Hi Everyone,
2026! That is not the year I had in mind, not even the decade. What I had in mind was 2062, the projected year in which the Jetsons lived. Ah! Who are the Jetsons, you ask? The Jetsons, if you do not recall (and why should you?), are a cartoon Space Age family living in their Skypad apartment in Orbit City, served by their robot Rosie, and zooming around in their aerocar with its 360-degree bubble top.
The Jetsons, an animated sitcom created by Hanna-Barbera Studios, first aired on the ABC television network on September 23, 1962—its first broadcast in colour. The show ran until March 13, 1963, with various revivals from time to time, including a full-length feature film in 1990. The futuristic show was created as a counterpart to The Flintstones, an animated version of the Stone Age.
While not a fan of cartoons, even as a kid, at seven years old, these two shows fascinated me: which era did I want to live in? Yesterday or tomorrow? On Earth or in Space? It is generally thought that a seven-year-old child has reached “the age of reason” when she is able to think for herself. Apparently it is a milestone, when we ask “why?” more deeply and form an inner compass. So what would it be for me—the Jetsons or the Flintstones?
In 1962 the Jetsons’ originators were projecting 100 years into the future, 2062, a century away, a total fantasy. So why did this long-buried memory of a cartoon show resurface so recently? Because I was meeting (not for the first time) a friend for tea on Zoom; this time a New York, USA to Oxford, UK link. With conversation as fun and furious as if my friend had been in the very same room, teacup in hand, Jane Jetson on her videophone came to mind, and as you can imagine, after that, a whole cascade of other comparisons hit me: robots, aliens, holograms, AI.
I suppose in many ways The Jetsons helped me at the age of seven prepare to embrace the “future” we are now living, and have a kindly view of space, science and technology. Yet some doubts remained—a husband like George Jetson, for example, having his teeth brushed and his clothes put on for him, with “heavy lifting” being pushing a button five times in one hour—that I have never reconciled. Considering The Flintstones, I had to pause as well—a husband like Fred Flintstone, shouty, quick to anger, prone to get rich quick schemes, left a lot to be desired.
So on balance, I chose Space, the Future, the Jetsons, except for one factor that still niggles: the pet. The Jetsons had a 5’9” Great Dane by the name of Astro, who originally belonged to the millionaire JP Gottrockets and who I did not like; while the Flintstones had Dino, a pet dinosaur that curled up on a chair (albeit made of stone) just like a (yup!) puppy. So there you have it, I would prefer a pet dinosaur. Flintstones over Jetsons? How to square past and future, Earth and Space?
But how would I get a pet dinosaur? Clone it? In a Petrie dish, IVF? I am told that for the foreseeable future cloning a dinosaur is impossible: 800,000-year-old DNA, even if preserved in amber or permafrost, is not useable, and reverse engineering would only create a hybrid (chicken with teeth, that sort of thing). But I will not give up. The Jetsons was set in 2062, not 2026, and at the current rate of change, who knows what can happen in the next 36 years?
Who knows what the future will bring? I am all in. Imagine the best! Happy 2026!
