So I am an avid watcher of Tubi, the last remaining ethical streaming service.
Lately it has been recommending me sitcoms of the 1960s, and so far I’ve really been finding myself surprisingly enjoying this look into the past. Gilligan’s island, The Jetsons, and bewitched.
I was watching The Jetsons today before work just to have Some Noise playing whilst I ingested my ramen noodles before work. Given that this is a sitcom about the future and how American society as pictured in the 1960s would adapt if the Space Age Promises of Tomorrow held true.
Not that kind of got me thinking, the Jetsons is very much in the ballpark of flintstones, it’s a modern family, in a time period that people of the 1960s would not consider modern. Now Flintstones doesn’t really need to be updated, because it’s set in a fictionalized stone age. You would not have to do much to update it if you wanted to do a modern take on that setting.
But what about the Jetsons? Now let’s say you were put in charge of making this reboot happen? How would you do it?
Would you be overly self aware and make jokes about a lot of future predictions that didn’t come true? Would you try to make it a sitcom version of Star Trek, like lower decks, but featuring a family instead of the D Squad?
Or maybe do something a bit more serious?
I want to hear from you, this is a message board for movies and TV shows, so let’s Flex those creative muscles, how would you make a new movie or TV show about the Jetsons?
Do you know something about Dropout that I don’t?
If you haven’t read the 2016 Flintstones DC comic I highly recommend it.
This is a difficult question. The Jetsons was very much a highly optimistic view of the future through the lens of the standard sitcom formula; spawned off of their success with the Flintstones which itself was basically just an animated version of The Honeymooners.
Today, an inherent understanding of the sitcom formula is not something you could expect from the general public, as the sitcom has essentially died as a concept in favor of series with a storyline that spans multiple seasons.
To make the Jetsons work today, you would need to adapt it to modern sensibilities in more ways than one. The general vision of the future is much more bleak than in the 60s, so I would start there.
The speed at which new technology is releasing is staggering compared to what it was 60 years ago, so the idea of some brand new technology that permeates every facet of life to make things easier could hold a much more sinister tone to modern audiences.
If you were going to keep the same essential premise, you would need to address that somehow. Perhaps a focus on sustainability and ethics like the solarpunk movement or you could lean into the opposite and go full dystopian cyberpunk.
The work culture of the Jetsons is also something that would need to be addressed. George is fired and subsequently re-hired every episode that features Mr. Spacely, and a Google search tells me that George has a 9 hour workweek. George is either irreplaceable, has very strong union protections or both.
Actually, now that I’m this deep into the weeds, I think a Lower Decks style parody, highlighting all the dirt behind the scenes that makes this world so idyllic would be a great place to start with a reboot.
I know for sure that my version of Spacely Sprocket would probably be a parody of Elon Musk, he would definitely be a tech bro who constantly thinks that his terrible new ideas going to be the latest thing.