in its wholesome hedonistic image.

George and Jane Jetson dancing with their jetpacks in “Las Venus” (1963)

In 1930 the population of Las Vegas was just 5,165, but the local economy was supported by the massive spending of the federal government. Construction of the Hoover Dam began in 1931 and that year the city entertained about 125,000 tourists. By 1960 the population had grown to about 65,000 people and about 10 million tourists visited Las Vegas that year and spent about $400 million dollars.

Until 1960, Las Vegas was essentially as discriminatory as the Jim Crow south. Legendary black performers like Sammy Davis Jr. weren’t even allowed to stay in the hotels in which they were performing. After a sold-out show, Sammy had to exit through the kitchen—he was told that white visitors from places like Texas didn’t want to share the gambling floor with non-whites. Even after a sit-down meeting by NAACP members with Las Vegas business owners in 1960 there was still widespread discrimination within the city, though the casinos and hotels were no longer explicitly segregated. (Ed. — For more on Vegas race relations, read our story on the ill-fated Moulin Rouge casino, the first integrated hot spot in town.)

Star-ence Welk-um and his robot band (a parody of Lawrence Welk)

Las Vegas of the early 1960s was defined by a culture of hedonism, excess and organized crime. These saucy ingredients combined with the boom of the postwar era to make Las Vegas the hot new spot for filming TV and movies. But there was quite a push-back by Vegas boosters who worried about the image of the city. Viewers of this Jetsons episode understood Las Vegas largely through the lens of popular culture and the people who were raking in millions from the city’s resorts and casinos understood this all too well.

Ocean’s Eleven (co-starring Sammy Davis, Jr. interestingly enough) was filmed in Vegas and was released in 1960. But two TV shows were set to be produced in Las Vegas in 1961 that never made it past the pilot stage thanks to sabotage by city and police officials. “Las Vegas File” was supposed to be produced by Warner Brothers for ABC and “Las Vegas Beat” starring Peter Graves was supposed to be a detective show that was torpedoed by a write-in campaign to NBC by businessmen who felt that the depictions of crime in the show would reflect poorly on the city. Initially, both shows were assured production cooperation by local police. But after local casino and hotel owners became more acquainted with the content NBC received 11 telegrams complaining about “Las Vegas Beat” and pulled the plug itself even before the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce could file the lawsuit they had been threatening.

The Sonic Sahara resort hotel in the Jetson’s version of Las Vegas in 2063

Today, the city of Las Vegas continues to struggle with its public image — unsure if it wants to be the place where what happens here stays here or a more wholesome destination of Disney-fied pirates and amusement park rides. But I suppose we have another 50 years of Las Vegas re-inventing itself to discover if a more wholesome hedonism or a traditionally hedonistic version of Las Vegas will arrive in 2063.

This is the 16th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season.

The Jetsons episode “The Little Man” originally aired on ABC on Sunday January 13, 1963. The story revolves around the accidental shrinking of George to no more than a foot high by Mr. Spacely’s new MiniVac machine. Miniaturizing humans was a somewhat popular theme of b-movies that preceded The Jetsons, like Dr. Cyclops (1940) and Attack of the Puppet People (1958). The episode is one of the weakest of the series, but it does have one of the more interesting versions of the ubiquitous videophone:

A miniaturized George Jetson talks to his boss Mr. Spacely on a videophone (1963)

In the world of the Jetsons the videophone takes many forms. But unlike its most common household use today — as a mere application within a computer or phone — the Jetsonian videophone is its own piece of dedicated hardware.

The videophone (my preferred term for a technology that has gone by many names during the 20th and 21st centuries) is a strange and beautiful technology. It was a perennial technology of the future; continually popping up in different waves as being just around the corner throughout the 20th century. From the earliest experiments with practical television in the 1920s people were promised that picturephone technology was on its way. Television wasn’t immediately envisioned as a broadcast medium, but rather was imagined as point-to-point two-way talkers like those in the classic 1927 film Metropolis. The videophone was hyped at both the 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fair and as recently as the early 2000s communications companies were still making concept videos for landline videophone machines that today look laughably anachronistic.

But then out of nowhere the videophone was suddenly just here. Without much warning videophone was a reality. Just not in a form that companies like AT&T were promising us for nearly a century. Rather than acting as its own independent appliance in the home, we have videophone capabilities embedded within our devices — our computers and phones now often have little cameras seamlessly hidden inside. And the technology is almost a secondary consideration within the applications we use for video: we have Skype, Gchat Video among a host of other less well known apps.

In the world of “The Jetsons” the videophone is largely depicted as it was in the 1950s — as its own appliance. The videophone is a solid piece of hardware not unlike a TV of the 1950s or even radio of the the 1930s, but there’s very little consistency when it comes to what the Jetsonian videophone looks like. Below I’ve pulled just a few examples from the myriad videophones of the Jetsons universe.

Jane Jetson talking to her mother over videophone in the first episode of The Jetsons (1962)

Mr. Spacely has a standard desk model videophone that we see pop up again and again in business settings.

Desktop videophone from the first episode of The Jetsons (1962)

In the 1993 AT&T concept video “Connections” a young woman exits a plane and her parents meet her in the terminal (how retro is that!). Rather than whip out her cellphone the moment she touches down as we’re so apt to do here in the future, she proceeds to tell her parents that before making their way to baggage claim, they need to stop at the payphones — the video payphones.

Video payphone in the airport of the future (AT&T concept video “Connections,” 1993)

This vision of the hardwired public videophone is not unlike the Visaphone that we see used in the first episode of The Jetsons:

The “Visaphone” videophone in the first episode of The Jetsons (1962)

The Jetsonian videophone often has buttons that are never explained, but sometimes (like in the screenshot below) we see characters use buttons to do something as wild as pick up their children with a gigantic robot arm.

George Jetson communicates with his son Elroy via videophone (1962)

Of course, the biggest concern about the videophone was the idea that people could see what you looked like in your own home. We have a certain feeling of security in our homes; a feeling that people aren’t able to catch us with our pants down — both figuratively and literally. In the second episode of The Jetsons we see that Jane is obviously quite stressed by an early morning videophone call she gets from a friend before she has put on her face — again, literally. Jane pops on a mask that’s made to look exactly like her own face and by the end of the sequence we learn that her friend has done the same.

Jan Jetson talking to a friend on the videophone (1962)

Woman talking on a videophone in the 1955 short film The Future is Now

The 1955 short film The Future is Now addressed this problem, though they weren’t so much worried with putting on an entire face mask in order to answer the videophone:

What do you wear to answer the phone? What difference does it make? None, today! But tomorrow, if videophone comes, as well it might, then the world has found itself another problem.

Police officer from the future tunes in a judge for insta-traffic court (1962)

When George gets pulled over for speeding the videophone is used to call in to the judge. Interestingly, some officials in the city of Inglewood, California tried out a more low-tech version of this instant roadside justice in 1926. From the book The Great Car Craze by Ashleigh Brilliant:

In a system which the [Los Angeles] Times dubbed “court-a-la-carte,” the judge and bailiff together with table, chair, and lawbooks, were installed in the back of a light truck which “parked unostentatiously near the motorcycle officers’ beat” and waited for the telltale sound of the siren, signifying that an arrest was about to be made. The truck then rushed to the site of the arrest and confronted the presumably dumfounded driver with the full majesty of the law. The only disadvantage of the system from the judge’s point of view was that the “business” was not always as brisk as it might have been.

George Jetson up to some shenanigans in the fifth episode of The Jetsons (1962)

The video-recording device on most videophones is often hidden in The Jetsons, but sometimes we get to see hints of what might be cameras, like in the home model below:

Jane and Elroy talking to George over a videophone console in the sixth episode of The Jetsons (1962)

It’s not just humans of the future who enjoy the use of videophones. In episode eight of the series, “Rosey’s Boyfriend,” two robot lovers get to spend time together despite their distance from each other.

Rosey the robot and her boyfriend enjoy a videophone romance (1962)

The Googie-tastic design of the various videophones in the Jetsons’ world strangely makes me long for the videophone as an independent piece of hardware. But much like other services that seem to be quickly melding into our phones, tablets and phablets, I think these dedicated videophone devices will remain relegated to the retrofuture.