Saturday 18 November 2017

Jetsons – Rosey the Robot

“[B]eyond electronic and mechanical gadgetry which underpins "The Jetsons" humor, nothing much else is new. In fact, the preem stanza (23) revolved around the oldest situation comedy chestnut known to man: the boss comes to dinner to the home of an employee bucking for a raise.”

So opined “Herm” in Weekly Variety after the series debuted on September 23, 1962. Reviews were mixed; many pointed out the series was really The Flintstones shoved into the future, some added it borrowed, like other Hanna-Barbera cartoons, the premise of a live action sitcom—in this case, Hazel. Quite so, at least in this half-hour. The maid saves the day for her family. Jean Vander Pyl later said she used Shirley Booth’s Hazel as the basis for her voice for Rosey.

(At the time, absolutely no comparisons were made to Blondie. This is something invented by some modern-day animation fans based on the fact Penny Singleton, who wasn’t originally cast, played Jane and husband George had an angry boss).

“Herm” has a point. The gadgets are good and some of the humour is a little worn. But despite that, this first half-hour episode is pleasant enough, and even overbearing Spacely has an epiphany to become a nice guy at the end. And “Helm” in Daily Variety mentioned something we take for granted today—the show was broadcast in colour, one of a few on ABC, and proclaimed that aspect of it “a success.” He also praised the voices, calling them “perfectly matched” and the animation “finely drawn.”

The animation credits went to Irv Spence, Ray Patterson, Grant Simmons and Don Lusk. As Patterson and Simmons were still running Grantray-Lawrence, I can only presume some of the animation was contracted out. The great Art Lozzi is credited with painting all the backgrounds. The interiors are full of crescent shapes, plexiglas panels and bucket seats.



The future, we all felt in 1962, would be a time of labour saving devices on steroids and very short work weeks. Thus Jane complains of all the “work” she does when she pushes a few buttons that make a meal for her or do the vacuuming, ironing, etc. George gripes he pushes off and on buttons five times during his shift.

Gadgets: a flat-screen TV, the transport tube (which sends people to the wrong places), a pop-up toaster bed, a built-in toothbrush, the Foodarackacycle, the VisiPhone and the VisiPhone booth. Somehow, we think technology has passed the last one by.



The plot, as Weekly Variety mentioned, is pretty shopworn. The Foodarackacycle is broken (it made a hot fudge pizza one day). Jane wants a new one. George points out they haven’t paid for the one that replaced the one before the one that just broke down. Ask for a raise, Jane suggests. George goes to work. She gets on the VisiPhone to get advice from her mother. Mom suggests going to a store that has a one-day free trial on a maid.

George decides to ask his boss for a raise. (George starts the referential unisonic digital indexer machine). In the meantime Mr. Spacely discovers his wife Stella is taking part in a “Martians Go Home” rally (whether she opposes invasions or immigrants isn’t clear) so she can’t cook for him tonight. George goes in to ask for the raise, but Spacely cuts him off and invites himself to the Jetsons for dinner.

While all this is going on, Jane is testing out robot maids, first an English one, then a French maid but finally decides on New Yawker Rosey (Jean Vander Pyl gets to test out her accents by playing Mrs. Spacely, Spacely’s secretary, and all the robots).



Rosey proves to be a god-send. She can do just anything, including play sports with Elroy, help Judy with her homework and make a sumptuous dinner. One problem. George thinks his chance for a raise will be blown if Spacely sees they can afford a maid, so he and Jane try to hide her. No luck. She blows the cover. Look at Spacely’s reaction. This may be the biggest take in a Jetsons’ show.



Spacely starts accusing George of all kinds of crap. Rosey hears enough, crowns Spacely with a pipeapple upsidedown cake and tells him off. Then, for the first time, Spacely fires Jetson and storms out. “Some free home demonstration. It didn’t cost a thing. Except my job,” says George. But Rosey decides she must leave because the Jetsons now can’t afford her. Sound editor Joe Ruby plays the Hoyt Curtin sad clarinet cue in the background; it’s the one heard in the episode where George bids farewell to his family before he and Astro take it on the lam. Everything ends well, though. Spacely’s had a change of heart, rehires Jetson, gives him more money and invites himself to dinner again. George spots Rosey at a bus stop, zooms over her and collects her in his space car, and brings her home. It’s the only possible ending. Marx Toys had signed a deal to make Rosey toys; how can they get free advertising on a show for the toy when Rosey’s not on it? (No wonder she’s in the closing credit animation).



Alex Lovy was the story director for this cartoon and Dan Noonan handled the layouts for the full half hour. He tried to get away from the stare-straight-at-the-stage perspective in almost every Hanna-Barbera cartoon. One scene has a looking-through-the-window perspective. A couple have a character in the foreground talking to a character in the background. And there’s one overhead angle.



23 more Jetsons episodes were made. But the series didn’t get renewed by ABC; we mentioned on the blog some time ago that Joe Barbera was quoted as saying Jane would likely have a baby in the second season. The problem was something that ad agencies were starting to pay attention to—demographics. The series had been sold to three sponsors, two of them (Colgate and Whitehall Labs) were represented by Ted Bates and Co. Bates worked out what was then a unique contract: The Jetsons was required to deliver a minimum of 15 million adults per average commercial minute for the first 26 weeks or Bates’ clients would have to be compensated with commercial time during the show (Colgate was only signed for 26 weeks). It wanted to assure clients the audience for the series wasn’t just kids and teenagers. (Sponsor magazine, May 7, 1962).

The Jetsons didn’t meet the demographic target number. No doubt that scared any potential big-money clients from investing in the show in prime time. So it was The Jetsons moved the following season to reruns on Saturday morning, where advertising air-time was cheaper. Marx Toys quickly picked up sponsorship.

We’ve now reviewed all 24 Jetsons episodes. It’s a hit and miss show but I still like it. The futuristic inventions and settings were pretty creative. Some of the stories were very good; my favourites are probably the first Uniblab episode and when an uninterested Elroy got his own TV show. Astro was a good comic relief character. The voice work was always tops. Hoyt Curtin and his arranger came up with some unique keyboard music. But the animation was pretty tame much of the time and the whole “Vice President Jetson”/“Jetson, you’re fired!” shtick got tiring. I suppose it could have been worse. The show could have added a furry space alien pet and . . . Oh. Yeah.

The fact the characters are still being used today shows The Jetsons are still popular. The critics in 1962 were a little bit wrong. It turns out The Jetsons was more than an inversion of The Flintstones. It was a solid concept that has stood the test of time.

16 comments:

  1. So is it "Rosie" or "Rosey"? I've seen the name appears both ways directly from H-B.

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    1. It was never spelled "Rosie" until the series was revived in the '80s. Why it was changed, I don't know. Mind you, Bill Hanna thought Mr. Jinks' name was spelled with an 'x.'

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  2. I haven't watched this show in years (and the 1987 reboot was pathetic). But the episodes I most remember from my childhood were the one where George judges a beauty contest and doesn't realize that the hottest contestant is his own wife (a variation/rip-off of a similar Flintstones episode), and of course the one with rock star Jet Screamer (memorably voiced and sung by Howard Morris).

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  3. "The engine's in the rear, where an engine belongs!" - a nod to the Renault Dauphine, I suppose, a rear engine French car sold in the US at the time.

    "A dinner bell that goes 'come and get it'?!?" - one of my favorite lines from the Jetsons.

    The Jetsons is my favorite animated show after the Flintstones - I love the Jetsons futuristic backgrounds, color palate, and mid-century design ethic, but the stories are weaker as compared to the Flintstones which, at least before The Great Gazoo came along, were a bit more adult and actually as good as many scripted radio programs from the golden age.

    And one thing the Jetsons had over the Flintstones was the great musical numbers - all that big brassy early-60's Rat Pack 60-piece orchestra stuff that makes "Won't You Come Home Bill Spacey", "The Solar Sambaramba", "The Swivel" and "Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah" such a joy.

    Sad to see the Jetsons reviews come to an end. What's next, "The Roman Holidays"?

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    1. I don't think so.."The Flinstones", from that era, would be the logical (AND with 166 half hours, productive!) choice, or the last of the Huck/Yogi/Quickdraw (the last all reviewed) supporting segments, "Hokey Wolf" (dicounting the seralized first Hanna-Barbera, "Ruff/Reddy" and the sole theatrical release, "Loopy De Loop", which I don't think Yowp would review and it's his choice... "Top Cat'<maybe?

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    2. I was being facetious - The Roman Holidays is an absolute dud - I think Yowp would do "Where's Huddles?" before he would do TRH!

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    3. Is "bill Spacey" related to Kevin Spacey?X))LOL!

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    4. Hi Bigguy. It's not news I have been trying to wind down the blog for some time. I've finished reviewing Snagglepuss and Yakky and those posts have been banked into the new year.
      "The Roman Holidays" was a remarkable bit of salesmanship by Joe Barbera. He convinced someone to air yet another rehash of "The Flintstones."
      The great thing about "The Jetsons" is the futuristic gadgets, Monty's background work and Curtin's cues. It's a shame the animation is so lacklustre and the stories are generally weak. H-B preferred chuckling spoofs to biting social satire (Warners was the same in the '50s with Pierce writing for McKimson); I would have loved to have seen Warren Foster let loose.

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  4. Being the debut episode may explain why the layout angles, and even Spacely's 'take' were more elaborate than in future episodes, since TV has a history of spending more $$$ on what's essentially the pilot episode, before cutting back on the budgets and production time for the series' regular run.

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  5. "the Roman Holidays" was a spoof of early 1970s life in an ancient Rome based format, which was interesting.It was not accurately based on REAL ancient Rome (as the existence of television is one obvious proof).

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    1. It was a very poorly-written series, which was a shame, having in mind its stellar cast. One time the story shifted mid-episode from a squabble between the family and the neighbors to the lion running away from home to search for his long lost father. Talk about there being no focus whatsoever!

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  6. YOWP, I always thought that the sponsors of the show were some kind of toy company and they cancelled the ''The Jetsons'' after seeing that Rosey wasn't appearing in any episode. No one really did explain why the writers gave her only two episodes.

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    1. No, the sponsors were 3-M, Colgate and Whitehall Labs. Marx Toys picked up sponsorship after the show was cancelled and moved to Saturday morning RerunLand.

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  7. I'm sure everyone's heard that ABC is developing a revival of THE JETSONS right now...as a live-action sitcom. On the one hand, the executive produceris Robert Zemekis, on the other, the producer is FAMILY GUY"S Gary Janetti. I guess it's not impossible that it might be cast well and the series is treated with a lot more class and taste than FAMILY GUY. But neither is likely, sadly. In light of almost every recent attempt at a sixties remake, including the live-action FLINTSTONES and YOGI BEAR movies, I'm not placing any bets on it working.

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    1. We're still waiting for that live action Jonny Quest, too. The cynic in me says this is among the countless projects announced that will never get made.

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  8. It is interesting that the first episode was spelled as Rosey but after that her named was Rosie. Kind of like Tweety. When he began it was Tweetie (also because of the title) and then it changed to Tweety. The Y's and ie's must be changed a lot.

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