The Jetsons

***The Jetsons*** is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It originally aired in prime time from September 23, 1962 to March 17, 1963 on ABC, then later aired in reruns via syndication. New episodes were produced from 1985 to 1987 as part of *The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera* block. It was Hanna-Barbera's Space Age counterpart to *The Flintstones*.

While the Flintstones lived in a world which was a comical version of the Stone Age, with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons live in a comical version of a century in the future, with elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions. The original series comprised 24 episodes and aired on Sunday nights on ABC beginning on September 23, 1962, with prime time reruns continuing through September 22, 1963. It debuted as the first program broadcast in color on ABC. (Only a handful of ABC stations were capable of broadcasting in color in the early 1960s.) In contrast, *The Flintstones*, while always produced in color, was broadcast in black-and-white for its first two seasons. The show was scheduled opposite *Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color* and *Dennis the Menace* and didn't receive much attention; it was cancelled after one season and moved to Saturday mornings, where it was very successful.

Following its primetime run, the show aired on Saturday mornings for decades, starting on ABC for the 1963–64 season and then on CBS and NBC. New episodes were produced for syndication from 1985 to 1987. No further specials or episodes of the show were produced after 1989, as the majority of the core cast (George O'Hanlon, Mel Blanc and Daws Butler) had died in 1988 and 1989. The 1990 film *Jetsons: The Movie* served as the series finale to the television show. Twenty-seven years later, a new direct-to-video animated movie, *The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-WrestleMania!*, was released in 2017.

## Premise

The Jetsons are a family residing in Orbit City. The city's architecture is rendered in the Googie style, and all homes and businesses are raised high above the ground on adjustable columns. George Jetson lives with his family in the Skypad Apartments: his wife Jane is a homemaker, their teenage daughter Judy attends Orbit High School, and their son Elroy attends Little Dipper School. Housekeeping is seen to by a robot maid, Rosie, which handles chores not otherwise rendered trivial by the home's numerous push-button Space Age-envisioned conveniences. The family has a dog named Astro that talks with an initial consonant mutation in which every word begins with an "R", as if speaking with a growl; a similar effect would also be used for Scooby-Doo.

George Jetson's work week consists of an hour a day, two days a week. His boss is Cosmo Spacely, the bombastic owner of Spacely Space Sprockets. Spacely has a competitor, Mr. Cogswell, owner of the rival company Cogswell Cogs (sometimes known as Cogswell's Cosmic Cogs). Jetson commutes to work in an aerocar with a transparent bubble top. Daily life is leisurely, assisted by numerous labor-saving devices, which occasionally break down with humorous results. Despite this, everyone complains of exhausting hard labor and difficulties living with the remaining inconveniences.

## Characters

* **George Jetson**: age 40, is the main character and protagonist of the series. He is a loving family man who always seems to make the wrong decisions. He works at Spacely's Sprockets turning the Referential Universal Digital Indexer (R.U.D.I.) on and off. He is married to Jane and together they have two children, Judy and Elroy.
* **Jane Jetson**: age 33, is George's wife, mother of their two children, and a homemaker, although it is Rosie who does most of the work. Jane is obsessed with fashion and new gadgetry. Her favorite store is Mooning Dales. She is a dutiful wife who always tries to make life as pleasant as possible for her family. Outside of the home, she is a member of the Galaxy Women Historical Society and is a fan of Leonardo de Venus and Picasso Pia.
* **Judy Jetson**: age 15, is the elder child in the Jetson family, born when Jane was just 18 years old. A student at Orbit High School, she is a stereotypical teenage girl whose interests include clothes, hanging out with boys, and revealing secrets to her digital diary that she calls "DiDi". Judy is the girl next door and also loyal to her family.
* **Elroy Jetson**: initially age 6½; later age 8, is the younger of the two children in the Jetson family. He is highly intelligent and an expert in all space sciences. A mild-mannered and good child, Elroy attends Little Dipper School, where he studies space history, astrophysics, and star geometry. Elroy loves his dog Astro and is always there to support him when George loses his patience with the family pet.
* **Rosie**: Rosie is the Jetsons' household robot. She's an outdated model, but the Jetsons love her and would never trade her for a newer model. Rosie does all the housework and some of the parenting. She is a strong authoritarian and occasionally dispenses pills to the family. Excluding a scene from the closing credits, Rosie appears in only two episodes of the original 1960s show, but makes many appearances on the 1980s show.
* **Astro**: Astro is the Jetsons' family dog. Prior to being a Jetson, his name was Tralfaz and he belonged to the fabulously rich Mr. J.P. Gottrockets. Astro is one of George's best friends, next to his work computer, R.U.D.I., as well as Elroy's best buddy. He is able to speak in a rough sounding English resembling dog barks and growls, a manner of speaking which voice actor Don Messick would later reuse for the role of Scooby-Doo.
* **Orbitty**: is an alien with spring-like legs who was the second pet of the Jetson family. He has the ability to express his emotions by changing color. This character was introduced in the 1980s version of the series, but didn't appear for the third season (except for one cameo) or any of the movies.
* **Cosmo Spacely**: is George's boss and owner of Spacely Space Sprockets. His company was founded in Newfoundland in 1937. He is a small man with thinning black hair and a bad temper, and is the main antagonist of the series. Spacely always comes up with ideas to bring in more business, but they backfire. George, whom Spacely has known since childhood, gets blamed for most things that go wrong. A series' running gag involves his kicking George out of his office shouting, "Jetson! You're fired!"; however, Spacely would give George his job back in the end of the episode, and if he was very happy with George, promote him to vice-president of the company. Mr. Spacely is sometimes helped out by *Uniblab*, the company's robot assistant.
* **Spencer Cogswell**: is Spacely's big competitor. He owns Cogswell Cogs company and causes a lot of trouble for Spacely and George. To a lesser extent Cogswell is another of the series' antagonists. He and Spacely are always finding ways to bring each other's businesses down. Cogswell has often tried to steal Spacely's ideas and make them his own to gain an advantage (only for it to backfire on both bosses). He's also not above firing his employees when any little thing goes wrong. Mr. Cogswell's first name, "Spencer", is revealed in the 1980s version of *The Jetsons*. Cogswell slightly resembles Mr. Slate of *The Flintstones*.
* **R.U.D.I.**: is George's work computer and one of his best friends, next to his dog, Astro. His name is an acronym for Referential Universal Digital Indexer. R.U.D.I. only appeared one episode in 1962 version in Good Little Scouts. He has a human personality and is a member of the Society for Preventing Cruelty to Humans. In the episode "Family Fallout" (originally aired September 22, 1985), the Jetsons win a TV game show after George Jetson correctly states what the initials "R.U.D.I." stand for.
* **Henry Orbit**: is the Jetsons' apartment's building superintendent aka apartment janitor and George's friend. He is always helpful and always in a good mood. He built a robot named **Mac** who has a crush on Rosie.

### Recurring characters

* **Montague Jetson**, George Jetson's kindly but eccentric grandfather, who constantly annoys the cop every time he meets him—Howard Morris
* **Mrs. (Stella/Petunia) Spacely**, Cosmo Spacely's overbearing and snobbish wife and Arthur Spacely's mother—Jean Vander Pyl
* **Arthur Spacely**, Mr. Spacely's son—Dick Beals.
* **Uniblab**, George's mortal enemy—an obnoxious robot who was also his supervisor at work. Appeared in two 1960s episodes, "Uniblab", where he becomes George's supervisor, and "G.I. Jetson", where he becomes the Sergeant of George's platoon. He lost his job twice in the series. ("Cost the government millions ... enough for two officers' clubs," said General McMissile, nicknamed "Old Blast Off"); and a 1980s episode, "Wedding bells for Rosey", where he reveals to Rosie that the new "B.E.B.O.P." law enforcement was a ruse. His name is a pun of UNIVAC;- Don Messick.
* **DiDi**, Judy's digital diary—Selma Diamond in the 1980s TV series and by Brenda Vaccaro in *The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones*.
* **Miss Galaxy**, secretary at Spacely Sprockets—Jean Vander Pyl
* **Marcia van Marsdale**, highschool student and Judy's rival. Marcia is the high school mean girl in Judy's high school.
* **Orwell Spacely**, Mr. Spacely's nephew. He is an inventor and works at his uncle's factory, where he is constantly inventing things to help his uncle Cosmo out. He once invented a spot remover spray that turned George Invisible. He also clones George Jetson on one occasion—Howard Morris

## Voice cast

Penny Singleton was the voice of Jane Jetson.

* George Jetson – George O'Hanlon
* Jane Jetson – Penny Singleton
* Elroy Jetson – Daws Butler
* Judy Jetson – Janet Waldo
* Astro the Space Mutt/RUDI/Uniblab/Mac – Don Messick
* Rosie/Mrs. Spacely/Miss Galaxy – Jean Vander Pyl
* Cosmo Spacely – Mel Blanc
* Spencer Cogswell – Daws Butler
* Henry Orbit – Daws Butler (Howard Morris in a few early Season 1 episodes)
* Orbitty – Frank Welker
* DiDi – Selma Diamond (and Brenda Vaccaro after Diamond's death)

In later productions, Jeff Bergman has voiced George, Elroy, and Mr. Spacely. Bergman completed voice work as George and Spacely for *Jetsons: The Movie* (1990) after George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc died during production. Controversially, Janet Waldo was replaced—after recording all of her dialogue—by then-popular singer Tiffany for *Jetsons: The Movie*. Lori Frazier has provided the voice of Jane Jetson in television commercials for Radio Shack.

## Episodes

The show's original run consisted of 24 episodes that first aired on ABC from September 23, 1962, to March 17, 1963, and, as was standard practice at the time, contained a laugh track.

In 1984, Hanna-Barbera began producing new episodes specifically for syndication; by September 1985, the 24 episodes from the first season were combined with 41 new episodes and began airing in morning or late afternoon time slots in 80 U.S. media markets, including the 30 largest. The 41 new episodes were produced at a cost of $300,000 each, and featured all of the voice actors from the 1962–1963 show. During 1987, 10 additional "season 3" episodes were also made available for syndication.