Back to the Drawing Board: The Live Action "Jetsons" Movies, Part 2

Part 2: "Altair and Judy Sittin' in a Tree" or "The Perfect Plutonian Putz"

In the first screenplay for a live action Jetsons movie that never got off the ground we looked at, George was mistakenly implanted with some sort of "human potentializer" that was supposed to turn him into the perfect human being, Judy hooked up with a cute guy who could change colors like a chameleon, Elroy got arrested for shoplifting, and there was a chimpanzee for some reason. Now, onto the 1987 draft of the film's script by Chris Thompson!

This script begins with a beautiful sunrise over the Jetsons' home turf of Galaxy City... in the cartoon, the name of the city is actually Orbit City, but I don't recall them bringing that up much so we'll let it slide. A mechanical rooster standing on a fence crows and then lays a square egg (the script acknowledges that roosters don't lay eggs. They're not mechanical either, of course) that falls into a cylinder that takes it into the Jetsons' kitchen. We basically get the breakfast machine sequence from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and for some reason there's a human face on the wall and the nose on it pops off and inhales the smell of the pancakes. I don't recall any disembodied noses in the cartoon...

George gets out of bed and deals with the weird technology that shaves his face (it winds up shaving his feet), brushes his hair (it brushes his face), and put clothes on him (it puts them on backwards). Jeez, are people in the future really that lazy? They can't even dress themselves? We really ARE on our way to becoming the humans from WALL-E, aren't we?

After that, George heads into the living room and trips over Astro, who turns to the camera and says, "Reet Reorge Retson." Get it? The first line of the theme song? And it keeps going. As we meet Elroy, Judy, and Jane, he says another verse of the song. Elroy's having trouble with his closet, too - it dresses him in girls' clothing because he shares the closet with Judy. Jane uses a beauty shop hair-dryer called Mr. Enrique 1200 to do her makeup. It has an attitude, but you probably would too if your only purpose in life was to put lipstick on women.

Rosey serves everyone breakfast. George realizes that he's late for work, at which point his neuronic talking watch apologizes for not telling him what time it was. "I'm a failure as a watch, aren't I? Do me a favor, just don't tell my union," he pleads. "I'll get demoted and wind up as an egg timer." I imagine this watch likely would've had the voice of Woody Allen. Anyway, George then jumps into his car, which can ALSO talk. The watch is still lamenting what a loser he is, and the car says that he needs professional help. I don't recall the car talking in the original show, but I'm okay with it talking here. The car takes George to Spacely's Sprockets, and once he reaches his office it's revealed that the chair can talk too. Everything in this script talks, apparently. It's like the entire Jetsons world is an episode of Blue's Clues.

I wish Blogger wouldn't make the resolution of my artwork so crummy.
You'll have to click on the picture for a higher-quality version...

Back at Casa De Los Jetsons, Elroy is building an antigravitational-transkinetic-hypermolecular-transponder (if you were able to read all that out loud, major props). It moves stuff, which Elroy demonstrates by having it move Astro's food bowl. Like in the previous script, Elroy really wants to go to Spaceball Camp, but it's apparently really expensive because they can't afford it. They've had to spend money on stuff like a new liver for Judy and speech therapy for Astro. After Jane assures Elroy, Judy, Rosey, and Astro that they're not as poor as they appear to be at the moment, Elroy and Judy head off to school. Jane decides to check out the "Help Wanted" section of the newspaper. Looks like she's looking for a job in this script too.

At work, George has to deal with a guy named Greg MacGravity, who he claims is a "management trainee". "Jetson, you're a space schmuck. You're just jealous cause you're bogged down in a nowhere job and you have to watch me rocket to the top while you linger at the bottom," MacGravity claims. George's response is, "Actually, what I'd like to watch is a rocket linger up your bottom." That sounds dirty. Apparently the director thought so too, because this line is circled and there's a "No" written next to it in pen. From this scene, we learn that MacGravity is an arrogant tool. And the watch continues to be the funniest character in the script thus far.

For those wondering, no, Greg MacGravity did not appear in the cartoon, he's an invention for this script. There was a character called Dr. McGravity in at least one episode, though. Here's a picture of Dr. McGravity:

We then cut to Judy's high school, where she's complaining to a friend that somebody named Sheldon Spacesludge tried to kiss her. "Gag me with the moon," she complains - remember, this was written in the 1980s. Then just as Judy and her pals are dancing to a Jet Screamer song, a "little matron maid" shows up and tells Judy she is wanted in the Vice Principal's office. Meanwhile, at Elroy's school, he has to put up with a bully named Butch - or rather Arthur "Butch" Spacely. Hmmm, it would seem that in this script, Butch is Mr. Spacely's son. Mr. Spacely had a son in the show, but I don't think he was the school bully.

Here's a picture of Mr. Spacely's son in the show. His name was indeed Arthur, although
I don't recall if anyone ever called him "Butch".

And back at the house, Jane... gets a visit from Dorothy and Toto? No, really. Dorothy and Toto show up. I was not expected a cameo from those two...

In the Spacely Sprockets laboratory, three scientists, only one of whom gets a name, are watching someone play the piano. One scientist tells the only named one, Moone, that the "surgical implantation of the actualizer" has created what may be one of the greatest geniuses of their time. That piano-playing genuis is... a rabbit. His name is Puff. And he has a god complex. And yes, he DOES make a reference to how good rabbits are at multiplying. Meanwhile, George is told that Mr. Spacely wants to see him right away. "Are we in trouble?" he and all the furniture and gadgets in his office ask.

I was originally going to draw Puff, but I think you'd all much rather see
a photo of a cute real life rabbit.

Another similarity to the previous script pops up as we cut back to Judy's high school. The Vice Principal wants her to show around an exchange student. From Korrinian 3. Named Altair. Who looks exactly like Jet Screamer. But this time he's blue as opposed to lime green. Of course, Judy goes gaga over him.

George walks down the hall to Mr. Spacely's office, talking to his watch about how much he hates MacGravity. "Look at him, all young and smug," he says. "Sure, it's easy to be a big success if you just concentrate on work. I'd like to see how he'd do if he had to take care of a wife, two kids, and a great dane with a speech impediment. I hate that son-of-a..." Whoa, George, watch the language. As it turns out, MacGravity is going to see Mr. Spacely too. He says that he'd LIKE to be friends with George, but doing so could put his career at risk. For some reason. Still, he invites George to play with him on the rocketball court that afternoon. As soon as MacArthur is out of earshot, George announces that he's going to "kick [the] asteroids" of that "perfect Plutonian putz".

It turns out that George isn't just meeting with Spacely, but with the board of directors and those three scientists from before as well. Spacely called the meeting because there's rumors being spread around, mainly by Cogswell Cogs, that their company is having financial trouble. Moone shows everyone else how they implanted "the actualizer" into the brain of a rabbit. I guess Chris Thompson thinks that rabbits are funnier than primates, because this rabbit serves as a replacement for the chimpanzee from the previous script. "Alright, Spacely, Moone. Are you saying that you have extended all of the assets of this multi-galactical corporation in order to create a RENNAISANCE BUNNY?!" an executive named Liftoff demands. "Liftoff, you have the brains of a german shepherd and the imagination of a socket wrench," Spacely claims. "Do you think I've spent trillions of solar dollars, just to have a rabbit that can sing Rigoletto?! Let me show you something." He tells MacGravity to stand up, then explains that he holds eight degrees, he's a superb athlete, brilliant, ruthless, and all in all a very fine specimen of a human being. And yet he only uses ten percent of his brain - this is actually a myth, for those wondering. Maybe Spacely just doesn't know that. "Can you imagine what this man could achieve if he was given access to the other ninety percent of his mind?" he asks. "Of course you can't imagine, cause you all have brains that fall somewhere between lungfish and fungus."

MacGravity adds that this is what the actualizer does: once it's implanted in the brain, it allows the recipient to use all one hundred percent of his mind. If it could make a rabbit a genius, it could also make a human being a god of sorts. Which brings Spacely to George, much to his confusion. Spacely dubs George "the most average of the average", and says that once they get the actualizer inside MacGravity's brain, he will become something truly exceptional. Joke's on MacArthur, though - we all know the actualizer is somehow going to wind up in George's brain instead.

We then see Elroy and his friends playing spaceball, and once again Butch creams Elroy. Then we see George and MacGravity at the rocketball court, where MacGravity is acting like the perfect Plutonian putz that he is and making George look like a fool. Not that George needs much help to look like a fool, mind you. As for Jane, she heads to a convenience store called the "7-Squared 11-Cubed", which has a "Help Wanted" sign out front. The store is run by a hairy purple alien in a red smock named Zaxxor, who makes a reference to Michael Jackson because, again, 1980s. Then he makes a reference to Jerry Lewis before giving Jane a job. I reaaaaaaally hope this character doesn't have the hots for Jane like that Mr. Darrow guy from the previous script...

In Mr. Spacely's office, Moone is telling him that they probably won't be ready to implant the actualizer in a human in six months. Why? Because the actualizer has side effects: sudden rages, bouts of melancholy, partial amnesia, an entire rage of emotional quirks, meglomania, and possibly even the creation of suicidal tendencies. Before the conversation can continue, who should show up at Spacely Sprockets but W.C. Cogswell. He offers to buy Spacely's company, to which Spacely refuses. But Cogswell has a note from the bank claiming that if Spacely can't pay them in thirty days, they'll let Cogswell take over the company. Banks can do that, I guess.

"Listen, Fat Boy..." Spacely snarls, "I'm developing a product that'll knock you out of of the solar system." Cogswell reveals that he already knows about the actualizer and that he knows it won't work, to which Spacely says that they're about to implant it into a human being. In fact, he's so sure of its success that, if a month goes by and it DOES fail, he'll sell Cogswell the company. Spacely, you fool. Since there's no turning back now, Spacely tells his secretary to tell Dr. Moone and MacGravity to get ready for the insertation of the actualizer at nine o'clock tomorrow morning.

At dinner that night, Jane tells George about her new job. George advises her to hold off on the job because he thinks they'll get through these financial troubles. He's also miffed that nothing unusual ever goes on in their lives. Well, that settles it... George is definitely going to be implanted with the fancy smarts-boosting device in THIS script, too.

George comes out of his bedroom looking as though he has a new purpose. When he gets to work, he runs into MacGravity again, who boasts that he's going to get the actualizer implanted in his brain. And you'd expect this to be the part where George somehow gets the actualizer implanted in HIS brain by accident, right? Well, not quite. Instead, George knocks out MacGravity and stuffs him into the trunk of his car. Then he barges into the laboratory and tells the two assistants in there that he's MacGravity. I don't know whether George is really brave or really stupid. They put a helmet on his head so when Spacely shows up, he doesn't know that it's George and not MacGravity.

While George is getting the actualizer implanted in his brain, we cut back to the house, where Jane is talking to Marsha (remember her from the previous script?) about how she loves George "just the way he is". Uh oh, you jinxed it, Jane. Elroy, meanwhile, is talking to his friend Vladimir about spaceball camp and dealing with Butch. And Judy is making out with Altair, and as she kisses him she also begins to turn blue because he's giving her his essence. Judy's not exactly on board with that because she's only sixteen, to which Altair tells her that a lot of sixteen year olds on his planet already have offspring (eeeeeeeeeh...). "Altair, I really think you are cool to like the maximum velocity. But I've only known you a couple of days," Judy points out. "I don't know that I'm ready to settle down with you and start having, like little Smurfs." Is that an example of Hanna-Barbera cross-promotion? Say, is Altair the evolved form of a Smurf? That would be a pretty funny twist...

Just as the operation on George is wrapping up, MacGravity bursts into the room, meaning that Spacely now knows it wasn't MacGravity who they implanted the actualizer in but rather George. Way to go, George. You just got yourself a pink slip. On the bright side, George is now an expert rocketball player, so it seems as though the actualizer is working. This makes Spacely very happy. According to Moone, it's going to take thirty days or so for the actualizer to advance George to one hundred percent brain potential. So far he's only at twelve percent.

"I'm finally going to be somebody special. I'm going to give my family everything they've ever wanted," George vows. "You won't regret this, Cosmo. I promise. I know you didn't want to use me, but think about it. You wanted to end mediocrity. Well, what better way to demonstrate that, than to use a mediocre man. Cosmo, I'm gonna put on a show for the board of directors that will blow them from here to the Big Dipper, and then, when I'm ready, we're going to grind Cogswell into teeny atomic particles, and scatter them across the galaxy."

We then cut to the Galaxeria Mall, where Elroy and Vladimir run into Butch... again. Just as he's about to clobber Elroy, George swoops in and lifts him off the ground. He reveals that he's been promoted to Senior Vice President of New Projects, so there's no risk of being fired if he stuffs a corn dog on a jet in Butch's mouth and sends him into a tub of mustard, which is just what he does. Also at the mall are Judy and Altair, who mentions that he'd love to take her back to Korrinian 3 with him... just as George shows up and declares that Judy must be taught a lesson. Then he gives her his Spacy's Department Store card and tells her to buy a new wardrobe. See, he wasn't actually mad at Judy for making out with Altair! It was a bait-and-switch! George, you sly dog!

Coincidentally enough, Jane and Marsha are just leaving the mall, and in the parking lot they see George with a red Corvette Space Car. "Plant your hips inside and we'll take a spin," he tells Jane. Back home, when the family learns about George's new promotion, Jane says she knew they were just waiting for the right position for you. "I always thought the right position for dad was upside down, or on his butt," Judy quips. George then gives Elroy a spaceball with "Congratulations, Elroy Jetson, on your acceptance to Willie Mars Baseball Camp." written on it.

At Cogswell Cogs, Cogswell is getting a massage... and having a meeting with Dr. Moone. Apparently Dr. Moone is actually a mole, planted in Spacely's company by Cogswell because "the boys in Las Venus" are mad at him for welching on his gambling debts. When Moone tells him what's going on, Cogswell tells him to keep him informed of George's progress - if he continues to succeed, they just might have to take matters into their own hands.

At the Spacely Training Laboratory, George is doing some training. He breezes through an obstacle course, wins a dozen games of 3D Chess, lifts weights, and paints a Rembrandt and a Picasso at the same time. Then George moves the family into a deluxe condo that looks like "something out of a magazine". By now, he's using forty-one percent of his brain. However, he does want Spacely and Moone to tell him why he hasn't been informed of whatever side effects the actualizer might have. "I have all the data on your research into the actualizer," he explains. "You took quite a chance putting it into a man. The device is dangerously crude, and rudimentary. Too bad you couldn't build this little baby now. I could show you how to fix it." In fact, if he were to TELL anyone about the "piece of junk" that Spacely put in his head, he'd have a lawsuit that'd have him owning Spacely Sprockets in no time. It should be pretty clear by now that George is getting too big for his britches, but he does have a point. He SHOULD know about whatever side effects the actualizer has, lest he wind up turning into a crystal robot thing again.

George comes home from work with a large human-sized box. When he opens it up, standing inside is a robot in a tuxedo with an English accent. He's their new "Robo-Serve", who he bought to "lighten the load" for Rosey. Instead of falling madly in love with the Robo-Serve like you'd expect her to, Rosey fears that she's being replaced. Then he heads back to work, despite Jane's protest that the kids haven't seen him in days. Oh, great. We're doing THAT cliche now, are we?

This is what I think of when I think of a robot butler.

Judy can't decide whether to go with Altair to his home planet or not. "This is as complicated as shopping for bathing suits," she laments. Elroy and Astro suggest that she ask their father, which gives Judy an idea: she'll ask George when Altair comes to dinner, and when he refuses, Altair will give her credit for trying. It's foolproof!

Cogswell calls up Spacely to "give [him] the chance to sell out now while [his] company [is] still worth something". "I've got a bright new executive that's taking this company to the outer limits of the universe," Spacely tells him. "He'd better do it in ten days, Spacely. Then, if you're lucky, I might give you a job..." Cogswell says - a job in the mail room, that is. Actually, George's behavior has Spacely worried.

Altair shows up at the Jetson household for dinner. Judy says that she's decided to go with Altair to his home planet, but first she has to ask her father. George arrives home and walks past Rosey, who was going to offer him a pipe, Elroy, who holds a paper and smoking jacket, and Astro, with a pair of slippers in his mouth. This, as the script points out, is a way of showing that George has let his success go to his head.

When they sit down to dinner, George says that he got something special for Altair from his home planet - Blue Korrinian Lobster and prime Saturnian steak. Or, as he likes to call it, "Smurf and Turf".

Altair can't bring himself to eat the lobster because he used to have a lobster named Scooter as a pet. George continues to act like a tool, and when Judy asks him about going to Korrinian 3, guess what? He's okay with it, to Jane and Judy's shock.

Scooter.

Later, Jane demands to know why George is letting Judy go off to another planet to get her freak on with a boy she just met. "Jane, do we really want to inhibit her potential for achievement?" George asks. "There's that word again. Achievement. Since when did the word achievement become more important to you than words like family, or responsibility, or human warmth?" Jane wants to know. Why are smart people so often portrayed in movies and TV shows as emotionless robots? That seems unfair to smart people.

We cut to Elroy's big spaceball game, and initially it seems like George is, of course, too busy at work to watch him play. But then he DOES show up in a large Spacely Sprockets rocket, followed by a bunch of guys in suits and lab coats. He gives Elroy a new spaceball that he reconfigured to make it impossible to hit. Elroy protests that they're supposed to play with the equipment they already have so nobody has an unfair advantage, to which George insists that winning is more important than playing fair. Who is he, Dick Dastardly? Then he only stays for about a minute before rushing off to another board meeting. So even though Elroy strikes Butch out, he's not happy. In fact, he's crying. Way to go, George. You've made the cutest Jetson cry. You are officially the most evil Hanna-Barbera character ever.

George's reign of terror is summed up by Moone. He's developed forty-eight new patents in two weeks, fired over a hundred people because he thinks he can do their jobs better, and is scaring the pants off of Moone. And the side effects? There don't seem to be any yet. As for George, he is currently telling the board of directors that he is for all intents and purposes a god and that they should - and I'm quoting this verbatim from the script - "bow to [their] knees and tremble". Cogswell, meanwhile, tells Moone to build him an actualizer that he can implant in one of his employees, but Moone says he can't because George took over the entire project and destroyed all the files and momorized them.

George tells the board of directors that they are now obsolete. When Spacely protests, George declares that he took majority ownership in Spacely Sprockets yesterday so he now dictates what goes on at the company. Sheesh, even Fred didn't become this awful when HE became drunk with power in the Flinstones movie. Spacely says that he never should have put the actualizer in George's head and that he thinks they should take it out before things get worse. George promptly uses his... psychic powers, I guess... to split the conference table in two. Dear lord, he's becoming a supervillain. It's like that episode of Jimmy Neutron where Sheen became super-intelligent and turned evil.

"You should've stopped that crazy thing when I told you to,
Jane."

Back home, Elroy has decided to run away. When George is about to jump into his limo, a bunch of security robots show up to apprehend him, but he uses his psychic powers (again, I don't know when he got psychic powers, they weren't mentioned among the side effects earlier, but just go with it) to melt them. Judy is talking to Altair about how she doesn't think she's ready to go to Korrinian 3. Cogswell decides that if he can't beat George, he'll make him a better offer at his company - coincidentally enough, George's limo is pulling up to Cogswell Cogs right now. And Jane? She has to put up with the unwanted advances of Zaxxor.

It should be pretty obvious that I'm not very good at drawing females.

George tells Cogswell that he's going to buy out his company, but he may continue to work there as his employee. Then he shall take over the entire galaxy. Before he can continue to rant about how everyone in the universe will bow down before the one known as George Jetson, he suddenly grabs his head and screams.

At the Jetson house, Judy, Jane, Astro, and Rosey are watching the video Elroy filmed before he ran away. A crazed George barges in and informs them that now he controls everything and they shall have everything they ever want. Astro tells him to watch the video, which they promptly play for George. In the video, Elroy says that he used to think they were "a pretty happy family who got along kinda good", not knowing that they weren't "acheiving enough" or "making enough money" or "actualizing [their] goals". "Dad, I think something happened where you felt that you weren't everything we thought you should be. Like being normal was some kind of crime or something. But, Dad, I never wanted anything more than just what you gave us," he says. "Love and attention and stuff. I guess you felt like you were disappointing us, but then you got all smart and everything, and then we started to feel like we were disappointing you. Well, I don't like that feeling. So I'm gonna go out and try to achieve something, you know, 'cause that's what you want, okay? And that's why I think it's better that I just go. I'm sorry, Dad... I love you."

Seeing this snaps George out of his, for lack of a better word, evilness and he shouts Elroy's name in anguish, a shout so loud that Elroy can hear it just as he's about to climb aboard a bus.

Then things take a REALLY dark turn. You thought George turning evil was dark? Think again. George runs onto the roof of the building and laments, "I wanted to give you things. They put something in me. In my head. I am powerful. I am brilliant. And yet I am a failure..." Astro tries to stop him from jumping off, but that just causes him to fall off the roof. Fortunately, Elroy saves him.

When George comes to, he's inside the house with the others hovering over him. And now he doesn't recognize any of them. Rosey suggests that they just need to recharge his memory, and fortunately Altair has some sort of ability to give people his memories just by touching their hands. So everyone holds hands and thinks about good times with George, and guess what? It works! George sits up and says, "I know you. You are what matters. You are my family." Hooray!

But then he says, "I would like to stay, but I cannot. I have a destiny, a destiny to rule." To get George back to normal, they need to remove the device in his head. So what does Jane do? Honestly... words can not describe what Jane does next. Here's what the script says:

"Jane grabs her husband's head, and throws a liplock on the back of it. She noisily sucks on his skull. We hear a loud 'POP'. She removes her mouth from his skull and spits. We see the actualizer fly out of her mouth across the room. It lands in Rosey's hand. She looks at it a beat, and crushes it in her metal paw."

...yes, Jane randomly turns into a lamprey and somehow sucks out the actualizer from George's skull. Why she has this ability is never explained.

An actual photo of Jane Jetson.

But it does the trick, George is back to normal. He then trips over Astro and falls onto the sidewalk, which carries him over to the vacuum tube. And then the script just... ends.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this wasn't as good as the previous script. It feels less polished, with a lot of things and plot points that don't go anywhere: George taking over Spacely and Cogswell's companies, Elroy's spaceball stuff, even the stuff with Altair just kind of fizzles out. The ending is extremely abrupt. And I don't think anyone wants to see an iconic cartoon character like George Jetson become a diabolical villain who wants to take over the universe.

I will say, though, it's pretty surprising that this script and the first one have so many of the same plot elements. Did Chris Thompson read the first draft for inspiration? I wonder if the third script will be about George getting something implanted in his brain that makes him a supergenius too. I guess we'll just have to wait until the third part to find out...