Here’s some news that we don’t really know what to make of: According to a report in TVLine, Warner Brothers is looking to make a live-action sitcom remake of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Jetsons. For those of you out there too young to know the reference, The Jetsons was a popular ’60s animated series about an all-American nuclear family residing in a “futuristic, outer-space utopia” known as Orbit City. With a talking dog named Astro, of course. ABC has picked up the pilot for the series according to Entertainment Weekly, which means there will be penalties attached if it doesn’t go to series.
The show is supposedly going to be run by Family Guy executive producer Gary Janetti, along with movie legend Robert Zemeckis (yes, the Robert Zemeckis of Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Forrest Gump fame). This is a separate project from the long-in-development Jetsons animated movie, which is apparently still being worked on.
The Jetsons was basically the counterpoint to Hanna-Barbera’s mega successful The Flinstones, but unlike the Stone Age-set series, The Jetsons only lasted one season and 24 episodes before being consigned to Saturday morning syndication for eternity. Eventually, some 20 years later, a new Jetsons show was created and lasted a bit longer, ultimately concluding in 1989 due to the deaths of stars George O’Hanlon and Mel Blanc. The 1990 animated film Jetsons: The Movie ended up serving as the series finale… that is, until this year, when the brand was cruelly resurrected to appear in a straight-to-DVD crossover movie with the WWE:
The original Jetsons was set in 2062, 100 years in the future from when the show was created. As one can tell from watching the opening credits below, in 1962 America obviously thought that a century in the future, men would still be the sole breadwinners in their households, supporting large families with mundane office jobs while their spouses were still housewives who depended on them for money (but just wanted to shop). But, you know, with robots and spaceships and stuff.
The new show will be set 100 years from now, so in 2118. (One can only imagine how dated it’s going to be within just a decade of its release.) Are you as baffled at the notion of a live-action Jetsons show as we are? Be sure to let us know down below in the comments.
Images: Warner Bros.
