Back to the Drawing Board: The Live Action "Jetsons" Movies, Part 1

Part 1: "Some Things Should Just Stay Animated" or "Astro's Tail... Sorry, TALE"

You know, I really would like to do more of editions of Back to the Drawing Board. I really would. Problem is, it's really hard to find things to do full posts about on the internet. For example, I wanted to do a post about Joe Jump, the movie that eventually became Reboot Ralph, which in turn became Wreck-It Ralph... but there's little to no information about Joe Jump online. All I could find was some concept art. Okay, well, how about the first draft of an animated movie's script? Maybe there's a script for Shrek? Nope, nothing. It's very frustrating. But what luck! I've found some stuff on the Internet Archive that I can do Back to the Drawing Boards about. Huzzah!

To start this one off, I have a message for the people of Hollywood: DOING LIVE ACTION ADAPTATIONS OF CARTOONS IS A BAD IDEA. The only times I can think of where it actually turned out fine were George of the Jungle (I really need to rewatch that movie at some point) and Yogi Bear (yeah, I honestly didn't think it was that bad). But more often than not we get complete crap. The live action Flintstones was mediocre. It amazes me that the live action Scooby-Doo movies are so well-liked (it's because of these films that Matthew Lillard is doing the voice of Shaggy now, even though he sounds nothing like Casey Kasem). And the less said about those Smurfs movies, the better.

There's a reason why these animated things you insist on doing in live action are animated in the first place. When you attempt to pull them off in live action, it doesn't translate very well. For example, let's take a look at Scooby-Doo:

He's not very realistic-looking, is he? No, but that's part of his charm. It's an appealing character design. Now, let's take a look at the "realistic but still cartoony enough that you can tell it's supposed to be the same character" Scooby from the live action movies:

I'm sorry, but that doesn't look like Scooby-Doo. It doesn't even look like a DOG, much less a Great Dane. And how about the Smurfs? How exactly do you translate tiny blue big-nosed gnomes into live action? The mindset was "given them realistic-looking skin and facial features", and this was the result:

Those are not cute. They are nightmarish. I'm amazed the films made so much money, you'd think those designs would be enough to scare kids away. And this doesn't just apply to the CGI non-human characters. When I watched the live action Flintstones movie, I didn't see Rick Moranis, Elizabeth Perkins, and Rosie O'Donnell as Barney, Wilma, and Betty. They didn't look like them, they didn't sound like them (although Rick at least tried to imitate Mel Blanc)... maybe it's just me, but I just saw people COSPLAYING as the characters, not the characters themselves.

The charm of these cartoony characters goes out the window when you give them a more "realistic but still exaggerated" design. Animation allows you to do goofy stylized character designs, weird locations, wild takes, bizarre shenanigans, and exaggerated movements. You generally can't pull these off in live action, at least not without it looking silly.

So, how exactly could you make The Jetsons in live action? In a cartoon, all the futuristic buildings and technology looks cool, but in real life it'd just look like a garishly-colored pizza parlor. The CGI Astro would look just as bad as the CGI Scooby, or that CGI Hong Kong Phooey they were going to do (remember when that leaked online?). Everyone would look more like people on their way to a Halloween party, not characters in a big budget movie. Even if you had a good script, you'd be better off just making an animated film. But over the years, there have been attempts.

First, Paramount attempted to get a live action Jetsons movie off the ground in 1985. It went nowhere, and Hanna-Barbera decided to do an animated theatrical Jetsons movie instead (which wound up being a flop).

Yes, this is the movie that replaced Janet Waldo as Judy Jetson
with Tiffany.

Then in November 2001, it was announced that Paul Foley and Dan Forman had been hired to write a script for a Jetsons movie, with Rob Minkoff and Denise Di Novi attached to direct and produce it respectively. In 2003, Adam Shankman entered negotiations to direct and co-write the film. In 2004, Denise Di Novi claimed that the most recent draft of the script was written by Sam Harper (who also worked on Open Season and Rio, incidentally). In 2006, the project was relaunched with Adam F. Goldberg chosen to be the new screenwriter and Donald De Line (the producer of The Italian Job) joining as another producer.

2007 saw Robert Rodriguez enter talks with Universal Studios and Warner Brothers to do a Jetsons movie. Denise Di Novi explained in 2011 that "His version was fantastic, but honestly, it wasn't a mainstream studio version. It was kind of his version of what he would shoot at his studio in Texas. He's got a great set-up down there, and I think part of it is that 'it may be fun to play with all those big toys at the studio' but he has a pretty good system going."

So the film was still languishing in Development Limbo, even after Van Robichaux and Evan Susser were hired to rewrite the script in 2012. Even as recently as 2017, it was announced that they were going to do a live action Jetsons TV show, but nothing has come out of that so far. Oh, and in 2015 it was announced that Warner Bros. was planning a new animated theatrical Jetsons movie, but that seems to be in Development Limbo at the moment too.

The good news is, at least three drafts of the film's plot have wound up online. I have found a 1986 draft by Terrence H. Winkless and Alec Lorimore and a 1987 draft by Chris Thompson on the Internet Archive and a 1996 draft by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Adam F. Goldberg's draft has not surfaced yet, however, I have found a comment from somebody on Reddit who claims to have read it. According to them, "Goldberg's draft is terrible. It fails to capture the spirit of the original show despite borrowing directly from the storylines of several episodes, it's full of lousy puns and out-of-place juvenile humor (including Astro farting in bed and Spacely's son being named Uranus), and the family drama is so poorly handled that it makes George Jetson look completely unlikable."

Now, reviewing all three screenplays in one blog post would make it needlessly long, so we're going to have to do this in three parts. We'll look at them in chronicalogical order. Everybody ready? Let's take a look at the 1986 draft for the live action Jetsons movie that wasn't.

The script starts off with us hurtling through the "outmost reaches of the universe". The script's narrator says, "I suppose the universe existed before I did, but who knows? Until you've personally seen a place, is it really there?" Well, I've never been to Tahiti but I know it is, in fact, a place that exists. So no, I don't think you need to personally see a place for it to acually be there.

We hear "Hound Dog" by Elvis Presley echoing through space as an alien space capsule appears... one that looks suspiciously like a doghouse. Apparently, the narrator is in that capsule. And they're a Great Dane puppy. Say, isn't Astro a Great Dane? I wonder... anyway, the narrator who might or might not be Astro says that he was headed for an uncharted planetary system thousands of light years from his own. And what planet in that planetary system is he specifically headed for? Why, none other than Earth!

Then we cut to a city park in Denver, Colorado. I didn't know The Jetsons took place in Denver (do they ever specify what state the characters live in?). A trail of clothes leads to some bushes where George and Jane are... oh, jeez, are they doing what I think the script is implying? I thought The Jetsons was a kids' show!

The capsule hurtles to Earth and towards the bushes, splitting open upon impact. Out pops the puppy, who is quickly discovered by George and Jane after they put their clothes back on. So, yeah, it's pretty clear by now that this is Astro. Apparently Astro is an alien dog? Really? Is that just supposed to be a way of explaining with he can talk? I'm sorry, but this just seems pointless to me... why do we have to make Astro an alien? Can't he just be a normal dog who has the ability to talk?

Here's my attempt at drawing a puppy Astro (he's mostly based
on Scooby's design in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo).

Jane wants to keep Astro, but George says, "We're trying to start a family, not an inter-galactic zoo, and we're barely making the rent as it is. Sorry, it's just impossible." Of course, he changes his mind a few seconds later. In nine months, Judy is born. Then when she's seven years old, Elroy is born too. Time to play the theme song!

After they recreate the intro, the camera takes us to the Spacely Space Sprockets building. It's nighttime, and all is quiet in the "Psycho-Biological Research Lab", where a bunch of technicians are having a chimpanzee types out Hamlet... I guess this is supposed to be a reference to that whole "if you put a bunch of monkeys at typewriters, they'll eventually type out the entire works of Shakespeare" thing. In this case, it's an ape at a computer, not a monkey at a typewriter, but the principle's the same. But what's this? One of the technicians is a huge "genetic throwback" named Knuckles Nuclear, and he sneaks off to the supply room and steals one of the two clear-plastic cubes from a cryogenic freezer. After he makes his getaway, he drives to the home of Mr. Spacely's arch-enemy, W.C. Cogswell... oh, wait, he's called ARTHUR Cogswell in this script. Maybe Terrence and Alec forgot what his first name was?

Why, yes, he DOES look a lot like Mr. Slate from The Flintstones.

Cogswell is having a cocktail party at his house, and Knuckles meets him over at the hors d'ouevres table and gives him the cube. So I guess Cogswell is going to be the villain of this script. From what I recall, he was already a pretty sleazy guy in the show, so why bother creating a new bad guy like the Flintstones and Yogi Bear movies had to?

We then cut to the Jetsons household. Judy is now sixteen, and Elroy is now nine. Rosey the robot is making breakfast. George is watching Jane model outfits in their bedroom before Rosey barges in and forces George to get ready for work. Judy, who is a goth now apparently (but still obsessed with Jet Screamer), is subjected to pranks from Elroy. She's also taking Driver's Ed, but she still isn't very good at driving, which doesn't stop George and Jane from letting her drive Elroy to school. When they arrive at the school, Judy attempts to murder Elroy by unfastening his strap-on anti-gravity belt. I know Elroy pulled a prank on you earlier, but that does not justify murder, Judy. I should not have to tell you that.

Next George, Jane and Judy head to the People Mover Station, which is described as "a multi-level network of moving sidewalks ala LAX which take people to and from the urban center". They're there because Jane is starting a new job. Then it's off to Judy's high school, after which George goes to Spacely's Sprockets and recreates the scene where his car folds up into a briefcase. Also there is a guy with a Ferrari (Luigi and Guido from Cars would approve) that folds up into a Gucci wallet. "This is the '80s!" he claims... he doesn't mean the 1980s, does he?

We then cut to the city where Jane's new job - botanical design - is set up. Her boss, Mr. Darrow, has the hots for her (even though the script describes him as being younger than Jane). Disturbing.

Back at Spacely's Sprockets, Mr. Spacely and Mr. Cogswell are playing a rousing game of indoor golf. You ever notice that bosses in movies and TV show play indoor golf a lot? Do all CEOs have indoor golf courses set up in their offices? Anyhow, Spacely asks Cogswell how his "Expotech" project is going, to which Cogswell says that they likely won't have an entry this year because there's "simply no way to compete with you". After Cogswell drives off with Knuckles in a golf cart, Spacely inspects the damage done to the research lab. Head researcher Dr. Boone suggests that they have the chimpanzee be their "Expotech" entry, but Spacely says that he's convinced Cogswell stole "the F-202" (presumably the cube Knuckles swiped earlier) and that, since Cogswell has no morals or conscience, he's going to put it in a human being and exhibit them at "Expotech". So they decide to put the "F-202" into the guy with the Ferrari - "Mr. Ferrari", the script calls him - and have HIM be their entry to "Expotech". And you thought they were going to put it in George, didn't you? After all, he IS the main character. Speaking of George, he's waiting to talk to Spacely in his office's waiting area, but he doesn't get the chance because Spacely is too busy.

Don't you love it when you find a screencap from the actual show you can use
as a visual aid here, saving you from having to draw one yourself?

Meanwhile, Elroy is playing with his little league Spaceball ("like baseball but played in off-the-ground anti-gravity conditions on a transparent forcefield") team. On the opposing team is school bully Butch, who is apparently the Alex Rodriguez of Spaceball and clobbers Elroy. At the high school, Judy is given a special assignment by her vice principal to snap her out of her goth phase: show around an exchange student from the planet Korrinian 3. His name is Altair. Judy is not happy because she expects him to look like a Star Trek villain, but fortunately for her, it turns out that he's one of those aliens that looks almost exactly like a human being - in this case, he looks like Jet Screamer except he's lime green. Zhe odds, vhat are zhey?

That night, Elroy asks to be excused from dinner so he can practice his Spaceball with the help of holographic technology. When George pops in, Elroy tells him about how Butch won the game that day and how the coach says he could still be a starter if he went to Spaceball Camp. George knows what he has to do...

We cut to him marching right into Spacely's office, only for Spacely to assume that he's the guy they chose to put the F-202 in and whisk him off to the spaceport - like an airport, but futuristic - so they can go to Las Venus. Odd that in this script, Spacely doesn't know who George is. If this is supposed to be canon to the cartoon, you'd think he'd remember the guy he fires once an episode. One flight in a shuttle later, they're in Las Venus, a metropolis with various research and hospital facilities, casinos, hotels, and even a Six Flags. This probably would've all looked very impressive on the screen. I'd put a drawing of what it might have looked like here, but my drawing skills are limited, so instead, here's a photo of the actual Las Vegas:

George is then thrust into an operating anteroom, where he's injected with a drug that makes him act like he's on laughing gas. When he comes to, he's on a chaise lounge, and Mr. Spacely explains that he volunteered to have "the human potentializer - Spacely Sprockets Research Project F202", a computer-imprinted organic crystal, implanted into his head. George is furious, as is Spacely when he's informed that George just wanted to get a promotion, and they start strangling each other. Eventually, George shoves Spacely away, sending him flying into a pool, much to his shock. The F202 works! But Spacely can't swim. George is about to dive in and save Spacely, but then he decides to make Spacely promise him a promotion first. And a raise. And half a year's salary in advance.

For thirty days, the company is going to put George through a training program until he's the first perfect human being in the galaxy, and Spacely says he's not allowed to tell anyone about it - giving new meaning to the phrase "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Or rather, what happens in Venus stays in Venus, I suppose. First they play some blackjack, which George wins because he is now the smartest person ever. He also now has a blonde stewardess madly in love with him. But what's this? Jane's friend Marsha, who helped get her to her new job earlier in the script, just so happens to be in Las Venus because... I don't know, and she spots George with the stewardess. Something tells me that George is going to be in trouble with Jane at some point...

The next morning (apparently the Las Venus trip occurred all in one night, and George was able to get back without anyone noticing he was missing?), Jane suggests that they go on a family vacation to Las Venus. George initially says they can't, but then when Elroy enters and becomes excited over the prospect of going to the aforementioned Six Flags in Las Venus, he does a 180 and says yes. After all, he's been promoted, which means he and his family will have everything they've ever dreamed of. Also, Judy is back to her usual self - apparently meeting the Jet Screamer lookalike has snapped her out of her goth phase.

We get a montage of the Jetsons' lives improving. George gets a new car, then gives the old one to Judy. He arranges for Elroy to go to Spaceball Camp. Jane gets a new outfit. The living room is redecorated. Jane gives George a kaleidoscope that Elroy identifies as being Cassiopeian - he learned all about them in galactic history class. According to legend, the Cassiopeian race was dying and they thought the kaleidoscope has magic powers and that it had failed them. One day, when things looked their darkest, the purest of the race's leaders looked into the kaleidoscope and discovered the answer to all their problems. "He found... hope. They say that even now, a person can find it again with this if he loves enough," George explains. "But that a person who doesn't love, finds nothing but blackness." I wonder if this kaleidoscope and its message of hope will be important later on...

While George is relaxing in his new office later, Knuckles (remember him?) sneaks around outside disguised as a robot window washer. Apparently, he's been sent to do something to Mr. Ferrari that involves aiming a remote control unit at him and pushing it. Mr. Ferrari doesn't respond, but in George's office, HE'S receiving the signals. So now it looks like he's hitting himself in the face, his leg is vibrating, his back arches, this probably would've been the big "LOL he's acting like a cartoon character but he's a real person" scene that most movies based on cartoons are required to have.

Next, Spacely takes George to a domed coliseum where he'll be doing some physical training. His training partner is... the chimpanzee from before. Presumably only because primates are funny, amirite? George is sentenced to an obstacle course, a game of 3D Chess, and a calculus class alongside Albert, who makes him look like a loser. George continues training at home by running on the treadmill with Astro. No, they don't recreate the iconic "JANE, STOP THIS CRAZY THING!" gag. Instead, Astro loses his footing and is flattened in the speeding mechanism. Odd how this isn't quite as funny when it happens to Astro (maybe because we're more sensitive with dogs getting hurt than human beings?).

George discovers that he is, in fact, a monkey's uncle. Well, an APE'S
uncle, anyway...

In case you're wondering about Judy, things are going well between her and Altair. He uses some sort of mind-merge power to take Judy to his home planet. This scene is pretty much pointless, so let's cut back to George and Jane. The anniversary of the day George proposed is tomorrow. This doesn't stop Marsha from setting Jane up on what is for all intents and purposes a date with her boss. So much infidelity in this screenplay, isn't there? I'm reminded of the Flintstones movie having that subplot about Halle Berry seducing Fred. What is it with film adaptations based on Hanna-Barbera films and infidelity?

More training! George is now doing much better, we get more "LOL primates are funny" stuff with Albert, Knuckles unknowingly makes George's body freak out with the remote, and then George "re-enacts the St. Vitus routine" (whatever that means) in the research lab. Dr. Boone tells George that the auto-cranial command system was originally designed by Cogswell Cogs for use in remote-controlled computer satellite - he knows this because he worked on it before he joined Spacely's Sprockets. "When the F202 started going over budget, well, we cut a few corners," he explains. "We copied the satellite circuitry, miniaturized it, and put it in your head." George asks if this means Cogswell is remote controlling him, then says that they have to tell Spacely about it. "It's not that easy, George," Dr. Boone says. "Look - next to beating Cogswell at golf, the potentializer is Spacely's one great dream. He's got everything tied up in it - he's second-mortgaged his house, hocked his life insurance, his kid's college tuition, even his wife's jewelry! The thing is - that in spite of all his bluster, Spacely's actually a decent human being. And if he knew you were in real danger he'd call it off. Naturally, the experiment fails, everybody's out of a job and they all hate you. On the other hand, if you could stick with it, get to the bottom of this, let the experiment succeed, well - need I say more?"

The technicians strap George under a device "which resembles a beauty shop hair-dryer on acid". Spacely dubs this device a teaching machine from Hieronymus 12, and once it's activated it makes George for all intents and purposes a walking encyclopedia. When George gets home, he discovers that Judy invited Altair over for dinner, and thanks to his now being a walking encyclopedia he winds up... rambling definitions of random things and embarrassing Altair by bringing up the reason why his species can change color like a chameleon.

After Altair leaves, Judy and Jane chew out George for... what exactly is George doing wrong here? I'm not sure. Well, anyway, Jane forgives him for a second but then Spacely calls him up and tells them that they're going golfing on Saturday with Cogswell and Senator Zachary. This makes Jane MAD! Again!

George's new smarts might be ticking off his wife, but it makes him a great golf player. Alas, Knuckles is there, and he starts to figure out that something fishy is going on with George. After the game, we cut to Elroy, who's depressed... presumably also because George is acting weirdly... and that leads to him getting involved with Butch and his pals' attempt to get their hands on Playboy "girlie-o-grams". It's just as disturbing as it sounds. Long story short, Elroy and Butch wind up getting arrested. Yeesh, this script took a dark turn all of a sudden...

That night, the Jetsons attend Judy's high school play. Marsha and Darrow are there, too, for some reason, and Marsha tells Jane about what she saw in Las Venus... uh oh. And Knuckles has snuck in as well. Double uh oh. Unsurprisingly, he starts controlling George with the remote, resulting in George jolting to his feet, back-handspringing into the orchestra pit, knocking away ushers, climbing onto the stage, and dancing like Gorbachov (the script's words, not mine). Then George is subjected to some sort of Rube Goldberg shenanigan that leads to a laser beam hitting his forehead in the exact spot where the potentializer was implanted. Judy and Jane are humiliated. Fortunately, Elroy saw Knuckles and the remote device in his pocket, puts two and two together, and is promptly threatened by Knuckles, only for Astro to show up and scare Knuckles off.

George is taken away by the paramedics. Nobody listens to Elroy when he claims that it's the fault of that "neanderthal in the lobby". Judy disowns George and leaves with Altair. Marsha and Darrow lead Jane and Elroy away from George, Elroy desperately telling George that it's not his fault. Back at Cogswell's office, Knuckles tells him what happened and Cogswell decides that they must make certain he goes through with Expotech. "Perhaps there are other ways to long distance remote a fellow..." he says.

Cogswell gets a wonderful, awful idea.

Inside Darrow's car, he and Marsha are telling Jane that she should divorce George. Jane divorce George? Why, that'd be like Minnie leaving Mickey! As soon as they hit a red light, Elroy jumps out of the car and flies off with his anti-gravity belt. This leads to Jane snapping and guessing that Darrow and Marsha are just jealous of her marriage and demands that they get her to a phone so she can save it. Meanwhile, George is in a bar, telling an offscreen voice his tales of woe. The offscreen voice is revealed to be Astro, who - now that he knows about the potentializer - helps fill him in as to what, exactly, Cogswell wants out of Senator Zachary. "Don't you read the paper I bring to you every morning?" he asks. "What he wants are those galactic exploration contracts - there's an article practically every day. Zachary is the head of the Senate committee that decides who gets them. That's why he's buddying up to him, playing golf and all that." And if Cogswell can remote control Zachary like he did to George, then Zachary gives Cogswell the contracts and Cogswell gets richer. George was just a guinea pig to them to fine tune the device on. He urges George to patch things up with Jane (and not to be afraid to beg. "Believe me, you get used to it.").

Do you think they would've stuck with Don Messick as Astro or tossed the role over to a celebrity who was popular in the 1980s? I'm curious...

Elroy returns home to find Rosey with her feet where her head should be and vice-versa - and Knuckles, who promptly kidnaps him. No, don't hurt Elroy! He's the cutest Jetson! After giving Jane his demands, she calls up George to tell him about it. "He said you have to go on with your program at Expotech or else," she says. Will Elroy be saved? Before we can find out, we cut to the Research Lab, where we discover that the chimpanzee got jealous of George's progress and tried the teaching machine on his own, but he turned it up too high and the laser conductor coil exploded. Now Spacely, Dr. Boone, and the physical trainer have a chimp's corpse on their hands. They put the corpse under a scanning machine that tells them it is now ninety-seven percent crystal... the more he used the powers, the more the crystal replicated itself throughout his system, with the laser acting as a catalyst. Say, wasn't George zapped with a laser earlier? It would seem that Mr. Ferrari dodged a massive bullet...

George makes like a kangaroo to Cogswell Cogs... say, this is ANOTHER thing the script has in common with the Flintstones movie, doesn't it? The kid gets kidnapped by the villain and held hostage? Did the writers of that movie read this script and take inspiration? Well, anyway, Elroy is imprisoned in a force field, with Knuckles guarding him. George bursts in... only for Knuckles to put him in the force field as well. "We know Cogswell's going to implant the stolen potentializer in Senator Zachary, then remote him into awarding him the galactic exploration contracts," George declares. "You're supposed to keep us under wraps till the operation's on the ice - but there's a problem... we'll always be a threat to blow the whistle. You've got no choice - you've gotta kill us." But then he gets Knuckles to explain HOW they're going to implant the potentializer in Zachary, and once Knuckles tells him that they're going to get Zachary drunk and then shipped off to the zero gravity hospital while he's too drunk to realize what's going on, George bursts through the force field and pulls Knuckles into it, allowing him and Elroy to make a run for it.

At the spaceport, Judy and Altair are in the check-in line for a flight to Korrinian 3. But then Judy realizes that Altair doesn't have a sense of humor - apparently, once his species eliminated pain and suffering, they saw that laughter served no purpose. She decides that she doesn't want to live without emotions because then her life will be boring and leaves. She arrives home just as George, Jane, Elroy, and Astro are putting Rosey back together.

The next day is Expotech, described as having "a state fair atmosphere". A sign at the Spacely Sprockets booth reads "Meet George Jetson: Today - 3:00 - In Performance Hall". Everyone is showing off non-futuristic things like a classic nylon string guitar, seeds, and pulling taffy by hand. When it's 3:00, Senator Zachary makes a keynote speech since he's the honorary chairman of Expotech. Backstage, Jane tells Spacely about what's going on. Spacely suggests that they get George to a hospital so they can reverse the process and get the gizmo out before he turns into a healing crystal, but Jane insists: "Don't you get it? You started with a dream of making the world a better place. That dream can still come true - but only by letting the world see just how wrong this all was to begin with. If George doesn't go on, if we don't go ahead with this plan... then you truly will lose everything." Then she goes onstage to tell Zachary the plan.

Jane, this could be your future. Are you okay with that?

Spacely and George begin their presentation. "You've all read the press releases. You know that until a few weeks ago I was an ordinary guy," George, hidden in the shadows, tells the crowd. "And then, I was implanted with a device to make me a perfect human being." While George is talking, Cogswell slips something into Zachary's drink. But Judy, disguised as a robot waitress, spills champagne on Cogswell, distracting him so that Zachary can swap the drugged drink with a fresh one from her tray. "We all have faults. We have imperfections. We are irrational," George continues. "But it's our ability to rise above these flaws, to accept ourselves, and care about one another that makes us human beings. And perfectly imperfect. Unlike me."

The lights turn up and we see that George has basically turned into a robot: he has crystal shapes in place of pupils, brittle fiberglass for hair, skin the texture of shale, and his features chiseled and mechanical-looking. The crowd gasps. Are you sure getting the potentializer taken out wasn't the better idea, Jane? Suddenly, Zachary keels over. Secret Service and ushers rush over and put Zachary on a gurney. A doctor shows up. Cogswell says that Zachary has "angio endothelioma"... at which point Zachary gets up and the doctor is revealed to be Dr. Boone, who asks Cogswell how he knew that unless that's what he wanted it to look like. Realizing that he's been PUNKED, Cogswell makes a run for it. Spacely says that they have to get George to a hospital, but George wants to stop Cogswell and gives chase. Elroy rides Astro after his father.

They all wind up on the roof. Cogswell jumps into his craft and tries to fly off, but George grabs a landing gear strut. Elroy identifies Cogswell's craft as a Lear, which he built a model of earlier, and figures out that "it's a GB451 with an anti-gravity thrust of 100 G's per second, an alternate conductive hyper-drive - and - yes! - an exterior twin can overhead automatic reverse!" Using what he learned from spaceball practice, he throws an apple at the craft's reverse button. Down onto the roof it falls.

While Cogswell is being arrested, George is put onto a gurney and Dr. Boone says that there isn't any more of his humanity left. Jane insists that George is in there somewhere and puts the kaleidoscope to George's eye. It works - George sees the pretty colors and changes back to normal.

Huzzah!

George is rewarded with a Congressional Medal from Senator Zachary. Spacely gets the contract that Cogswell wanted. Elroy gets a lot better at spaceball. And Astro tells us that he now knows the universe DID exist before he got there. "It's not a question of seeing something yourself, but of believing in something that you can't see," he says. "Well, do you believe? What the heck, sure you do."

So, what did I think of this hypothetical Jetsons movie? Well, as a whole, it's not a bad effort but it tries to do a bit too much. There's a lot of stuff that could easily have been cut - Elroy getting involved with shoplifting, Jane having to put up with her boss' romantic advancements, whatever conflicts George and Jane have in the middle... even Astro being the narrator has potential, but he isn't given much to do aside from the scene in the bar. And I think we're all very lucky to be spared the image of George turned into some sort of crystal robot. Imagine how nightmarish THAT would've been.

Still, as far as live action adaptations of a cartoon go, this script wasn't too bad. I give it two and a half Spacely's Sprockets out of five. In Part 2, we look at Chris Thompson's 1987 script.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Pig City"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

Why have most of the cartoons I've reviewed in January been about farm animals? Ponies, sheep, and now pigs. And on top of that, they all take place in the city. Very peculiar...

Pig City was created by Andy Knight, also the creator of a show I've previously reviewed twice on my blog, Ned's Newt. It was co-produced by CineGroupe, AnimaKids, and Red Rover Studios and aired on Teletoon in Canada, ProSieben in Germany, and Fox Kids internationally - believe it or not, however, it never aired in the United States. Apparently, it was originally going to be called The Three Pigs. Maybe they thought that title was too on-the-nose.

The show is about a pig from the country named Mikey Hoggins (voiced by Thor Bishopric), whose parents send him to live with his cousins Martha (voiced by Emma Campbell) and Reggie DeBoar (voiced by Philip LeMaistre). After its premiere in April 2002, thirty-nine episodes were produced, making for a total of three seasons. Pig City's only home video release says that it's "more than 60 minutes of pure pleasure in the company of the most sophisticated and funniest pigs in the world", "a series that manages to be witty, worldly and warm at the same time", and "hilarious, original, and sophisticated".

Is it indeed all of those things? Well, you can find episodes of the show on the Internet Archive, so why don't we find out? We'll be watching the ninth episode, "Raising a Stink". This is Pig City!

The episode starts off with Martha having just returned from the mall. Mikey shows up with a phone in his trotter, telling her that the credit card company wants to speak with her. Martha initially assumes that they want to congratulate her for all the shopping that she's done, because credit card companies do that a lot. She is wrong - they tell her that she's overcharged her card. Teenage girls in cartoons... always going hog-wild at the mall. Get it? HOG-wild? This is the first of what will likely be MANY pig puns in this review...

With those long ears, Mikey and Martha kind of look more like aardvarks than pigs.

Martha calls up her parents to see if they can clear things up. Wouldn't you know it, they can't - in fact, they're a little concerned about her "money sense". Two pigs in business suits have checked their records, and a chart shows that Martha goes through more money than Mikey and Reggie combined.

Say, do you think these pigs keep their money in human banks? Y'know, 'cause we keep our money in PIGGY banks? Please laugh. I'm trying so hard...

Notice that the girl pig appears to have lips, unlike every other pig we've seen so far.
It doesn't look like she's wearing lipstick, though... you know what they say about putting
lipstick on a pig.

Mikey brings up that he was raised out in the country, where people... or pigs, it would seem... know the value of money, because they WORK FOR IT. Martha is all "WORK?! Oh, horror of horrors!", but her parents seem to be on board with the idea of Martha learning the value of money by going to work. "I think it's time you got a job," her father says, much to her dismay.

I guess you could say that Martha will be bringing home the bacon. Ba-dum-ksssh. Actually, that would be cannibalism, wouldn't it?

"Footballs are made of WHAT now?!"

After Mikey and Reggie crack jokes about how Martha will probably wind up cooking fries at a fast food joint, Martha reveals that she's already gotten a job at Pi-Gee, the most pretentious perfume store in the mall. She's going to be their Point of Purchase Marketing Coordinator of In-Store Merchandise. Once she leaves, Reggie suggests that Martha is a lying liar from Liarsburg. "Only one way to find out," Mikey says, narrowing his eyes.

I still think Mikey looks more like an aardvark.

Actually, Martha is telling the truth - her job is to set up the merchandise on the shelves, and she alphabetized the displays by country of origin and placed them according to their land mass from least to most. She's also allowed to mock the customers.

I wonder what kind of scents they have there... "Eau De Mud Puddle", perhaps?

After her boss, the ever-so-creatively-named Mr. Swine, heads out to have lunch, Mikey and Reggie show up and through their stupidity wind up destroying a display. They help her fix it, but when Mr. Swine returns, he's horrified to see that a red bottle is in the blue bottle area. You have to keep them separated or else I imagine THIS happens...

I know he was referring to PERFUME bottles, but this is what I imagined...

"This is what I get for leaving an amateur in charge!" Mr. Swine declares. "You're FIRED! AWAY with you! LEAVE this place! Martha, DESTROYER of Perfume!" As she glumly leaves, Mikey tells Reggie that they have to get Martha her job back. Reggie's idea for how to do that: go to a music store and buy a Pig Floyd album. Metal has all the answers, you see.

"Pig Floyd"? They couldn't think of anything funnier than THAT? I mean, it's
at least slightly funnier than the pig puns I'VE been making in this review, but still...

"If we could find something that a perfume store would want," Mikey suggests, "We could deal for Martha's job." What they need is a Nose. Not the kind on one's face, which they already have two of, but a guy who makes perfume. And they know a pig named E. Brian (Michael Yarmush) who has a big nose...

...his nose doesn't look any bigger than Mikey or Reggie's does to me, but okay, let's see where they're going with this. E. Brian whips up a perfume recipe that is so potent it turns whoever wears it into a girl magnet. Mikey and Reggie then find Martha in the food court and drag her back to Pi-Gee's, where they give Mr. Swine the powerful piggy perfume. When Reggie tries some, they discover that it smells like taco chips, sour cream, and a football locker room. Apparently those are scents that drive girl pigs crazy - or boy pigs, it would seem, as there are several in the doorway sniffing the air.

"I WANT it! Who is the Nose! I must speak to the Nose!" Mr. Swine pleads. Mikey claims that HE is the Nose, and that they'll give him the perfume if he gives Martha her job back. Mr. Swine agrees... just before Reggie suddenly gains hives. Fortunately, all they have to do to get rid of the hives is douse Reggie with water. And his hair looks healthier and shinier than before, too. Very strange...

After that, Mikey and Reggie walk by the movie theater, where The Hogfather is playing. That's actually a pretty good pun... which is promptly followed by "Joe Piggy" and "Robert De Porco". Oy. Ignoring how bad those puns are, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro weren't even in The Godfather (they WERE in The Godfather Part II, though). What, could they just not think of good pig puns for the names of people who actually WERE in the first Godfather? Al Porcino and... actually, I can't think of anything other than that either.

"Y'know, the third one of these films sucked."

Mikey gets another idea - Joe Piggy and Robert De Porco are scheduled to sign autographs at the mall. If only they could get them to go to Pi-Gee and ask Mr. Swine to give Martha her job back, but chances are they'll be too busy to do Mikey and Reggie that favor. So what do they do?

Okay, I get that they're supposed to be disguised as Joe Piggy and Robert De Porco, but they don't look like Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro at all. But it's enough to fool Mr. Swine, particularly when Mikey says, "Are you servin' ME? Are you... SERVIN' me? I don't see anyone else around, so you must be servin' ME." That's not even from The Godfather, it's from Taxi Driver, but whatever, if you parody Robert DeNiro in anything you HAVE to do the "you talkin' to me" shtick. Because that's what we all think of when we think of Robert De Niro. Kind of like how all Al Pacino parodies have to go "Say hello to my little [SOMETHING]!" at some point.

"I heard dat Martha DeBoar works here. And truth to dat rumor?!" Reggie barks. "Cause we'd sure like to buy some of dis expensive toilet water here!" When Mr. Swine says that Martha does NOT work there, Mikey demands, "Are you callin' my friend a liar? 'Cuz, he HEARD things... and I gotta be honest... I heard things." So the moral of today's story is: if a relative of yours gets fired, impersonate a celebrity and threaten their boss so they'll get their job back!

But guess who walks into the store? If you guessed "Robert De Porco and Joe Piggy", you're right! Mikey and Reggie's plan has been foiled. Oh, and Robert De Porco ALSO does the "Are you servin' ME?" thing.

"Listen to me very carefully. There are three ways of doing things around here: the right
way, the wrong way, and the way I do it."

(Also, the guy who did his voice sounds nothing like Robert De Niro)

When Mikey and Reggie get home, Martha is waiting there to chew them out. Mikey assures her that they have another plan to get her job back. Martha says that they'd better or else she will remove their ability to eat solid foods. And until then, they are on her "list", and you do not want to be on her "list". "I'm on so many lists, you'd think I lived in a grocery store," Reggie pipes up.

Mikey's new plan: they took a bunch of comment cards from Pi-Gee and they're going to write nice things about Martha on them, so that when Mr. Swine reads them, he'll give Martha her job back. Oh, and ever since Reggie has been sprayed with the perfume, he's been acting strangely feminine. When Mikey calls up E. Brian to ask about it, he says that he must have put too much estrogen in the formula, so it's now a feminizing spray.

The next day, not only is Reggie upset that Mikey didn't notice his new Van Wailin' t-shirt, but as they're putting the comment cards in the box, Mikey gets perfume in his eye again and winds up making a mess. Mr. Swine shows up and catches them red-handed... er, red-trottered. He's all "I'm not hiring Martha back!", to which Mikey declares that it's time to "kick it up a notch". I was going to make a reference to Emeril Lagasse, but then the show did it for me - specifically, they have Reggie say, "Bam!".

So, what do you think the name of the Emeril parody in this show is? "HAMril Lagasse",
perhaps?

Mikey and Reggie start boycotting Pi-Gee's and singing a protest song. Soon all the pigs in the mall are hyped up and boycotting the store too. "Perfume sucks!" one member of the crowd shouts... not sure how they got away with that in a kids' show.

"I can't ignore an angry mob parked outside my store!" Mr. Swine laments. "This pig knows when his bacon is cooked." He agrees to give Martha her job back, to which Martha says that she doesn't want her job back. Apparently her father solved her problem with the credit card companies, making all of Mikey and Reggie's efforts a colossal waste of time. Also, E. Brian shows up and sprays Reggie with an antidote so he'll stop being so feminine. The end.

What's the Verdict?

Pig City is another cartoon I'm putting in the "okay" category. There's nothing remarkable about it, but it's not awful. Not much is done with the whole "they're pigs" part of the premise, most of the pig puns weren't funny, and the characters aren't interesting at all. Ned's Newt is probably worse, but at least its bizarreness and obnoxious talking newt gave me stuff to talk about. This is just... something that existed. Unless you really like pigs, I wouldn't recommend giving it a watch. Still, there are far worse cartoons out there.

Frankly, I'm shocked that I made it through the entire review without making any jokes about Miss Piggy or Porky Pig. I was fully expecting to make at least ONE. I didn't even make any references to the other cartoon show about pigs I reviewed, Piggsburg Pigs!. Weird, huh?

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Sheep in the Big City"

Two reviews of a cartoon starring a farm animal in a row? I know it's a bit strange, but somebody in the comments section of my It's Pony review asked if I could do a review of Sheep in the Big City. And I am nothing if not a people-pleaser. Unless those people are fans of Jellystone!. They'll just have to deal with me.

Sheep in the Big City premiered on Cartoon Network on November 17th, 2000, although its pilot first premiered in August of that year as part of the "Cartoon Cartoon Summer" programming block - and was, at the time, the highest-rated premiere for a Cartoon Network original series, impressively enough. It received two seasons, each one consisting of thirteen episodes (making for a total of twenty-six). The show's creator was Mo Willems. Does that name sound familiar? It should:

This is a great book.

The show's protagonist was a sheep creatively named Sheep ("baaaaa"s provided by Kevin Seal). He fled to the big city to escape the sinister Secret Military Organization, led by the villainous General Specific (also voiced by Kevin Seal), who want to use him for their Sheep-Powered Ray Gun. Of course, it's not easy for a sheep to adjust to life in the city - especially a sheep that doesn't talk. Unrelated sketches and shorts were peppered throughout the show, which is one of a few reasons - others including the Narrator, Ben Plotz (Ken Schatz), who interacts with the characters and the emphasis on quirky verbal humor - that the internet has a habit of comparing the show to Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Sheep in the Big City is one of the only Cartoon Cartoons-era Cartoon Network shows that I don't think I ever watched (the others, for those wondering, being Time Squad and Evil Con Carne). That could be because the show wasn't treated super well by Cartoon Network. According to TV Tropes, it was originally cancelled after the first season because of poor viewership... after the premieres of new episodes were delayed several times, with the last four episodes not airing until Sunday evenings in June and July. Popular demand led to the show getting a second season in September 2001, with the first four episodes airing in the same time slot that December before the show went on hiatus in January 2002. TV Tropes claims that this might have been because, after 9/11, Cartoon Network's executives got nervous about having a show on their schedule that featured the American military as comedic antagonists while the country was involved in the Middle East war and the Pentagon was in a state of disrepair. The last nine episodes were aired the following months on Sunday nights at 9 PM, when kids likely aren't watching TV. Apparently a third season was planned, but then Codename: Kids Next Door was greenlit and Mo Willems became too busy with that.

Fortunately, somebody uploaded all the show's episodes to the Internet Archive, which means that fans of the show can rewatch it even though it's not on any streaming services as far as I'm aware (apparently it was on Amazon Prime Video at some point and it might be on HBO Max in Latin America) - and those that never watched the show before, like me, can give it a try for the first time. We'll be watching the tenth episode, "Fleeced to Meet You". Let's meet up with Sheep in the Big City!

The episode starts off with a Star Trek parody. While I will give it credit for being less on the nose than usual Star Trek spoofs in cartoons (the characters don't resemble Kirk and Mr. Spock at all), the Spock equivalent having a really long name isn't a particularly funny joke.

If the Kirk equivalent were a more blatant William Shatner parody, you just KNOW the alien
would make a joke about him tasting like ham (get it?).

The cute-looking alien that they encounter, of course, eats the woman, and the Spock equivalent gives him a dollar and says "Nice work." Wow, the Spock equivalent put a hit out on his boss? I guess that's one way to take a jab at William Shatner...

After that, the actual storyline for this episode begins. The narrator tells us that for some people, the city is a dangerous concrete jungle full of mean people, but for others, it's a utopia where neighbor helps neighbor. Take Sheep, who's always doing nice things for others. You can always count on him to give you a helping hand.

Do I want to know where he got a severed hand?

General Specific could sure use a helping hand, because he can't capture Sheep no matter how hard he tries. Fortunately, his Angry Scientist (Mo Willems himself)... not a MAD scientist, an ANGRY scientist, he's very sensitive about that... has whipped up a plan to fix that. He's been updating the hard drive, soft drive, and squishy drive of General Specific's plan-creating robot, the Plot Device - gotta love the names in this show - making it the world's most powerful supercomputer. Alas, it does not have any superpowers.

You're probably wondering why the Angry Scientist has green skin. My guess: his mother is
the Wicked Witch of the West.

General Specific rewards the Angry Scientist for his accomplishment by sending him down a trapdoor.

"WRONG LEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!"

In comes the Plot Device (Stephanie D'Abruzzo), who explains to General Specific what their most recent plan is. Sheep is the only sheep in the Big City, right? So the Plot Device has hired a super-double-agent stealth-sheep to befriend Sheep and lure him into a trap. His name is "X Agent", according to his business card.

As General Specific demonstrates that there are several very mysterious letters of the alphabet (it makes sense in context, but I'm not going to tell you what that context is because I'm feeling mischievous today), we cut back to Sheep helping to make the city cleaner. Everybody else in town launches into a musical number about cleaning. How do they all know the words to the song? Did they rehearse every Thursday beforehand?

If you know what that's a reference to, you get... nothing, but I'm sure you're filled with pride.

General Specific might have a supercomputer, but the people of the Big City have a superHERO.
Surely HE can defend Sheep from General Specific.

And speaking of cleaning up, let's all take a look at General Specific's top secret military base. I love the sign reading "Please look the other way", as if he seriously believes it'll make nobody notice the building. I'd also like to know who his contractor was - that building is more crooked than Barnaby.

He's even got a MOAT around it. I'm sure THAT'S not going to raise any suspicion...

General Specific is preparing his plan of diabolicality, not cleaning up. And also sending more people down trapdoors. I guess when you have trapdoors set up all over your base, it's hard to resist sending people down them for no reason. After boarding a helicopter, he sends X Agent down to meet Sheep, who greets his fellow ovine with a cheery smile.

Don't be so trusting, Sheep. He could really be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

(Hey, SOMEBODY'S gotta make a lot of sheep puns, and if the episode's not gonna do it...)

Will General Specific's plot succeed? We'll find out... after this commercial for an airline. At We Care Air, they do everything to assure you are happy. The pilots even massage your feet. When they're supposed to be flying the plane. My recommendation would be to stick with United Airlines.

Y'know what? This gives me an idea. I think I'll randomly start interrupting my reviews with fake ads. It'll be like how YouTube videos are constantly interrupted by ads for things you already know exist and would have already watched or gotten your hands on if you wanted to, so there's no point in reminding us, YouTube.

Wanda apparently has a side job as a flight attendant.

And now, Chapter Two of our exciting episode...

Sheep is thrilled to meet another sheep just like him, and soon the two of them are out having a grand time. General Specific wants to see how the plan is coming along, but the Sheep-Monitoring System is being upgraded, so he'll have to settle for a dramatic interpretation of what the soldiers think Sheep and X Agent are doing. This dramatic interpretation must be seen for itself. Words can not do it justice.

Surely you're familiar with that hit Broadway show, CaBAAAAAAAAAAAAret?

Sheep and X Agent are playing Chess, something that the soldiers left out of their dramatic interpretation. X Agent is starting to have second thoughts about luring Sheep into General Specific's trap. Will he go through with it, or will friendship triumph over General Specific and his eeeeeeeeeeevilness? Before we find out, let's see what that superhero from before is up to.

The superhero, Completely Powerful Guy (Ken Schatz), can be summed up like this: he's a coward. And despite how powerful he is, he's vulnerable to a lot of stuff. He makes Captain Underpants look competent.

Also here is his faithful sidekick, Wonderful Boy (Christine Walters).

Then we get an ad for Bio-Technical Corporate Concern Limited Company (BTC for short). What do they sell? Even THEY don't know.

X Agent calls up General Specific, who tells him to meet him, with Sheep, at the rendezvous place - with much difficulty since X Agent is a sheep and can't speak English. But on the way there, X Agent defends Sheep from local scary little girl Lisa Rental (also Stephanie D'Abruzzo), so maybe he's not such a bad guy... oh, sorry, a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-d guy... after all. Or maybe he IS, seeing as he promptly places Sheep onto a giant red "X" painted on the sidewalk, allowing General Specific to capture him and bring him back to his top secret military base.

I didn't mention this character before, but General Specific is accompanied by his much sharper second-in-command, Private Public (James Godwin). When General Specific is about to send X Agent down a trapdoor (what is it with this guy and trapdoors?), Private Public protests. "X Agent is more than a stealth spy sheep. He's a FRIEND," he insists. "And friends don't double-cross friends! Friends don't double-cross friends! Friends don't double-cross friends!"

Private Public looks a lot like the bus driver from Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, doesn't
he?

When X Agent hears that, he is immediately wracked with regret and saves Sheep by taking off his wool and pulling it down over General Specific's head. Get it? He pulled the wool over his eyes?

Sheep and Agent X escape in a helicopter, which Sheep jumps out of using his wool as a parachute while Agent X takes General Specific on a wild goose chase... well, a wild SHEEP chase anyway...

To conclude the show, we get an appearance from the Ranting Swede (Kevin Seal). His shtick is that he rants about things that drive him crazy. He'd fit right in on the internet, wouldn't he?

The Ranting Swede: teaching us to laugh at people with Swedish accents since 2000.

What's the Verdict?

Don't go into Sheep in the Big City expecting complex characterization and writing - the show's goal, first and foremost, is to make us laugh. And yes, it IS very funny. I didn't even mention ALL the jokes in this episode, there are a LOT of 'em. The comparisons to Rocky and Bullwinkle are very accurate, in fact I would say this is a better attempt at recreating the feel and fun of Rocky and Bullwinkle than the ACTUAL attempt at recreating the feel and fun of Rocky and Bullwinkle that same year (remember that movie? With Jason Alexander and Robert De Niro?). If you like Rocky and Bullwinkle, chances are you'll like Sheep in the Big City.

And remember, everybody: friends don't double-cross friends! Friends don't double-cross friends! Friends don't double-cross friends! Oh, and don't let the Pigeon drive the bus either.