Jetsons: The Movie (1990)

Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Happy Friday, my friends! I hope you all had a great week and are looking forward to a relaxing weekend. The NFC and AFC Championship football games are on Sunday, and I might post a little something about it tomorrow, seeing as how it's kinda significant to my backstory.

So, I wasn't planning on reviewing this movie for a while, but I couldn't help myself. A couple of nights ago, I was hanging out at my brother's place, and we were looking for a film to watch on his HBO. We settled on Detective Pikachu. While Pokemon is a 90s property, this isn't a 90s movie. It came out last year, in 2019, so no review of that today (but it's great, I loved it, go watch it). While scanning for a movie to watch, I noticed something else. A movie from my childhood that was, unexpectedly, available for streaming on HBO. A movie I watched constantly when I was a youth, but probably haven't seen since at least 1995, if not earlier. I wasn't going to go back to a movie from 1990 so quickly, but I guess I can do whatever I want in my blog. So today, let's look at... Jetsons: The Movie.

Now, this wasn't some cheap, straight to video, 45 minute long "movie" with the Jetsons. This was a proper theatrically released film, with a budget and everything. It was released on July 6, 1990. It came out on VHS (and betamax and laserdisc) in October, which is honestly pretty quick turn around time in 1990. The home video came out after my birthday, so I'm not sure exactly when I got it. But it wasn't out for long before someone gifted it to me. And I watched the crap out of it. For years, it was one of my nicer VHS tapes, with the box maintaining a bit of its glossy sheen. It was one of those movies from childhood that, at one time, I could easily recite all the lines of duologue. It was cool and kind of weird and kind of spooky.

Of course, The Jetsons have been a staple of everyone's childhood since the 1960s, when they debuted. I don't think they have ever been off TV, along with other Hanna-Barbara productions, like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. How is The Movie? Well...

Honestly, if I had an employee that literally sleeps at his desk all day, I'd also want a giant screen from which to yell at them.

Image by Universal Pictures via HBO

What is the plot of Jetsons: The Movie? Remember my Addams Family review? "Let's make a movie about an old TV show, for nostalgic purposes, but make sure the plot is like NOTHING ever seen on the show!" So like the show, George Jetson works for Spacely Sprockets and Spindles. All the cool, weird, impractical future tech is present. My brother commented, "This is the most inaccurate prediction of the future I have ever seen." Mr. Spacely decides to open up a factory on an asteroid, but things keep going wrong. Someone keeps sabotaging the plant! You'd think that because, on the show, there was a rival company called Cogswell's Cogs, that they'd have a security staff at this new factory. Or at least cameras. Nope. Cameras nor security are at this factory. Neither is Cogswell's Cogs in the movie, so maybe they went out of business and Spacely didn't think they needed security?

So George gets promoted to Vice President and transferred to the asteroid, because Spacely needs someone to press the start button to turn the factory on. George can "press a button" and is "expendable." Perfect! The Jetsons have to move right away and the family isn't happy about it. His boy Elroy, because of his spaceball playoffs at school, of which George missed the first game! Daughter Judy, because of a date she has with rock singer Cosmic Cosmo. And Jane, his wife, because of her recycling program. Don't worry. Jane never brings up recycling again. Elroy brings up that George missed the game only one more time, randomly too. And Judy spends half the movie pining over her "boyfriend" Cosmo. They had a 30-second interaction, by the way. I don't mean only on screen, I mean their characters. A big part of the movie is her being broken hearted, swearing never to love again, and then for some reason getting mad at Cosmo and vowing to "Never trust another man again." I'm sorry... do you need professional help? You should get someone to talk to. Then she bumps into a new guy, Apollo Blue (because his skin color is blue) and falls in love and is fine again. I know this is all a trope from the show and is meant to poke fun at lovelorn, melodramatic, fickle teenage girls. But that's why I'm poking fun at it back.

The factory is huge, like the size of the asteroid. Not counting the giant living area and HUGE mall in the middle. I know that towns will pop up around factories, but that's because a factory will employ hundreds or thousands of people, and they meed a place to live and shop and schools... but this space factory literally had only two people working at it. Including George. Why did they need a mall for two people? What does everybody do for work? How does the economy of this town work? These are the questions that keep me up at night. The station is full of exotic aliens, including Apollo Blue and the Furbelow family. The Furbelows are also blue, but more of a teal shade. They are also fuzzy. They also play "Furbelow Music" which kinda reminded my brother of Korn. Their last name is also the name of their species. Also, how is Mr. Spacely so rich. This factory produces his One Millionth sprocket. That doesn't seem like a lot. Even if he was selling them for five dollars a piece that's only five million dollars. These are all plot holes that I never really noticed when I was eight, but now that I'm approaching 40, they glare out at me.

The rest of the movie focuses on both The Jetsons acclimating to their new environment, exploring the mystery of the factory sabotage, and then takes an almost  surprising left turn into environmentalism and conservation and destruction of the land of indigenous people. Um, what? It's a good message, just kinda comes out of nowhere.

 My brother's legit reaction to this shot: "HOW?!?!?!"

Image by Universal Pictures via Oh My 80s

The voice cast is, mostly, actors from the original show. George O'Hanlon voices George. The legendary Mel Blanc does Mr. Spacely. Penny Singleton returns as Jane. Don Messick once again does Astro. And Jean Vander Pyl reprises as the sarcastic Rosie the Robot. However, problems came into production, with everyone being kind of old. O'Hanlon and Blanc both passed on late in production, and the film was dedicated to them. Jeff Bergman stepped in to finish their dialogue. Also, Daws Butler, the original voice of Elroy, died in years prior. Patric Zimmerman replaced him for the movie, which if that name sounds familiar to you gamer nerds out there, it's because he would go on to voice Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid.

"We're going to launch that nuke and ride it all the way into history"

Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

But the biggest, and most controversial change, came with the choice for the voice for Judy Jetson. Janet Waldo, the original actress, was set to reprise her role. But at some point, the studio decided to replace her with... teen pop star Tiffany. Tiffany was pretty huge at the time, and they thought her presence would help boost viewers and box office numbers. Apparently, Waldo was livid with the change. They did give her a minor voice role as a robot secretary, but that's a far cry from a main character. Tiffany, for her part, does a pretty good job. I remember seeing her name in the credits and thinking it was weird and cool that she was only going by her first name. Though I will say that, hearing all the voice work in the year 2020, hers is the only one that stands out as being dated. Everyone else is kind of timeless, but something in Tiffany's voice absolutely makes her sound like she's from the 80s. Here's a clip of her talking about the movie.

Judy is a punk rocker. Actually no, she's a pop singer.

Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Tiffany also does three songs for the movie. Oh, did I mention the movie was also a musical? It's isn't a bad soundtrack, but again, it really dates the movie. Full of 80s ballads and pop tunes. I liked it though, I can see myself putting the soundtrack on later. Standouts include Tiffany's I Always Thought I'd See You Again and You and Me, as well as the Cosmic Cosmo song Maybe Love written and performed by Steve McClintock. Oh, and because this is 1990, the film ends with a rap number. We're The Jetsons (Jetsons Rap) by XXL.

The movie did makes its money back, $20 million on a budget of $8 million. But it was a critical flop and fell off the box office charts fast. There was a lot of backlash towards the casting of Tiffany, as you can see in this LA Times piece, and again, the plot is all over the place. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera themselves were the directors and producers of the film. Oh, and further dating the project is the use of really bad early computer animation. Ground breaking in 1990. It looks awful today.

Hanna-Barbera marketed the hell out of this movie. There was merchandise and Wendy's had kids meal toys. There was even a breakfast cereal! The only thing I really remember was an environmental PSA about air pollution, featuring clips from the movie, with poorly done voice dubbing. Even at eight, I could see that they just recorded new dialogue and didn't bother to try to match it up to the animation.

When The Addams Family was released a year later, it reinvigorated a franchise and introduced the quirky family to a whole new generation. Sadly, not so with The Jetsons. While the old show would continue to be on channels like Cartoon Network, Jetsons: The Movie would be the last official original Jetsons production for 27 years, until 2017's The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-WrestleMania!

Final Verdict:

Ultimately, I find it hard to recommend this movie today. It's not awful by any means. But it is very dated and the plot is poorly, poorly constructed. Again, if you're a kid, you may not notice all those issues as much. But also, for a modern kid, the music will make the movie feel old. And there are so many better options for kids out there today. If you're a huge Jetsons fan, you might like it, but that's about all I can think of who might enjoy it.

George. You don't have to stick your finger in literally every hole you see. This has HR Incident written all over it.

Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Sometimes you revisit something from your childhood and you love it more, maybe for the same or for different reasons, as an adult. But that isn't always the case. Sorry Jetsons: The Movie, but this is one film about the future that should stay in the past. Yes, please, Jane. Get me off this crazy thing. But that's just my opinion! You should watch it yourself and let me know what you thought. I know it was streaming on HBO like... three days ago, as of this post. But you can see where else it might be available now on Just Watch.

Next time, we move forward from 1990 to check out a classic Rom Com. 1994's Hugh Grant vehicle, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Is this a film to love with all of your heart until death do you part? Or should it be buried six feet deep (Covered in concrete, turned into a street. Sorry, couldn't resist)? Find out next time!