Jetsons Day at the Biltmore Hotel

 1987 was a pretty big year for Hanna-Barbera's futuristic family, the Jetsons. The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones premiered in November of that year, and the original series enjoyed its 25th anniversary. In celebration of both events, Hanna-Barbera hosted an event in Los Angeles that saw numerous famous faces in attendance. I previously discussed this party in a post from last year (see here), but I thought I'd share this piece from The Times Leader. Published on November 26th of that year, it looks at the show's legacy, and some of the names that attended this party. Plus, get a look at those Jetsons mascot costumes! If you ask me, George and the rest of the family don't quite look as good as some of the other costumes Hanna-Barbera commissioned over the years.

'Jetsons' woosh to their 25th

Pioneering cartoon show has 'cult' following

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "The Jetsons," the cartoon show that debuted at the dawn of the space age and delighted viewers with its futuristic vision of a pushbutton world, was given a 25th-anniversary party recently.
    "Jetsons" creators Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera threw the party at the Biltmore Hotel in honor of George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy Jetson, America's most popular space family, and Mayor Tom Bradley proclaimed it Jetsons Day. 

    "The popularity, well, it's quite a stunning surprise," Barbera said. "We only made 24 shows and they survived until last year and kept the cult going. Then we made 41 more and the Jetsons are doing well in syndication."
    The cartoon show debuted in 1962 and still enjoys a cult following.
    "The Jetsons are '60s cool to a lot of people," said Joseph Molina, a 32-year-old Jetsons fan who frequently wears his "Spacely Sprockets Technical College" sweater. George Jetson worked at Spacely Sprockets.
    For the Jetson clan, life's hassles were solved with the push of a button or the endeavors of the family's robot maid.
    Barbera said "The Flintstones," a Hanna-Barbera prime-time cartoon show that took place in the prehistoric town of Bedrock, was popular in the early 1960s, and he and Hanna decided to give audiences something different.
    "Somebody said, 'What's next?' and we went from the rock era into the future," he said. "It wasn't that brilliant really, but we used a lot of gimmicks and gadgets and it worked.
    "I remember the hydraulic-mounted apartment house that raised up above the smog. We were ahead of our time. We had fast food at the push of a button, and a lot of gadgets in cars today are like the ones we had on the show."
    The reason for its popularity "I think it's imagination and good stories," said Barbera. 
    Actor Corbin Bernsen of "L.A. Law," who claims to be Hollywood's most fervent Jetsons fan, presided over the festivities, which featured cake and champagne served by Spacely Sprockets technical engineers. 
    "They came along at the height of the preoccupation with the Space Age, when President John Kennedy said we were putting a man on the moon. It's when the atomic age became the space age, when the Ford Thunderbirds came out with those rocket-engine car taillights," said Molina, who boasts he can still sing "The Jetsons" theme song.