The Paul Lynde Halloween Special aired just once (on October 29, 1976) on ABC. It co-starred Margaret Hamilton in what was her first reprisal of her role as The Wicked Witch of the West since The Wizard of Oz was filmed decades earlier (most of her work at the time this special aired was as spokeswoman "Cora" in General Foods' Maxwell House coffee commercials). Although I missed the original airing, I found the DVD release to be worth a look.
Original ad for Paul Lynde Halloween Special from TV Guide
Paul Lynde was perhaps best known for his role as Uncle Arthur on the seventies TV sitcom "Bewitched" (although he was also the center square on the game show "Hollywood Squares" for many years) and he was also known for his roles on stage (and in the movie) in "Bye Bye Birdie", as well as the voice talent on various Hanna-Barbera cartoons and as Templeton the rat in the animated version of "Charlotte's Web", and as guest star on TV shows ranging from "The Munsters" to "I Dream of Jeannie". Yet somehow, this television special from the mid-1970s made it to DVD. The company that brought that into the digital age was S'More Entertainment, Inc. (http://smoreent.com).
S'More Entertainment's DVD
As Halloween specials go, there really wasn't much competition aside from reruns of Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin, which frankly looked a lot like the Peanuts' gang's Christmas special, so the story wasn't one of those memorable ones. But the Paul Lynde Halloween special is also something of collectors item thanks to the musical guests (remember, this was before MTV or music videos generally): the seventies rock band KISS, which performed "Beth" as well as "Detroit Rock City"and "King of the Night Time World". The reason this DVD remains a collectors item among rock fans, is because it was also the very first network television appearance of KISS in their heyday.
As for the plot, the most diplomatic way of describing it is that it's cheesy. Sure, it's cheesy, but it's only 50 minutes long with 3 KISS performances, combined with a "who's who" of celebrities in the 1970's, including Tim Conway, Florence Henderson, Betty White, Roz "Pinky Tuscadero" Kelly (known at the time for her TV appearance under the name Pinky Tuscadero on ABC's "Happy Days") as well as an unbilled cameo appearance of the ever-perky Donnie and Marie Osmond.
This was entertaining because of the odd mix of stars it featured, kitschy comedy (including one skit starring Mr. Lynde as a "Convoy"-esque trucker with a CB radio), and Mr. Lynde's Hollywood Squares center square comedy. There are worse things that one could watch.
The distributor featured a disclaimer on the back of the DVD box that apologized in advance for the quality of the video, which was from the only surviving master tape of The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. And although there's some video noise and picture quality is inconsistent, as DVDTalk noted (see HERE) "anyone who grew up on dubbed video tapes will feel right at home here with this okay 1.33:1 full screen transfer. Not nearly as bad as S'More Entertainment warns us it will be." DVDTalk's review also happens to be one of the most comprehensive available, and I recommend having a look at it.
While S'More Entertainment has digitized the content, and even apologized for the quality (not exactly meeting the definition of "digitally remastered"), in fact, as TV specials go, the entertainment is funny for the peculiar combination of guests and musical talent, which would be difficult if not impossible to do again today even with hundreds of cable channels available.
As DVDTalk.com wrote in it's review: "... there is a train-wreck fascination with this 1976 TV special. Where else will you see KISS competing with Florence Henderson in a sing-off - and lose? I highly recommend The Paul Lynde Halloween Special."
Even though I was never really a huge KISS fan, I would say the KISS performances beat Florence Henderson without any doubt, but you should judge for yourself!
As I write this, in spite of having digitized the content, S'More Entertainment hasn't yet made this DVD available in streaming video format, but perhaps someday that will happen since it's an easy transfer and Amazon can likely handle that. In the interim, this DVD special can be had for a pretty low price (now selling for like $7, although the official "list price" is $14.98, which again, is relatively cheap), and might be worth getting in time for your next Halloween TV viewing.
Definitely worth having a look at for retro television fans. Although the original video which contained the entire special is long gone from YouTube, its still available on Amazon for purchase in streaming format, which can be accessed at https://amzn.to/2yjQOP4 if you're inclined, or on DVD format if you can still find it, although it may only be used copies available. But I have assembled a brief playlist which consists of an original ABC promo for the special, some commentary from KISS frontman Gene Simmons (the musical guest on that special), and then Bruce Vilanch who co-starred with Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares, and because he worked for variety show icons Sid and Marty Krofft on their many variety shows (including the Donnie and Marie Show, which Vilanch worked on and Lynde guest-starred on several times) also recorded some comments on the Archive of American Television worth listening to below, or HERE:
My readers may recall that I wrote about the Super Friends back in May 2012 (see my post HERE or at http://goo.gl/9fUIm for details). But the Super Friends as we Gen Xers knew them were actually in their prime back in the 1970s, and I know they're super and all, but they have to retire sometime, don't they?!
So what happens when a group of four, aging Super Friends move to Miami in and share a ranch house, spending their golden years together? Well, that was basic idea behind this YouTube video created by artist Kevin Bapp which he calls "Super Golden Friends". Catch his video on YouTube below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/pBkAi-giu-g:
Mr. Bapp also commented in the accompanying YouTube video commentary:
"This is a pilot I'd like to propose to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, if I knew anyone who worked there, and if all the licenses could be obtained." It's an obvious spin on the 1980's sitcom "The Golden Girls", but with aging comic book characters instead of live actors/actresses.
Hmmmm, although I mentioned "The Avengers" in my May 28, 2012 post, and even commented that Warner Brothers already had the rights to some of the DC Comics library, and we learned that the company is indeed looking at a return of the Justice League sometime in the summer of 2015 (see HERE or http://lat.ms/OUlCKL for details).
It looks as if this will be an animated feature, as opposed to one featuring human actors. Still, the concept of a new Justice League cartoon movie seems destined for the big screen in the not-too-distant future (2015 to be exact).
Could Super Golden Friends Find a Home on the Internet?
While the Justice League may not have the humorous edge that Kevin Bapp's version does, it does make me wonder if Warner Brothers might actually be willing to consider such a concept?
To be sure, the rights to the "Golden Girls" may be a Disney property, but the theme song certainly doesn't belong to Disney, which means that's potentially up for grabs. That song, incidentally, was from Andrew Gold, who released (and it was actually played on the radio) "Thank You For Being a Friend" back in 1978. My aunt kind of liked the song and I remember she wanted to buy his album "All This and Heaven Too". That song can be download by visiting http://amzn.to/Vi6qFr.
I should acknowledge that Andrew Gold himself passed away on June 6, 2011 (see http://bit.ly/mICzjk). If Warner (or DC Comics) don't want to license the characters, I think Mr. Bapp could always do what Pixar did with "The Incredibles" ... they just wrote around it with familiar enough if not exact superhero characters. Mr. Incredible?
Nope ... not from any Marvel or DC Comics from what I can recall. But it didn't matter.
Internet Sitcoms Arrive
Having said all of this, the concept of licensing the characters for comic value might be appropriate to an online audience.
But the idea that television is needed to produce a series is, to some extent, becoming history. For example, there are already a few series already in production exclusively for the Internet. Some even have big-name Hollywood talent behind their efforts. One such example is Jane Espenson, who has written for shows including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Angel", "Firefly", "Gilmore Girls", "Ellen", "The O.C.", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", "Dinosaurs", "Andy Barker PI", "Battlestar Galactica", "Dollhouse", "Caprica", "Game of Thrones", "Torchwood: Miracle Day" and others.
While I wasn't really a huge fan of any of those shows, the fact is that she had the experience and credentials in the entertainment industry to do pretty much what she wanted. She raised some eyebrows in Hollywood when a recent project, notably a sitcom, which follows all the rules and conventions of any sitcom, except it's about a gay married couple. Oh, and it airs on YouTube. As she described it: "Mad About You but with two guys." When she and her co-writer Brad Bell came up with the idea, they realized it was such an obvious concept for a series that if network TV had wanted to do it, they already would have. So instead of going around pitching the show, they made it on the cheap, with their own money, on the Internet. A sitcom veteran, Jeff Greenstein, who did countless episodes of "Will and Grace", directed.
The end result is a YouTube series known as "Husbands" (http://husbandstheseries.com/) which is now entering it's second successful season, perhaps a sign that the era of internet series has finally reached a new phase of maturity.
Indeed, guest stars on "Husbands" in Season 2 will include some big-name talent from the small screen, including John Cryer of "Two and a Half Men" (although at least a few of us remember him equally as "Duckie" from the John Hughes' film "Pretty in Pink").
NPR's "This American Life" blogged about this effort HERE, writing:
"Jane's hope is that some brave network – AMC? NBC? – will notice their little experiment and give them a budget larger than the cost of a Hyundai to blow people's minds on real TV. If they do it right, of course, they won't be blowing minds at all. They'll just be the New Normal."
Jane Espenson herself actually Tweeted following on NBC's new series "The New Normal" (which, incidentally, NBC has already renewed for another season):
NBC on "New Normal": "it's by no means centered on just the gay couple in the middle of it." Ah. Ground nicely not broken then.
— Jane Espenson (@JaneEspenson) July 30, 2012
She seems to be saying that the show (NBC's "The New Normal") doesn't push the boundaries quite as much as she did with her series "Husbands".
Perhaps she's right about that, but I would dare say that she seems to be breaking new ground not only with the content covered in her series "Husbands" but also with delivering sitcoms via the internet. Why Viacom's gay-themed network Logo hasn't picked the show up is beyond me. Instead, Logo is running reruns of "16 and Pregnant", like any gay man or woman can even relate. However, I would not be surprised if the "Husbands" show starts to have it's own sponsors in the not-too-distant future.
But the series' success also indicates that the role of the big media "gatekeeper" of what audiences are entitled to see may be over. Indeed, WNYC's "On the Media" program discussed this in a May 2012 broadcast, which can be listened to at http://wny.cc/SKi4t1. For example, this year's Upfronts - the model that has been used by television channels to sell advertising and show off their slate of shows - featured a new competitor, and a new platform: online. Digital programmers held the first-ever event to show off their online programming, which they've dubbed the "Newfronts". Again, WNYC's "On The Media" covered that, which can be listened to at http://wny.cc/Ub9J65. This is really a continuation of what began with the proliferation of cable stations with their own programming, but takes it a step further.
"A lot of TV sitcoms about gay couples stick to very personal stories (adoption, surrogate parenting) and work from those to strike themes about larger changes in society. Husbands is doing the opposite: it starts from a high-satire topic about the public debate over gay marriage—its leads, being celebrities, know their marriage will be in the press no matter what—and through that, ends up telling a very sweet story about two guys trying to find a way to have a relationship simply as people."
They close by writing:
"It's the sort of thing that, in a bigger-scale TV show, might just collapse under its own sense of significance and topicality. Not so, so far, in Husbands, a show that manages to make a very little go a long way."
Regardless of whether someone has an interest in "Husbands", that show's success on the Internet goes a long way towards opening show content once deemed "inappropriate" (by the network executives) for mainstream television audiences. In doing so, the concept of there being a "Super Golden Friends" doesn't seem so far-fetched after all!
Here at Harvest Gold Memories, I've featured a recurring series I call "Pop Culture Reunions" where I share various video clips from different cast reunions of TV shows, movies or even musicians and bands that were popular back in the 1970s and 1980s. In June 2012, I featured one for "The Partridge Family" or http://goo.gl/yuqQN which ran on NBC's Today Show on March 1-2, 2010. Almost the entire cast was featured ... EXCEPT for Partridge Family mama Shirley Jones, and Susan Dey who played sister Laurie Partridge.
Shirley Jones' real-life stepson David Cassidy (who happened to play Keith Partridge on the show) said she couldn't make the cast reunion because she was out touring at the time.
That was kind of a bummer.
However, I guess that's a testament to the fact that academy award winner Shirley Jones remains extremely active and keeps herself busy even at age 75 (her age at the time of the reunion on the Today Show). Shirley Jones looks largely unchanged over the last 30 years. Today, her platinum blonde hair has turned completely white, which I think helps her to keep a youthful appearance. But aside from not having gained a pound since her first movie premiers, she looks pretty much the same as she did when she played Shirley Partridge.
Regular readers here may recall that I've also started to feature a segment from Australia's 7 television network called "Where Are They Now?" when I introduced everyone to a clip on "The Six Million Dollar Man" (or visit http://goo.gl/QkLm9). Apparently, that particular program ran only for about a year or two in Australia, but nevertheless featured one of the missing parties from "The Partridge Family", notably actress and singer Shirley Jones.
I should note that the segment I'm featuring today actually pre-dates the cast reunion for "The Partridge Family" by several years since it ran in 2007 whereas the reunion took place in 2010. However, I think this fills in a missing piece of info from the original posting on "The Partridge Family", and the discussion with Shirley Jones remains as relevant today as it was in 2007. She talks about how she got involved in television to do "The Partridge Family" at a time when everyone told her it would be career suicide (it wasn't), how she wanted to do the show so she could remain home with her sons, how she still stays in touch with many of her former castmembers from the show, and more.
Let me just close by including some additional info on Shirley Jones that is not necessarily included in the preceding video.
For one thing, Shirley Jones has been happily married to a man by the name of Marty Ingels for the past 35 years! Talk about an enduring relationship, especially in Hollywood where marriages are sometimes considered disposable commodities. Although her marriage to Jack Cassidy ended in divorce in 1976, her marriage to Marty Ingels seems to have endured the test of time.
While they might appear to be an unlikely couple, as the book "Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story" (see http://amzn.to/WplTIK to buy the book) written by Shirley Jones, her husband Marty Ingels, and Mickey Herskowitz writes in a very entertaining way happens to note, he's a New York transplant who's also a comic, and they really seem to compliment one another very well.
Shirley who is the quintessential American (I believe she's originally from Pittsburgh), while her husband Marty is a gruff, Jewish guy from Brooklyn, New York and his accent shows that you can take the man out of Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the man!
However, both of them discussed on a very entertaining podcast of Stu's Show (hosted by Stu Showstak, see http://www.stusshow.com/) recorded on September 15, 2010, where Shirley commented that one of the reasons their marriage has endured for so long (certainly by Hollywood standards), in her own words, was "Because I'M the crazy one!".
That podcast is available for $0.99, just visit http://www.stusshow.com/ and search in the archives for "Shirley Jones". I would have to say that podcast was a pretty entertaining look at Shirley Jones in a way that I would say is probably seldom seen by outsiders.
Shirley Jones also has her own website at http://www.shirleyjones.net/ which is also worth a visit if you're so inclined. She's got all kinds of stuff from her long and successful career in the entertainment business.
Let me just remind everyone that although "The Partridge Family" was certainly not all she was known for, certainly anyone who remembers that show (either from original broadcasts, or broadcasts in syndication) might also like to visit an awesome fan-made website about "The Partridge Family" at http://cmongethappy.com/. There, you can find out virtually everything about the show, and it even has the font for the show you can download for your computer ... all free.
Modern-day breakfast cereals are, to a large extent, an American creation. Sure, Britain has what they call Wheetabix, and the Swiss invented Müesli, but we Americans were arguably the first to industrialize the manufacture of breakfast cereals and mass-merchandise the concept of them to large segments of the population. Indeed, cereal marketers have demonstrated considerable skill in branding their products, creating brand mascots like Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Count Chocula, and of course Snap, Crackle and Pop.
A few years ago, credit card giant MasterCard ran one of the more memorable recent TV spots featuring the iconic mascots for a number of consumer products (sure, the Vlasic Pickle Stork isn’t associated with breakfast cereal, but there certainly was at least one cereal mascot included). Have a look at the YouTube clip below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/xtRBpu-OjF4:
We've since taken the concept of breakfast cereals and exported it around the world, to places ranging from Brazil to Russia to China, although the concept has been met with varying degrees of success.
The forefathers of these products were undoubtedly the Kellogg brothers (William Keith Kellogg and John Harvey Kellogg) of Michigan, as well as some others, notably Charles William "C.W." Post of New York, although Mr. Post was really more a packaged-foods guy who got his start in the cereal biz, but would go on to morph his company into General Foods, with a string of mergers and acquisitions ranging from Minute Tapioca, Bird's Eye frozen vegetables to Maxwell House Coffee and Jell-O. General Foods would later be merged with Kraft Foods, although Kraft kind of lost interest in breakfast cereals and sold the Post cereals business Ralcorp in 2007, and that business was subsequently spun off as a standalone company in 2011, more details follow). But the corporatization of breakfast cereals didn't stop with those guys, others included General Mills, Ralston Purina (that company split itself into two in 1994 and that company sold it's branded products such as Chex and Cookie Crisp to General Mills; Ralcorp which was better known for making private label cereals for retailers, marketed Post's Fruity Pebbles and Alpha Bits which were acquired from Kraft, but spun the unit off as a separate company fending off a hostile acquisition from ConAgra in 2011, see http://nyti.ms/2sbWi8R for details, hence today Post once again exists as a stand-alone cereal company ... for now), Quaker Oats (which today belongs to PepsiCo), Nabisco (now also a part of Kraft, see the prior note on how Kraft lost interest in cereal) and a few other big agri-businesses.
Aside from Post whose origins were in New York (although his cereal business was, ironically enough, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, also home to Kellogg), most of the other breakfast-food giants began in America's breadbasket. But present-day ownership and company headquarters' aside, the concept of packaging commodity crops like wheat, oats and corn, and then marketing them breakfast cereals really began in earnest following the Great Depression. The product enabled consumers to have a filling breakfast that didn't require lengthy preparation, hence it really took off in the 1950s through the 1970s.
Working parents loved it, but getting the kids to eat cereal wasn't as easy. Kids are notoriously fussy eaters anyway, so the manufacturers did what they always do: add sugar which made the product more palatable to finicky children. Combine that with TV advertising (which really became prevalent in the 1950s, this was also before the days when scrutiny over marketing to kids emerged) and a recipe for cereal success was created. Today's post is about those sugary breakfast concoctions we call cereal which are indeed part of American pop culture. The Great American Cereal Book
While every company operating in the cereal market has it's own unique history, how many really chronicle how these products, and their iconic mascots (including Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, Count Chocula/ Frankenberry/ Boo-Berry, Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Post Sugar Bear, Lucky the Leprechaun and various others) and look at how the products, the marketing and the packages have evolved over time? There is a really great book on this subject called "The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch" by Martin Gitlin and Topher Ellis.
You cannot get a Kindle version for this particular book, so don't ask. But, if you're interested in buying the print version of this book, visit http://amzn.to/QSnoMb or http://bit.ly/QSnyDn to buy the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, respectively. As a point of reference, whenever I buy old-fashioned, books printed on paper (not eBooks), I use a handy search engine called AddAll.com which compares prices for a given book at like 40-50 different bookstores (including some used booksellers), and enables you to choose the retailer that has the lowest price. I find using the ISBN number (which in this case is: 0810997991) is fast, and voilà, the site searches bookstores all over the country.
This is really more of a coffee-table book, being a hardcover, full-color book that could just as easily fit on the shelf in your cabinet or pantry where you store your boxes of cereal as it does on your bookshelf in terms of the book's size. But it's a high-quality publication, and the authors received a lot of help from the cereal manufacturers in assembling what could best be described as an encyclopedia of photos and background information on all of the cereal brands you're likely to know about as well as more than a few that were around for a limited period of time. I highly recommend getting a copy for yourself, but it also makes for a great gift for a person who has everything yet might appreciate having a piece of pop-culture history on their coffee table. Barnes & Noble featured a really nice review of "The Great American Cereal Book" which I highly recommended reading at http://bit.ly/QdbhYr. Cereal Bits Website
Cereal Bits' Logo Animation
For those who don't have the financial resources to buy this particular book, the good news is there's presently an online resource (which was done with no affiliation from the book's authors, by the way) that's almost as comprehensive in terms of pictures (just don't expect to see the same level of research on this subject at the site, as there is little if any history on the website).
That particular website is (was, I include the archive in the links that follow) "Cereal Bits" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151230022335/http://www.cerealbits.com/) which is (or rather WAS) an awesome website that adds online color to this walk through our junk-food breakfast obsession known as breakfast cereal. Included there are many photos of the limited-duration sugary breakfast cereals everyone knew would only be on the shelves for a limited time, including Star Wars, Mr. T, Pac Man and various others. And perhaps you recall some of the other cereals, like Quaker's King Vitamin or General Mills' Big G Body Buddies from back in the day? Rest assured, both the book and the website have lots of photos you can see and relive those breakfasts of your youth.
In truth, I do think the book provides more interesting context to this discussion because it contains the history of how those brands (and their mascots) were created, including when they were born and more. Sure, I could include some YouTube videos of some old cereal TV commercials, but you could just as easily search those for yourself.
A few years ago (in 2009), Advertising Age wrote about how General Mills, one of the largest purveyors of sugary cereals in existence, relaunched, for a limited time, retro packaging for some of it's kids' cereals and sold them in Target stores. The target market for those retro-packages was clearly Gen Xers, though I never heard of any follow-up on how well (or poorly) the retro packaging did for General Mills. In any event, that article may be viewed at http://adage.com/u/aHwSTb, so be sure to check it out.
Finally, Amazon.com had a note from the book's authors which is relevant so I'm including that below: From the Author
My passion for cereal inspired me to launch this project, but you don't have to be a cereal lover to enjoy The Great American Cereal Book. I was thrilled to find a publisher that shared my vision. Cereal is fun. Eating cereal is fun. Reading cereal boxes is fun. Cereal spokescharacters are fun. Not too many morose thoughts run through one's mind when Sonny the Cuckoo Bird is proclaiming, "I'm Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" I tried to express that sense of fun on every page and Harry Abrams followed suit. The 350 images of cereal boxes, ads and memorabilia that pepper the pages of this book make it colorful and, of course, fun. But if not for co-author Topher Ellis and heaps of information provided by the cereal companies, this book would never have become a reality.
Thanks to everyone! And to everyone out there ... enjoy! Marty
About the Author
Marty Gitlin is a freelance writer and the author of more than 40 books. He has won many awards for his writing, including first place for General Excellence in Journalism from the Associated Press. Gitlin lives with his wife and three children in Cleveland, Ohio. Topher Ellis is a cereal expert and editor of the cereal newsletter the Boxtop, the longest continuously running publication dedicated to breakfast cereal. He lives in Matthews, North Carolina.
Author P.S., October 20, 2013: NPR reported on October 20, 2013 that General Mills' line of "Monster Cereals" (Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry) which originally hit the market in the early '70s although the company decided in 2010 these would only be available during the Halloween season, which created an artificial scarcity which has kind of galvanized a kind of cult following around this time of year for these retro-sugary cereals. Catch "Unleashed On Halloween, Monster Cereals Haunt Hoarders" for more details at http://n.pr/H8Cj3O.
Author P.S., February 27, 2014: Bloomberg Business Week reported (see http://bloom.bg/182eh7b) that Kellogg as well as its competitors have seen sales declines, with Kellogg suffering more than General Mills and Post Holdings. The real issue is that today, cereal isn't as convenient as it once was compared to other foods. Today, people eat on the run, so a family eating breakfast together is also an anachronism to parents toting their kids in the car to daycare or to school. That means Kellogg has its work cut out for it. Stay tuned for the continued evolution of American breakfasts!
I can remember the first few times I ever saw Hanna-Barbera's "The Jetsons" on television. I was already accustomed to watching "The Flintstones" regularly by the same animation company since they were re-run in syndication daily. However, for me, the space-aged version of the nuclear family was a glimpse into what life might look like in the future, and I thought it was so incredibly cool!
Their family car wasn't powered by their feet like on "The Flintstones", it was a personal hovercraft (plane, helicopter, or something that flew). The young son on "The Jetsons", Elroy, had a watch with a TV set built-in (in reality, Sony introduced a product called the Sony Watchman back in the 1980s, but teachers were wise to that kind of thing and wouldn't allow them to be used in their classrooms, these days, it's SmartPhones that are the bane of well-meaning teachers across America). Of course, I watched the original version of "The Jetsons" which ran from 1962–1963. The very first episode of "The Jetsons" aired on September 23, 1962, and there were only 24 episodes. It was also the first show ever broadcast in color on ABC -- talk about futuristic back in the day! However, even watching the show for the first time as a kid more than a decade later, it seemed (to me, anyway) to be a rational vision of what the future might potentially hold, and it was awesome!
Happy 50th Anniversary to The Jetsons
As the premier date above indicates, September 23, 2012 was the 50th anniversary for "The Jetsons". While I'm not even 50 myself (I have more than a few years before I'm there), it seems to me that "The Jetsons" helped shape what not only the Baby Boomers expected the future to look like, but also Generation X that followed them. However, the Baby Boom and Gen X helped make those visions reality, which is (if I'm being honest) no small accomplishment!
One of the visions of the future I thought was particularly awesome at the time was the video-telephone the Jetsons routinely used. In one episode, it's early morning and the matriarch of the household Jane Jetson receives a call from a friend, but she doesn't have her makeup on, hence she didn't dare take the call until she'd put a mask on to make herself presentable. That clip can be viewed below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/0idWiHiasKg:
My recollection of that scene wasn't about Jane's mirage of a face, but how cool it was to be able to SEE the person on the other end of the phone. What if the future enabled us to mitigate long-distances by enabling video conversations?
However, I think this is really important, even as a child, I knew cartoons weren't real. I might have wondered if "The Jetsons" represented what COULD potentially be. But I certainly didn't have any expectation to see moving sidewalks everywhere (although anyone who has ever had a connecting flight at airports in Charlotte, Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta or various other big airports has indeed seen and possibly even used moving sidewalks, although I see those more as time-savers without any expectation of seeing them appear on Main Street in the town where I grew up or even in Midtown Manhattan. The need simply isn't there.
NPR spoke with Matt Novak, a writer of a blog at Smithsonian, about his posts about the TV show, The Jetsons, on its 50th anniversary and why it still matters today. Mr. Novak's posts were originally found at Smithsonian's "Paleofuture" Blog, although it was subsequently moved to Gizmodo (see the news HERE), and the post at Gizmodo's blog can now be seen at https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/50-years-of-the-jetsons-why-the-show-still-matters-512621126. The NPR segment entitled "Fifty Years Later, Bits Of Our Own Reality Reflected In 'Jetsons' Future" can be listened to below, or by visiting https://n.pr/2xSmRYB:
Matt Novak's Smithsonian observation on "The Jetson's" 50th anniversary can be seen HERE or at http://bit.ly/T5NPuX, but the content is the same. He made a rather interesting observation there:
"It's important to remember that today's political, social and business leaders were pretty much watching "The Jetsons" on repeat during their most impressionable years. People are often shocked to learn that "The Jetsons" lasted just one season during its original run in 1962-63 and wasn't revived until 1985."
Like all kids my age, we watched the ORIGINAL Jetsons, in fact, I was already in high school by 1985 when the first reboot version appeared.
But his blog post adds:
"Thanks in large part to the Jetsons, there's a sense of betrayal that is pervasive in American culture today about the future that never arrived. We're all familiar with the rallying cries of the angry retrofuturist: Where's my jetpack!?! Where's my flying car!?! Where's my robot maid?!? "The Jetsons" and everything they represented were seen by so many not as a possible future, but a promise of one."
Even as a kid, I knew cartoons weren't real, but Mr. Novak contends that many people feel betrayed by what The Jetsons had that the average American does not enjoy today. That's the wrong way to look at things IMHO.
To his point, the original Jetsons (forget about the 1985 reboot; the story lines weren't very good and the series had lost some of it's "edge" at the time so I'm not sure how much of a glimpse into the future those episodes were for many people). Still, for me, I don't consider where we are today a sense of betrayal, but of just how much of what's become reality. For example, I can sit anywhere in my house with my Google Nexus tablet in-hand and conduct a face-to-face conversation with family members who are thousands of miles away. I routinely microwave dinner in just a few minutes, hence this is really a matter of perspective. I also have no desire to fly to work knowing how bad the roads are! My smartphone has more power than my family's first computer did, and what's more, it has potential to not only Skype, but do much more (if you can see a 2-inch screen without magnifying glasses).
Who Will The Futurists of Tomorrow Be?
In fact, I do believe "The Jetsons" painted a picture of what the future could possibly look like. My question is what visions of the future are being shared with today's youth? Case-in-point: Today, Walt Disney World's Carousel of Progress ride no longer seems so futuristic to me (my last visit to that exhibit was in 2005). There were some prominent futurists a while ago; in fact, a book that had a pretty profound impact on me personally was "Megatrends 2000" written by futurists Patricia Aburdene and John Naisbitt. I don't recall all of their predictions, but if memory serves me, I think many of them actually DID become reality. But I wonder who will tomorrow's futurists be, and what will they base their predictions on?
Author P.S., July 31, 2022: If there was any doubt that the future is here (for better or worse), just remember that you are now officially living in George Jetson's lifetime. Animation fans celebrated an important milestone (see HERE), as several savvy Twitter users observed that the Spacely Sprockets employee, husband to Jane, and father of June and Elroy, is said to be born on July 31, 2022. Cartoon Network explained why: "on The Jetson's George is 40 years old in the year 2062."
55, writer, speaker, brother, son, friend, spouse, advocate for people with autoimmune (type 1) diabetes, thinker, dreamer. Reading and writing is becoming a lost art, but we can learn a lot from reading the medical and scientific literature before drawing conclusions. The press publishes abbreviated facts to fit into limited space, I don't mince words or omit facts.
