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10 inventions predicted by ''The Jetsons''
The Simpsons may predict future events, but The Jetsons predicted future inventions.
Have you ever watched The Jetsons and been like "Wait! We have that now!"?
We have! So we went through early episodes to see just which inventions the 1960s creators of The Jetsons thought we would have in the future. Let's take a look at which futuristic items The Jetsons predicted!
Sleep Podcasts
Sleep podcasts are designed to help you fall asleep - they're usually softly spoken stories or gentle music to lull you into a deep slumber. Well, in The Jetsons those sleepy stories are stored in what they called that the Dream-o-Matic. Elroy had one at the foot of his bed and he could choose a story, usually Rocket Ranger, to help him fall asleep.
Walking Pads
Walking pads, like the one Astro uses, are very popular right now! Especially for remote workers or just for people who want to get more steps in indoors.
Flat Screen TV
This might not seem like an invention of the future to us, we have had flatscreens for years! But for the initial audience of The Jetsons, most televisions were large and bulky, so the Jetson family watching flatscreens likely felt very futuristic.
Robot Vacuums
Roombas and their fellow robot vacuums look a lot like Jane Jetson's vacuum here! Like us, she presses a button and the vacuum takes off vacuuming the entire house.
Smart Watches
Elroy's classmate gets in trouble at school because he keeps watching The Flintstones on his smart watch! It even looks like the Apple Watch!
Smart Alarm Clocks
George Jetson's Alarm wakes him up by saying "George Jetson! George Jetson, it's time to wake up!" and when he doesn't wake up, it shakes the bed and then blows a trumpet in his face. While our smart alarm clocks don't come with trumpets, they do have settings on how to wake us up in case we have fallen back to sleep.
Fantasy Football
Football in Orbit City feels a lot like Fantasy Football. Instead of human players, there are robot players with different skill settings and the "coaches" have a control board where they select and operate the robot players based on their skills.
Video Calls
This is the most frequent of the Jetson inventions, they have video calls that operate exactly like Facetime or Zoom. The only difference is they have video phones that come out of the walls and find you wherever you are in the house, whereas our smartphone world is a little more portable.
Virtual Doctor Appointments
Like in our time, for the Jetsons video calls opened up a lot of other opportunities for virtual appointments, like doctor visits. The Jetsons have an appliance in the wall where they press a button and down comes a screen calling their doctor for a consultation.
Virtual Court
Although less frequent now than during the pandemic, virtual court is an option for many legal cases today. George Jetson goes to virtual court almost every time he gets pulled over...and he always gets the fine.
