Mars, 1960

Outer space and futurism go hand-in-hand. I mean, you never see astronauts land on a planet where aliens are driving something that looks like a ‘51 Nash.

The Hanna-Barbera studio visualised the ultimate in futurism in The Jetsons, but it used futuristic designs in some of its earlier space cartoons. In fact, H-B’s first series, Ruff and Reddy began with a space adventure. Aliens invaded Jellystone Park in “Space Bear.” And Snooper and Blabber ended up on Mars in “Outer Space Case” (1960-61 season), a cartoon designed by Don Sheppard with scenes painted by Dick Thomas.



These buildings wouldn’t be too out of place in the Jetsons’ world. The grille on the oval speaker above the door isn’t in perspective but that’s not too big a deal.



Here are a couple of interiors. The kitchen isn’t as futuristic as Jane Jetson’s, but the floor’s nice and shiny. Unfortunately, I can’t get a clear shot of the hallway (the only two Mars interior backgrounds in the cartoon). But I like the painting of the King on the wall.



Here’s the planetary surface. Not terribly elaborate, but it doesn’t overpower the action.

The credits have been removed from all the old Jetsons episodes so I couldn’t tell you if Sheppard worked on the original series. He was a storyboard artist on the 1990 movie. Thomas eventually provided some backgrounds for the spacey-est of all ’60s TV cartoons: Spider Man’s “Revolt in the Fifth Dimension.”