14 Jetsons Technologies That Are Common Today

In celebration of its 60th anniversary, The Jetsons (1962-1963) brought a lot of good humor to an entire generation. Talking a lot about technology, family relationships, work and American society as a whole, the cartoon is still capable of being memorable and causing a good laugh in the spectators.

Abusing simple and contradictory jokes to the current social consensus and showing the supposed daily life of a family considered within the standards of the time, The Jetsons present a series of technological objects and Gadgets innovators. Many of these “Jetson technologies” have become reality in our current daily lives and some are already very common and findable, others not so much. The following is a list of 14 of these electronic devices present in Hanna Barbera's animation and that are already inserted in our reality in some way.

Video calls

In practice, in video calls, George Jetson talks to his wife, his boss and other characters with whom he relates. The feature is also widely used in smart watches (read more in item 6), ensuring even more practicality through mobility. Nowadays, video calling has become natural among the different generations: through Facetime, Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, which are the most commonly used products to access this resource, it is possible to talk to another person or a group of people with very few clicks. on your computer or taps on your smartphone.

robot vacuum cleaners

In a single push of a button, Jane Jetson turns on a robot vacuum cleaner that is somewhat funny and characteristic of the design patterns of the 1950s and 1960s. These electronics are also among us today and bring practicality on different scales to cleaning our homes, not only in the spaces where we circulate, but in every dusty corner that is difficult to reach. There is a wide range of options and brands on the market, including robot vacuum cleaners from philco, Roomba e Samsung.

flat tvs

Flat, very thin TVs are already imagined in the futuristic world of the Jetsons as well. To do their morning exercises or just watch concerts by famous artists, the Jetson family uses several thin televisions scattered around the house. Currently, both thin TVs and SmarTVs from various brands have gained practically all public, collective and private spaces, while tube televisions from the 1990s and 2000s are not even manufactured anymore. There is some leadership and therefore competition in the world among oriental manufacturers, Samsung, LG e Sony.

clear glass elevators

To go up to their houses or move around inside gigantic buildings, The Jetsons and several other characters use completely transparent and glass elevators. The same elevators can very well be found in museums, public buildings, malls, stores and even homes around the world. There will never be all the minimalism evident in animation, but its aesthetic bears every resemblance to what its characters are used to wearing.

electric toothbrushes

At dawn, George Jetson does his morning exercise of just watching himself working out on a big screen (laughs) and, until he's ready to get out of bed, a robot directs him to brush his teeth. Two articulated arms come out of the wall and brush his teeth automatically, without him having to move a muscle. Very practical, no?

Even today, we have electric toothbrushes from various brands available for the indispensable habit of oral health. The vast majority of them are very efficient and well indicated by dentists.

Smart Watches

Smartwatches tend to be more and more common among us too, were it not for the high price of some with more features available (hello, Apple !), in addition to carrying an easier usability. In addition to being a practical and wearable accessory, it offers a number of tools that the smartphone is capable of doing as well.

In the Jetsons, this accessory also appears on the arm of some characters and demonstrates its practicality and mobility. Most of the time, it appears only for the purpose of voice and video communication and, not, providing a series of apps and tools that are common in 2022 smart watches.

Drones

In one of the hilarious episodes, we can see a robot in the service of George's boss (Mr. Spacely), who photographs his employee arriving at work and trying to get out of his lateness to work by adjusting the company's clock. For today, we can interpret this passage as an outdated micromanagement, even in the most inflexible corporate molds.

Currently, piloted drones take over some airspaces to perform various functions. They are used for filming techniques, for surveillance or security of certain locations or simply as simple hobby, for example. There are still those who use drones in pranks to scare people off guard on Halloween or to bring action figures to life from Star Wars.

personal assistants

Rose is the robot maid at the Jetsons' residence. She does everything: washes, irons, takes care of Elroy, does heavy cleaning, tidies the house, etc. An excellent personal assistant who organizes and makes this family's life much more practical. In addition, there are a series of similar robots, from the simplest and allocated to specific tasks to the most complex and updated to meet the most diverse and difficult demands of future humans.

Alexa, Crab, chromecast (device) and other personal assistants are some of the Artificial Intelligences that are among us, whether in applications or in speakers that already include them as interactive voice recorders. AIs are coming to the world market with great force and can gain more and more space in a few years, in addition to being able to be incorporated into real humanoid robot bodies (which is even closer to the science fiction of animation), a product that the big tech are racing to develop and create competition with each other, including.

artificial tanners

Artificial tanning machines are very common in aesthetic clinics and/or focused on this type of service today. It is the most common place where such equipment is found, for now, since in the Jetsons these are displayed in domestic environments, where there is only one light pointed at a soft and comfortable bed.

Jet Propellers (Jetpack)

The jet-propelled backpack of Elroy Jetson, the youngest son of the family, is widely used by him in many episodes, as well as being an extremely useful item for air traffic emergencies and for workers (the mailman, for example) who need to get around. quickly through the densely populated and busy space.

Currently, jet engines use different technologies to work and are still restricted to the production of very few foreign companies, in addition to being absurdly expensive. However, technology and such businesses are on the way to being a more accessible product someday.

Flying cars

Along the same lines, autonomous cars (without human drivers) are already gaining enough space on the streets and media attention. But the impressive AeroMobil 3.0 car, from Slovak startup AeroMobil, was recently launched as a hybrid that drives normally on the streets and has retractable wings that lift the vehicle off the ground and send it flying through the sky. It still makes a short, low flight, but it is already an incredible technological advance, although the cyberpunk reality of a dense city with high circulation of air cars is still a very distant reality for several different fundamental factors.

In the Jetsons, the flying car is something normalized. Virtually all the inhabitants of the 100% vertical and cloud-height city use this type of vehicle to get around, even causing heavy traffic through the skies of this urban region. Art imitates life and life imitates art.

printed foods

Still a little far from being a reality accessible to all, food printed by 3D printers is already among us thanks to foreign companies such as CojoJet, which is already capable of making small printed desserts and entrees. The “cultivation” of hamburgers inside similar machines, from a single cell taken from an animal, is also being studied in laboratories around the world. At Jetsons, the family has their meals served by a machine that automatically produces them, serving the most varied dishes in a few seconds.

treadmills

Treadmills are already attached to the floors of this futuristic world of the Jetsons. George Jetson and the family dog ​​Astro use it a lot for exercise or for their everyday walk on a leash (laughs). It is not difficult to find equipment of this type in gyms, mainly, and of different brands. It is also common to find them in the homes of people with healthier lifestyles.

spacial tourism

Even further, the animation of the 1960s addresses space tourism, often with mundane themes, such as school trips, scouting or the simplest space tourism on various planets of the Solar System, as naturally as possible both in important dialogues and in trivial mentions. for the backgrounds of the main narrative.

It is worth remembering that Jeff Bezos has already made his first trip to space recently by the Blue Origin rocket. A number of similar trips have been going on by this company ever since, funded by very wealthy people (millionaires and billionaires), however. It may be that space tourism still takes a long time to become a reality accessible to humanity.

Bonus

In addition to all these devices, prototypes and electronic cupcakes, capable of making the daily life of the human being much easier, The Jetsons touch on delicate and somewhat controversial subjects for the present day. George Jetson's labor relations hits very strongly with a potential critic dressed up as a funny and amusing animation.

Just like the distant Modern Times (1936), by Charlie Chaplin, and the contemporary TV series, Rupture (2022), The Jetsons bring their humorous load of labor issues and complications, in a society where you work 3 or 4 hour shifts a day, there is a certain lack of work generated by advanced technology and the rights of the worker are repressed with harshness and injustice, but such themes are always treated with a light American comedy tone.

Admittedly, many of the technologies and gadgets have emerged to make everyday work easier as well. Notebooks and smartphones exist on a large scale, as well as software and services for data analysis, big data, programming and design. All are proof of the practicality generated and help a lot in the operation and strategy of contemporary businesses.

In the animated series, George Jetson pushes buttons to perform his role at work and yet he receives reprisals for being a little late, never earns his much-desired pay raise, and, by threatening to quit, his boss does everything he can to keep him. lo at Spacely Space Sprockets, Inc. in a friendly manner (contrary to his normal personality). Therefore, being an abusive and toxic boss, he is a character that implies that George is a very important employee for the corporation, even surrounded by super intelligent robots (others not so much, in order to enhance the comedy) and automation technologies.

This criticism and others, imagined in a very interesting futurism to look at, and a series of creative technologies not mentioned before, are present in the very fun animated series d'Os Jetsons, available on the subscription streaming service. HBO Max.

See also:

The best animated series of all time

The best animated movies of all time

The best animated series of all time

See the 20 best animated films in the history of cinema

Sources: IMDb, etrepreneur, New York Post, PC Mag, Eighties Kids