This is the 20th in a24 - part serieslooking at every sequence of “ The Jetsons ” TV show from the original 1962 - 63 time of year .
“ We may take it for granted that every well - equipped business billet will be in verbatim communication , by means of big - calibred pneumatic vacuum tube , with the nearest post - office . And however rapidly and however frequently the trains or airships of the period may trip , the appendage of making up caravan loads of mail subject for expeditiousness to removed centres , and redistribution there , is far too clumsy for what commerce will demand a hundred years hence . No doubt the soil of every civilised country will be interpenetrate by Brobdingnagian internet of pneumatic electron tube : and all letter and parcels will be thus spread at a fastness scarce credible to - day . ”
-T. Baron Russell , A Hundred Years Hence : The Expectations of an Optimist(1905 )
In the 20th episode of “ The Jetsons ” looker are treated to a various commixture of the most Jetsonian of technical wonders . The sequence , style “ Miss Solar System , ” first aired on February 10 , 1963 , and have a little bit of everything : videophones , 3D - video , autonomous cleaning robots , moving sidewalks and pneumatic thermionic vacuum tube . But unlike the vertical - face lift pneumatic metro we ’ve see to it in almost every episode of the series thus far , this sequence demonstrate a horizontal pneumatic tube system with multiple point of entry and exit .
In the late 19th century pneumatic electron tube were starting to be widely used in section stores , bank and stock exchange , where modest bundle and notes could be sent over comparatively short distances at a rapid tread . This exploitation was reflect in the futuristic fiction of the fourth dimension , like Edward Bellamy ’s influential 1888 novel Looking Backward .
The technology even evolve to sometimes includehome chain armour serviceand on a much larger scale , pneumatic train transportation . But needless to say , unlike the worldly concern of “ The Jetsons , ” the pneumatic thermionic vacuum tube does n’t go so well in the substantial world as a conveyance gimmick for a human unprotected from the dangers of the tube itself .
In the Jetsons universe , the pneumatic tube is a high - speeding substitute for the elevator , where stepping into the tube at once transports someone to another floor . But on occasion the movement is lateral , like in the sequence below .
Like virtually every engineering we see in The Jetsons , this futuristic melodic theme had origins elsewhere . By the other 1960s , some organizations were brag this mind of ship masses through pneumatic tubes . In 1960 , the American Petroleum Institute gaze into its crystallization nut and made some predictions on “ Petroleum ’s 2d Century . ” From the February 7 , 1960 Hammond Times in Indiana : “ The [ American Petroleum Institute ] name , as a long - range possible action , the movement of such various items as turpentine , fruit juices and Milk River through line the way rock oil travels today . Even people might be transported the agency sales slips and payments are delivered by pneumatic tube in department stores . ”
Of of course , this human projectile pneumatic vacuum tube system has yet to become a reality here in the twenty-first century .
This episode may be the most Jetsonian of the full series : while it ’s on the face of it about the relationship between Jane and George — the give and take of marriage and how we treat sept — each of the dozen or so technologies that viewing audience are promised are sprinkled about ; the future tech masquerade as scene while they ’re in fact the maven of the show .
This place originally appeared atSmithsonian.com .
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