My sister Lisa posted this meme on Facebook last Sunday.
Oh Lord! George Jetson was born this week. I laughed and then started to read the comments on the original post. There is a wealth of information and trivia there. If you who missed the Facebook post, I figured you’d enjoy laughing, strolling down memory lane, and learning more than you ever cared to know about the Jetsons with me.
Somewhere this week I’m sure some new baby will be named George Jetson XXXXXXXX. If I delivered a baby today I’d do everything I could to convince Randy to name him George Jetson Grathen. Wouldn’t that be a great story to grow up telling? I asked Randy about that as I was writing this post. Here’s the noncommittal answer he gave me: Remember a name is for a lifetime.
Well, what’s wrong with George Jetson? Actually, I think it’s better than the name some friends of ours named Lear years ago saddled their daughter with. They named her Crystal Shandra. Crystal Shandra Lear. Yikes. And what about Moon Unit Zappa, with a brother named Dweezil? The Kardashian clan has a whole host of weird names. Look them up. George Jetson seems tame by comparison.
I estimate George is about 35 years old in the cartoon, given the ages of his son, Elroy, and his daughter, Judy. By extrapolation, that means flying cars should be commonplace in the year 2057. I’ll only be 103 then. I hope I make it. It’d be fun to have a flying car. Although by then social security will probably have run out and fuel for airborne transportation will likely be about $4,358 per gallon. Affordability will certainly be an issue. Unless, of course, they are powered by a Flux Capacitor. O’Reilly Auto Parts has one listed here. No price though. It probably depends on the availability and cost of plutonium at the time. Maybe by then they’ll find a way to synthetically create plutonium inexpensively. Aren’t you looking forward to the future?
What I really covet is Rosie the robot. A full time, completely dependable and competent housekeeper. There’s nothing in the future I want more today than that. Rosie’s like a beloved aunt, since the Jetsons could apparently only afford an older model robot. She clicks and groans, clunks and still uses magnetic tape for an operating system, but hey, she can clean the house by herself and that’s all that really matters to me. Rosie, I have a nice, quiet closet you can live in, rent free, for the rest of your days.
The Jetson’s also had an interesting food machine called a Foodarackacycle. At the touch of a button it made and dispensed any food anyone wanted. How cool would that be? Somehow though, George blames Jane for raw bacon and burnt eggs, and complains that she can’t “make” food like his mother did. Jane of course says it’s the antiquity of their Foodarackacycle model. Later they had an Electronicook and a Food-O-Matic. Someday, when I have nothing better to do than watch game shows all day, I’m going to binge watch every episode of the Jetsons I can find to see if those newer food machines solved all their culinary problems.
The Jetsons pioneered several other futuristic technologies that we already have and use every day. They include video calling, robotic vacuums, tablet computers, smart watches, drones, holograms, pill cams, digital newspapers, and flat screen TVs. Elroy had a jet pack too, but those aren’t yet available for daily household use. Remember Jane putting on her make-up face mask before taking a video call so she could look her best? I don’t know about you, but when I video chat these days, what you see is what you get. ‘Course I only video chat now with people who love me no matter how I look.
Full disclosure: Unless we go back to the future and turn cartoon into reality, we’ll never know for sure whether George Jetson’s birthday is actually July 31, 2022. But then again, we also don’t know unequivocally that December 25, 0000 is the exact date Jesus was born. In both cases, it’s close enough for us to celebrate the event in an appropriate manner. So today, I’m celebrating George Jetson.
For a more vivid trip down memory lane, watch a short clip from the Jetsons here. YouTube has many others in case you need more of the Jetsons in your life.
P.S. For those of you younger than I, you may or may not know that July 31 is also Harry Potter’s birthday, although he’s 42 years older than George Jetson since he was (supposedly) born in 1980. Happy Belated Birthday, guys!
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