@boomerang,
Actually, if you listen to the theme of "The Simpsons," it is completely ripped off from "The Jetsons," the part just before "Meet George Jetson/His boy Elroy." And that sound effect when George goes off in his hovercraft is great! Actually, all the sound effects on "The Jetsons" were good and appropriately futuristic-sounding.
It's funny how so many of what were considered on "The Jetsons" to be technologies of the future are with us today--the conveyor belt on which George walked "Astro" is just like the "people movers" one stands on at large airports, for instance.
And although fairly crude, we can see the person to whom we are talking on the telephone--whether on-line with a web cam or on a cellphone, we do now have picture phones. The day will soon be here 9if it isn't already) when our land-based lines will have screen images just as sharp as HDTV, without that distorted, jittery resolution. And we already have robots more advanced than "Rosie," some even humanoid in form, with the ability to bend limbs, etc. (though still none with the emotions & friendliness of a "Rosie," or a voice programmed to sound like Jean Van Der Pyl, who was also "Wilma Flintstone").
Still working on the hovercraft, though (but I'll bet when it arrives it won't be fossil fueled), and those tubes that suck one up or down and out to another location, though businesses use smaller versions of them to send secure items to be processed, stored, etc. I forget what they're called--vacuum tubes, perhaps?
"The Flintstones" had animals performing the tasks of objects that would appear centuries later, but "The Jetsons" captured our imaginations more, with gadgets then yet (and some still) to be. It was one cartoon that was the perfect fit with the Space Age, in the era of the Cold War.
