Meet George Jetson (Ding Ding Ding Ding); his boy Elroy (Ding Ding Ding Ding); daughter Judy (Ding Ding Ding Ding); Jane, his wife (Ding Dinga Ding Dingading Ding Ding Diiiiing)….
Yes, I still remember the theme song from The Jetsons. It wasn’t particularly catchy, nor was it so different that it stood out amongst other cartoon themes. No. I remember that song because I memorized it. Because I thought that one day, I would grow up and experience the world, the very world that Will Hanna and Joe Barbera told me would be there when I grew up. Flying cars, moving walkways, teleporters, robot maid-servants, TV screens that support video-calls, skinny mechanical hands that come out of my walls and make me coffee – where the fuck are they?
Our generation of scientists and inventors are so obsessed with making things smaller, that they have ignored the dreams of millions of 70s and 80s kids who believed that they would live to see the day when even a tenth of The Jetsons comes true. I have 50 odd years left. Tops. I see no mention of flying cars, buildings that stand 50km above the ground, zero-gravity elevators that open directly into my apartment – hell, even the fashion scene isn’t headed that way. George’s spacesuits were manly as hell, even if he wore a green belt. Clothes today are headed down the dark path of douche-dom. Where are the floating chairs whose arms open up to a cockpit of cool features?
Honestly, they fucked me over. Were The Jetsons a farce? The coolest inventions these days that deserve even a remote mention in The Jetsons category are only available via TV shopping networks, and are actually just for weight-loss purposes. That’s the key right there. We’ve gotten fat. And we’re too lazy to get on our asses and do something. Hanna-Barbera provided us with something brilliant. I don’t know how many of you read into their message but it goes like this: “If you lead your lives right, and stay on the path of righteousness, your future will be The Jetsons.” But we didn’t. American capitalists figured they could rule the world simply by providing them burger treats. And they did. Except to the vegetarians, but those fuckers are wasting their time with yoga instead of using their slim bodies to volunteer for space experiments. I own gadgets that allow me to talk to my dad with lame 15fps video, while being able to download the Star Wars theme as my ring tone. This isn’t the technology I wanted. My car has push-button ignition and the salesman had multiple orgasms telling me about it when I was buying. I enter my office with a swipe card. This is ridiculous. I don’t need any of this. What I dreamt of, I didn’t get. And looking back, I now realize that the only thing my world has achieved is to move a little further away from The Flintstones. Is that really enough? I mean, bronco-burgers had to be cool!
