The Jetsons turn 50 | Retro Junk

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eddstarr88 2 years 6 days ago Posts: 6887	That's a cool link S n S, industry driven standards often become adopted by local/state regulators. That was especially true in my neighborhood when I was a little boy, there were still quite a few houses built before the advent of electricity. There's something very weird when you're in a house built before electricity - a weird feeling that's hard to describe. When the Jetsons first aired in 1962 one of the hottest future fads in popular culture was Food Pills. When I was a kid predictions of solid food replaced by pills was everywhere. Remember that 1964 movie "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"? That scene with the goofy Martian eating all the food pills, especially the chocolate ice cream pills, was standard fare back in the day. Amazing how Hanna-Barbera avoided using the pills for everything idea in the Jetsons. Food pills fits right in to the minimalist/spartan living concepts that made forecasting the future look so different from contemporary life.
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stake n sheak 2 years 1 day ago Posts: 1774	I saw Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but don't really remember anything about it. That was a long time ago. We were watching a food documentary the other day and food pills came to mind. I enjoy food but sometimes a pill would come in really handy. Storage and transport would be a lot easier, too. But Mrs. Sheak is absolutely opposed to the concept. Today I was reading about googie style of architecture, which you could really see in The Jetsons. I never knew what to call it before. Just happened to be reading about Pee-wee's Playhouse and it was mentioned about the set design, and I was like, 'what's that word?' I don't think I've experienced being in a pre-electric house. I mean, my house was built in 1892 but has undergone so many changes before I got it that any of those characteristics are long gone. Same for any apartment I've had. Although, when I took out the dropped ceiling here, I did find a few pipes that used to go to gas lamps. No fixtures remained, sadly. My parents' house was built around 1925 and probably always had electric. They have an old picture of the living room, possibly from that year or near. I'll take another look at it this xmas and see if I can pull any more details out of it.
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eddstarr88 2 years 1 day ago Posts: 6887	Talk about timing S n S, I've run into a lot of stuff online involving food pills lately. That idea has been around a lot longer than I originally thought. Many concepts around "life in the future" have quite a history of their own, especially labor saving devices. Movie historians often mention theater shorts from the 1920's and 1930's that predict living 100 years in the future. As I search the web there may be more of these old films saved online. Thank you for that excellent link to the "Googie" style of architecture. The Seattle area was chock-full of buildings, especially diners, using that distinctive style. A few years ago the Seattle Landmark Preservation Board voted to save the last Denny's Restaurant, built in 1964, that had that "Googie" style. You sure can see the influence that old design concept had on Hanna-Barbera when they were creating the Jetsons. And recently Oscar Niemeyer, the Brazilian architect who designed the United Nations complex and Capital city Brasilia, died at the age of 104! His designs for grand scale and sparse ornamentation surely played a part in the look of Jetsons buildings. Here's the famous church Oscar Niemeyer designed:
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stake n sheak 2 years 1 day ago Posts: 1774	eddstarr88 wrote: Movie historians often mention theater shorts from the 1920's and 1930's that predict living 100 years in the future. As I search the web there may be more of these old films saved online. I love those. I would love more if they came to pass but I have to content myself that at least those imaginings were shared. Have you seen Metropolis, from 1926? That is not such a happy vision of the future (although the ending shows the way), but what a beautiful depiction it is.
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eddstarr88 2 years 1 day ago Posts: 6887	Yes, but I haven't seen Metropolis completely - only the good parts, lol. That Jetsons thread on Paleofuture has me thinking about other visions of future-past. If I run into some good clips I'll link to them on this thread.
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stake n sheak 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 1774	OK, here's a good one. Looking forward: the phenomenal progress of electricity in 1912 This book was written in 1906. I'm on chapter 3 now. It's a novel, it's scientific predictions, it's propaganda, all in one! One interesting thing is how much they talk about electric cars. Many people today would laugh about it. But for a time in the very early 20th century, electric cars were just as viable as gas cars. And I am reading this on my kindle, which I can only imagine would be mindblowing for the folks in 1906 or 1912. That's the funny thing about looking at this anniversary. We don't have the robots or flying cars, but a lot of the little things we do have are pretty futuristic.
	tangspot2 wrote: Mrs. stake you say some nasty on my threads. Dirty bitch
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eddstarr88 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 6887	Now that's what I call a great holiday gift! Thanks S n S, I'll save the link. The book was written at a time of extraordinary change in the early 20th century. There were so many amazing people at that time, including Nicola Tesla. I'm still fascinated by his devotion to wireless electricity broadcasting. Nicola found using wires an inconvenience to his vision of the future. I'm sure that Tesla would be surprised at how little we've advanced in our daily lives since his time. He would've loved the Jetsons, lol.
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stake n sheak 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 1774	Cool, I hope you enjoy it! Even Henry Ford was very interested in electric cars. Also plastics made from hemp (for car bodies). I don't like all of that guy's ideas, but some were very forward-thinking. I got his book, My Life and Work, from the same site and will be reading that one later as well. Now Tesla, yes that guy was amazing. I believe we are worse off as a world for having lost his documents. How it would be to have wireless electricity broadcasting. Think of the waste in infrastructure that could have been avoided. And how different things could be now in less-developed countries. I am trying to seriously imagine Tesla encountering the Jetsons. I think he was rather humorless. But what would he would think of the depictions, and how well he could apprehend the suburban-style society of the show. Also for him to meet Philo Farnsworth. Those two shared some great ideals and I think they would get along real well.
	tangspot2 wrote: Mrs. stake you say some nasty on my threads. Dirty bitch
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eddstarr88 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 6887	Let's celebrate a world that has room for guys like Philo and Nicola, minds that reach out. That's why all the talk about 12-21-2012 is just a joke to me. We're on the edge of really changing the quality of our lives in the next decade. Up 'til now you young guns are living lives that look a lot like my generation. But all that's going to change soon because technology will break beyond the usual business/government wall that keeps us from really living lives that are "the future". By the time you are my age you may be finally living in a whole new world. 2020 will look a lot different from 2010 I betcha, lol.
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stake n sheak 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 1774	It's hard to see when it is gradual. But looking at internet and PCs rising in the 90s and portable devices rising since then, in hindsight it is pretty amazing. Fingers crossed that something on that scale will happen outside of consumer electronics. I think that focus is most of what we have seen so far, and why "we young guns look a lot like your generation." High speed rail and vertical urban farming are some things I would like to see that are actually possible in the relative short term. Next year public transit in my city is going Big Brother. Neither cash nor disposable cards will be accepted to get on the train any more, except for single-ride and one-day passes. Currently one-day passes are not sold at the station and you have to go elsewhere, rarely convenient by foot. The main mode will be user-registered cards. They also plan to take payment by compatible cell phone (those that can swipe to pay), and credit card. Cash will be accepted on the bus for the time being, but they've already done away with transfer cards when they did the same with tokens. I'm certain buses will stop accepting cash as well. And for bikes, they are adding many lanes on the streets. One intersection is getting a special traffic light for bikes. Some people have suggested riding a bike require a license. I haven't heard anything real or official about that. But if it does turn out to be a Thing That Happens, coupled with the registered fare cards and service privatization that is being pushed more and more, I anticipate the beginnings of a rather dystopian society here. Could be interesting.
	tangspot2 wrote: Mrs. stake you say some nasty on my threads. Dirty bitch
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eddstarr88 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 6887	Episode 14 is up on the Paleofuture blog: The Super Suit - Episode 14... I've been thinking about Paolo Soleri and his drawings of Mega Cities that wowed me when I first saw them at Arizona State University in 1977. He called it "Arcology". Take a look: Weird and Wonderful Things...
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stake n sheak 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 1774	Oh how arcology concept gets my brain spinning. I think they are a very good and workable concept. I was discussing them on another forum once and a guy who was against them asked if I had ever lived near a turkey farm. He said that he had, and the smell was unbearable for miles around. Therefore an arcology is bad because we need to have turkey farms and nobody wants to live near one. That is a ridiculous notion. For as much as we need to eat meat (and I question that, even though I occasionally take part myself and do enjoy), I can't think that the methods of mass production currently employed by Perdue et al are healthy for us. Even if we don't care about the birds, I'd prefer not to eat something that smells so horrible for miles around. The turkey farm reeks because the turkeys are on top of each other, shitting and rotting. We don't need to make food that way even if it is more profitable. Especially since an arcology in its correct state produces little or no outputs of waste, and needs to sustain only itself. Anyway. The first paragraph on that page is exactly what I've been saying. wrote: over the years the Fantastic World of Tomorrow's gotten ... cheaper, simpler, and -- most tragically of all -- the future's gotten too damned small. Here's a guy with the right idea. The way things are structured now, I don't think we can see such societies or structures in the next few centuries. Besides the financials we need planning, cooperation, contribution, things most people aren't willing to do right now. Even if they agree with the idea which is a huge hurdle in itself. But just as an example, there are free building materials littering the world, such as bottles and tires. Imagine hundreds or thousands of people working together, could make quite an amazing building. It's not quite like Soleri's pictures, but the result can be similar in use.
	tangspot2 wrote: Mrs. stake you say some nasty on my threads. Dirty bitch
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eddstarr88 1 year 11 months ago Posts: 6887	Wasn't there an episode of Doctor Who that took place in a Mega Skyscraper apartment complex? It was so tall that the upper floors had to be pressurized to retain a breathable atmosphere, and the building had millions of tenants on thousands of floors. The idea behind it was space-age food production - nothing that looked like food as we know it. Every aspect of life needed a redo in order to make the Mega Skyscraper workable. Anyway, I'm sure there's a sci-fi novel where an entire planets population lives in a single "planet-wide" building.
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eddstarr88 1 year 8 months ago Posts: 6887	Episode 24, the last in The Jetsons original 1962 series that aired on ABC has been posted by Matt Novak on the Smithsonian's Paleofuture blog. This episode, titled "Elroy's Mob", has the youngest Jetson running away from home with Astro as a result of having his parents hear the wrong weekly report tape, actually belonging to Kenny Countdown, the class cut-up from school. Since it's my birthday let's end this thread with a link to the Jetson's final original episode: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/2013/03/the-jetsons-get-schooled-robot-teachers-in-the-21st-century-classroom/
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stake n sheak 1 year 8 months ago Posts: 1774	edfstarr88 wrote: Anyway, I'm sure there's a sci-fi novel where an entire planets population lives in a single "planet-wide" building. The Machine Stops is such a story, from all the way back in 1909. Although it's not a happy story.
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eddstarr88 1 year 8 months ago Posts: 6887	Thank you SnS. I'm unable to link to anything now since the spam filter trips with my every post. Guess I'm stuck with text only replies. http://www.thewb.com/shows/the-jetsons/elroys-mob/6eac1542-4f63-4742-b686-d32e7bca12c0
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shires 1 year 7 months ago Posts: 29	As i always watched the jetsons,and flintstones still do guess theres certian things you never outgrow.
	a little retro in your heart is a blessing.
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eddstarr88 1 year 7 months ago Posts: 6887	The Jetsons are still fun for me but just like Matt Novak at Paleofuture, I'm surprised just how many people keep the Jetsons in mind when looking at the world around them today. We still seem to be years behind cartoon tech, lol.
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thecrow174 1 year 7 months ago Posts: 9808	It's weird that they didn't use Rosie that often in the 1st season.
	There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil and the other one is good. Which wolf will win? The one you feed the most. http://unbelievableyou.com/a-native-american-cherokee-story-two-wolves/
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eddstarr88 1 year 7 months ago Posts: 6887	From what I've been able to learn from the Paleofuture blog, Rosie the robot wasn't used much as the focus of the show moved to George at work during the never ending battle between Spacely Sprockets vs. Cogswell Cogs. At home, family situations ruled. The robots, Rosie and Max, seemed to disappear.
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