Original Air Date: September 23, 1962
Starring: George O’Hanlon, Penny Singleton, Jean Vander Pyl
Directed by: Joseph Barbera, William Hanna
Synopsis: The animated series about The Jetson family living on a futuristic Earth where the cities are built so high above the ground you never see any actual terra firma.
Cartoon Cat: In the show’s memorable end theme song, George Jetson (voiced by George O’Hanlon) returns from a day of work to all the creature comforts of home. That is until his wife Jane (voiced by Penny Singleton) hands him the leash to Astro the dog’s collar and Astro pulls George outside for a walk on a treadmill. As they are exercising a small orange cat appears and screeches at Astro.
The cat leaps onto the treadmill and starts running as Astro picks up speed.
George loses his grip on Astro’s leash and gets sucked under the treadmill. He is pulled around and around as the cat and Astro jump over him.
Finally the cat and Astro both jump to the safety of a nearby wall and watch George getting sucked in and around the treadmill as he screams for his wife to “stop this crazy thing!”
It’s interesting that both the Flintstones and Jetsons end theme songs featured cats that otherwise only made one or two appearances in the series themselves. Since The Flintstone’s cat is a larger than the usual housecat we won’t cover him here, but this futuristic kitty definitely fits our criteria.
Final Mewsings: Cats find human suffering entertaining.
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