The Jetsons Celebrate 50 Years of Projecting the Future

Yesterday was a huge milestone for The Jetsons Cartoon. The series originally debuted September 23, 1962 on ABC’s Sunday night schedule at 7:30pm. It was the network’s first color show, though only viewers in a handful of cities could actually see it in color. Fifty-one new episodes were produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987. The Smithsonian’s blog Paleofuture called the show, “the single most important piece of 20th century futurism … that helped define the future for so many Americans today.”  The show never specified an exact year, but the original press materials said it was set in 2062, a century in the future. Check out the very first episode below.

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