Future Calling: Videophones in the World of The Jetsons

This is the 16th in a24 - part serieslooking at every episode of “ The Jetsons ” idiot box show from the original 1962 - 63 time of year .

The Jetsons episode “ The Little Man ” to begin with aired on ABC on Sunday January 13 , 1963 . The story revolves around the accidental shrinking of George to no more than a foot high by Mr. Spacely ’s novel MiniVac machine . Miniaturizing humans was a somewhat popular theme of b - movies that precede The Jetsons , like Dr. Cyclops ( 1940 ) and Attack of the Puppet People ( 1958 ) . The episode is one of the weakest of the series , but it does have one of the more interesting versions of the omnipresent videophone .

In the world of the Jetsons the videophone takes many forms . But unlike its most common home manipulation today — as a mere coating within a estimator or earpiece — the Jetsonian videophone is its own small-arm of dedicated ironware .

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The videophone ( my preferent term for a technology that has go by many names during the 20th and twenty-first century ) is a foreign and beautiful technology . It was a perennial engineering of the hereafter ; continually popping up in different waves as being just around the corner throughout the twentieth hundred . From the early experiments with practical boob tube in the 1920s masses were promised that picturephone applied science was on its way . telly was n’t immediately envisioned as a broadcast metier , but rather was imagined as stage - to - point two - way utterer like those in the classic 1927 filmMetropolis . The videophone was hyped at both the 1939 and 1964 New York World ’s Fair and as recently as the former 2000s communications companies were still prepare concept video for landline videophone political machine that today look laughably anachronic .

But then out of nowhere the videophone was suddenly just here . Without much admonition videophone was a reality . Just not in a bod that companies like AT&T were promising us for nigh a century . Rather than act as its own independent appliance in the home , we have videophone capacity embed within our twist — our computers and phone now often have little cameras seamlessly hidden in spite of appearance . And the engineering is almost a secondary consideration within the applications we apply for telecasting : we have Skype , Gchat Video among a emcee of other less well known apps .

In the universe of “ The Jetsons ” the videophone is for the most part depicted as it was in the 1950s — as its own appliance . The videophone is a whole piece of ironware not unlike a TV of the fifties or even radio of the the 1930s , but there ’s very little consistence when it amount to what the Jetsonian videophone looks like . Below I ’ve pulled just a few examples from the myriad videophones of the Jetsons world .

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Mr. Spacely has a standard desk model videophone that we see pop up again and again in business setting .

In the 1993 AT&T construct TV “ Connections ” a young woman snuff it a plane and her parents meet her in the depot ( how retro is that ! ) . Rather than whip out her cell the here and now she touches down as we ’re so apt to do here in the future , she proceeds to assure her parent that before making their direction to luggage claim , they need to stop at the payphones — the video payphones .

This visual modality of the hardwired public videophone is not unlike the Visaphone that we see used in the first episode of The Jetsons :

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The Jetsonian videophone often has buttons that are never excuse , but sometimes ( like in the screenshot below ) we see character apply clitoris to do something as wild as pick up their nestling with a gigantic robot arm .

Of naturally , the biggest business concern about the videophone was the idea that people could see what you looked like in your own home . We have a certain look of security in our homes ; a feeling that citizenry are n’t able to catch us with our trouser down — both figuratively and literally . In the second installment of The Jetsons we see that Jane is obviously quite stressed by an early aurora videophone call she gets from a booster before she has put on her face — again , literally . Jane pops on a mask that ’s made to depend exactly like her own nerve and by the ending of the sequence we learn that her friend has done the same .

The 1955 light filmThe Future is Nowaddressed this problem , though they were n’t so much worried with putting on an total face mask in decree to answer the videophone :

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What do you wear to answer the sound ? What difference does it make ? None , today ! But tomorrow , if videophone comes , as well it might , then the world has found itself another problem .

When George gets pulled over for speeding the videophone is used to call in to the evaluator . Interestingly , some officials in the metropolis of Inglewood , California tried out a more low - tech version of this exigent roadside DoJ in 1926 . From the bookThe Great Car Crazeby Ashleigh Brilliant :

In a organisation which the [ Los Angeles ] Times dubbed “ court - a - atomic number 57 - carte , ” the judge and bailiff together with table , chairperson , and lawbooks , were installed in the back of a light hand truck which “ parked unostentatiously near the bike officers ’ beat ” and waited for the telltale sound of the siren , signify that an arrest was about to be made . The motortruck then bucket along to the site of the arrest and confronted the presumptively dumfounded number one wood with the full stateliness of the law . The only disadvantage of the organization from the judge ’s point of view was that the “ business organization ” was not always as bracing as it might have been .

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The video - register machine on most videophones is often obliterate in The Jetsons , but sometimes we get to see speck of what might be photographic camera , like in the home mannequin below :

It ’s not just mankind of the future who enjoy the use of videophones . In installment eight of the series , “ Rosey ’s Boyfriend , ” two robot lover get to spend time together despite their distance from each other .

The Googie - tastic design of the various videophones in the Jetsons ’ human beings queerly makes me long for the videophone as an independent piece of computer hardware . But much like other military service that seem to be quickly fuse into our phones , tablets and phablets , I think these consecrated videophone devices will remain relegated to the retrofuture .

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