THE JETSONS: Blu-ray (Hanna-Barbera Productions, 1962-63) Warner Archive
In 1962,
audiences were introduced to the future…or rather, a reasonable facsimile of it
in The Jetsons – Hanna-Barbera’s short-lived prime time animated sitcom with
far-reaching influence. For although The Jetsons barely made it through
its September ‘62 to March ‘63 run, never attaining the ratings of its stone-age
counterpart, The Flintstones (1960-66), it would remain near and dear in
the hearts of millions of fans, who picked up on its weirdly wonderful
space-age stabs at the future, circa 2020. Cribbing partly from then ‘cutting
edge’ technologies about to be showcased at New York’s World’s Fair, and
otherwise fancifully ‘making things up’ as it went along, The Jetsons
presented a world unlike anything known to man back then, tapping into the
public’s fascination for the space race, while bringing the intergalactic back
to earth – or some such place among the stars. At least some of these
uber-convenient technologies - elevated moving platforms and conveyors, big screen
TV’s, voice recognition, and, cordless phones – have since become a reality in
our not-so-terribly-modern world. But The Jetsons did a lot more than forecast
the future. In hindsight, it remains a crystal ball into our past – a super-colossally
enchanting, jet-propelled epoch when man seemed on the cusp of unlocking all
the secrets to the universe, thereupon making tomorrow an ultra-mod place to do
business, live and thrive in luxuries untold.
As a family
unit, the Jetsons paralleled the ‘typical’ American white-bred clan dotting
television’s landscape; George (voiced by George O'Hanlon), the frequently
frazzled patriarch, toiling for tyrannical boss, Cosmo Spacely (Mel Blanc);
Jane (Penny Singleton), George’s ever-devoted wife, who likes to spend his
money, and, their two children - boy-crazy teenager, Judy (Janet Waldo), and
grammar-school tike, Elroy (Daws Butler), plus their goofy Great Dane, Astro
(Don Messick). Taking its cue from their prehistoric counterparts – The
Flintstones – The Jetsons would focus its situation comedy around
trending trials and tribulations afflicting this decidedly earth-bound family
unit. And although The Jetsons would not outlast its premiere season on
ABC, in 1963 it became the subject of a heady lawsuit filed by Morey Amsterdam
and Pat Carroll, who alleged a breach of contract, claiming they had been cast
as the voices of George and Jane respectively, at the going rate of $500 per episode
with a contractual guarantee committing them to the first full season of 24
episodes. In point of fact, their voices were only recorded for the pilot
before being replaced by O’Hanlon and Singleton. Although sources would suggest
their premature retirement due to contractual conflicts – Amsterdam, set to
appear on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Carroll, joining the cast of Make
Room for Daddy, the case was eventually settled with the ruling in
Hanna-Barbera’s favor. It is one of those Hollywood ironies that while The
Jetsons had only a limited run, it never entirely faded into obscurity
thereafter. If anything, the show gained popularity and momentum after going
into syndication; its migration from prime time to Saturday mornings - as kiddie
filler - opening its futuristic Pandora’s box to a whole new legion of fans,
eager to celebrate its daring and darling notions about the tomorrow yet to
come.
If ABC initially
lacked the foresight to see what The Jetsons might have been had it
endured for a second season, it quickly realized what a goldmine it had in its
syndication, plugging the show into its Saturday line-up to fill dead air. Over
the next two decades, The Jetsons would make the rounds from ABC (1963–1964)
to CBS (1964–65 and 1969–71), then, NBC (1965–67; 1971–76; 1979–81 and
1982–83). Throughout the 1970’s, The Jetsons endlessly ran in
syndication, steadily building its fan base with several generations of
youngsters while, in fact, refining its charm as a quaint relic from the
sixties, even as the future it had attempted to predict steadily caught up – if
not technologically, then at least, chronologically – with the timeline depicted
in its series. Showing no signs of losing its appeal, in 1984 Hanna-Barbera
announced more episodes of The Jetsons would be produced to augment the
original 24. In all, 41 new episodes were created at a cost of $300,000 each,
reuniting virtually all of the original cast nearly 20 years after it had
originally aired. Alas, the new adventures of this futuristic clan were not
nearly as memorable – the bloom of sixties-themed optimism superficially grounded
in the reality of the times, replaced by the eighties fanciful fluff and whack-tac-u-lar
trend for absurd escapism that, more often than not, strained the boundaries of
the show’s original premise and warm-hearted appeal. Worse, the new story lines
aimed to please a more juvenile crowd. Finally, the animation, always streamlined
to keep costs down, now looked sloppy by comparison. Somehow, the new stuff
belied the ‘look’ of the original series, making it easy to spot a vintage Jetsons’
episode from its 80’s derivative at a glance.
As with The Flintstones,
The Jetsons was marked by a memorable theme song, composed by Hoyt
Curtin. Despite its endlessly hummable
commodity, it became a pop hit only in 1986, remixed with synthesizers to
replace the lush orchestral fanfare that had accompanied the sixties’ show. The
Jetson family resides in Orbit City, a curious enclave never entirely explained
away as ‘other-worldly’ – as it contains an oxygen-based atmosphere, with daily
rotations around a sun and moon, and yet, reports to be part of some matter-of-fact
colonization in outer space, with humanity's successful migration into this new
realm of modern conveniences and possibilities. Here is a world where concrete
highways have given way to airborne flying saucer transportation, and, family
homes, schools, restaurants, and all other businesses are either satellites suspended
in the clouds or positioned atop structural stilts leading to nowhere. The
Jetsons never touch ground. They merely levitate from place to place with
seemingly casual ease; the family car, expediently changing into a suitcase
that George can store alongside his desk at Spacely Enterprises – no need for a
parking spot…what’s that? In 1962, The
Jetsons’ instant appeal was not lost on Time Magazine, who referred
to it ‘silly’ if ‘unpretentious’, ‘corny’ but ‘clever’,
and, ‘…now and then, quite funny.’ Almost 60 years after its original
airing, The Jetsons remains startlingly clairvoyant in having predicted
the 21st century’s technological progress: treadmills, video-chat, cellular
broadcast technology, the internet, self-governing vacuum cleaners, push-button
food services, etc. While all too often sci-fi
had endeavored to represent the future, either as cold and foreboding or a
clinically perfect society devoid of all emotional conflict and thought, yet infused
with the intellectual wherewithal of an impossibly gleaming age of triumph, The
Jetsons instead depicted life as it was, and arguably, would remain for the
foreseeable future – merely, as a holdover of its ‘then’ present-day reality –
just business as usual, if, under the most unusual of circumstances.
Comparatively,
the sixties’ Jetsons is distinguished from its mid-eighties reboot in a
number of ways: first, by its graphic and linear design and its basic
regurgitation of fifties’ sitcom plots, geared – as The Flintstones – toward
a more adult audience. Remember, in its original incarnation, The Jetsons
was never intended for the kiddies. The sixties’ show also contained a closing
credit sequence mirroring The Flintstones’ interaction with their pets –
in The Jetsons’ – George depicted, taking Astro for a walk on his
outdoor treadmill. Spooked by a neighboring cat, Astro makes chase, causing
George to be sucked under, and, repeatedly spat out from the conveyor, shouting
for Jane to “stop this crazy thing!” When The Jetsons was revived
in 1984, this closing sequence was replaced by still graphics over which the
production team’s credits were displayed. Also, while the sixties’ Jetsons
did not begin with episode ‘title cards’, the eighties show did. Advances in
computer technology allowed for the eighties’ reboot to take advantage of a
more streamlined color and compositing method, whereas the original series was
shot in the time-honored tradition of hand-painted ink and paint cell
animation. In keeping technology ‘current’ – the eighties’ derivative
concentrated more heavily on the computer-age, with attention to flat-button
consoles, replacing the knob/dial and switch-based technology of the space-age. For reasons only known to the animation team
working on the eighties’ reboot, Rosey the Robot – who only appears in 2 of the
original 24 episodes – was rechristened ‘Rosie’. Finally, while the sixties’
episodes were fitted with a ‘laugh track’ – a curious inclusion indeed, as it
somehow suggests the show was being taped before a live studio audience – the eighties’
reboot contained no such canned laughter.
Given The
Jetsons’ ever-lasting popularity, and Hollywood’s present-day affinity for
remaking any and every major – even minor hit from its illustrious past –
usually, with far less success than the original, it remained a minor wonder The
Jetsons never graduated to feature-length live-action motion picture status.
This is not to suggest Hollywood did not try. As early as 1985, Paramount
Pictures began laying the groundwork for such a project, under executive producer,
Gary Nardino. For whatever reason, it languished interminably before being
canceled outright. Then, in 1988,
Universal announced it had already purchased the film rights to both Hanna-Barbera’s
The Flintstones and The Jetsons with active plans to reboot both
as live-action movies. While Universal would make good on a live-action remake
of The Flintstones, The Jetsons remained firmly ensconced in
their animated world with a cartoon movie in 1990. It was hardly a hit. Flash
ahead to 2001, when Uni tried again to jump start plans for a live-action derivative,
hiring screenwriters, Paul Foley and Dan Forman and director, Rob Minkoff to
helm the project. Again, nothing. Two years later, Minkoff was out and Adam
Shankman in. But again, a lull of inactivity after all the preliminary buzz. In
2007, director, Robert Rodriguez began negotiations for a costly CGI-infused venture
to have been co-founded by Universal and Warner Bros. (the latter, having
assumed custodianship of the original franchise via their acquisition of
Hanna-Barbera). By 2012, the long-suffer project had new screenwriters on
board, Van Robichaux and Evan Susser; derailed yet again, with Warner Bros.
announcing it would do a new animated feature film instead, to be released in
2015 with a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Conrad Vernon to direct. As of the
writing of this review, nothing has come of these ambitious plans either,
although a down-scaled offering, rumored to be in the works for TV in 2017 –
and still MIA – remains an active concern, intermittently revived by the
studio.
Now, comes
Warner Archive’s beautiful Blu-ray release of the short-lived original series. Only
the first 24 episodes are being released, housed on 3-discs with a gorgeous new
restoration. A note, as with the
original Warner Home Video release of The Jetsons on DVD, the only
episode herein not to include a laugh track is ‘A Date With Jet Screamer’
– one of the early stand-outs from the original series where Judy’s heart-swooning
infatuation with a predictably slick pop star of the day runs haplessly amok. Source
in 2K and presented in its original 1.33:1 ratio, The Jetsons offers a film-like
1080p transfer, showing off a rich and textured color palette with a modicum of
grain looking indigenous to its source. The DVD suffered from color banding and
compression artifacts. These have been eradicated on the Blu-ray. Age-related
debris is kept to a bare minimal, but baked in dirt and a few fleeting
scratches in the original cell animation remain. WAC has made no attempt to
correct these imperfections, inherent in the source material and, at least to
my way of thinking, adding to the show’s vintage appeal. So, no complaints
here. The DTS 2.0 audio, mono-based, offers crisp, clean dialogue and effects.
You’re not breaking the sound barrier with these episodes, but they are as
good, even better, than they were in 1962, minus age-related hiss and pop. In
keeping with WAC’s standards, the extras from their retired DVD make a welcomed
comeback here: informative audio commentaries from Janet Waldo on the first 2
episodes, plus a few puff pieces on the show’s enduring longevity: The
Jetsons - The Family of the Future (8:43), Space Age Gadgets
(4:51), Rosey the Robotic Maid Tribute (3:34), and finally, Nuclear
Family Album (2:41). Bottom line: The Jetsons were always a little
ahead of their time. Although initially cut short by network shortsightedness,
and despite all odds seemingly against it, The Jetsons has endured as a
cultural cornerstone in prime-time animation ever since. WAC’s Blu is the way to appreciate this
vintage slice of futuristic Americana. It looks and sounds fabulous. ‘Eep-opp-ork-ah-ah’
– that means I thoroughly enjoyed it! Very highly recommended.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
Overall – 4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
2.5
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