All cars fly, and all buildings are miles above the ground, standing on stilts. The ground is rarely, if ever, actually shown. It's been theorized that maybe the world flooded, or went through some environmental disaster. (A Harvey Birdman episode joked that they lived so high up because the ice caps had melted and flooded the earth.)note Actually, in the original 1960's series, ground level was shown on a few occasions and it was perfectly fine, with trees and grassy hills. The whole idea of an uninhabitable Earth's surface in The Jetsons came in the 1980's revival, when the Green Aesop trope was popular, so the 1990 movie shows people all living above a thick layer of pollution.
It would appear that the only human ethnic group to survive into the future were Occidental. Worst case scenario: the result of racial cleansing via historic war or genetic modification. Only applies for the original TV show. Later additions would throw in a Token Minority, most likely because someone took note of this rather unsettling environment.
George is forty and Jane is thirty-three. Judy is sixteen. This means that George was twenty-four and Jane was seventeen when she became pregnant with Judy.
In the second season: the family learns that the priest who married George and Jane was actually a con-man, and that this somehow meant they were never actually married. This not only means Judy and Elroy are bastard children, but that their government is a theocracy, likely Christianity or one of its derivations. Were other religions driven to extinction in this universe? And what about people who aren't religious?
Fortunately, this is a relatively common trope . . . a long-married couple suddenly finding out they're not really married because the marriage license is flawed or the person officiating the wedding turns out to be a fraud. It happened on, or appeared to happen to the main characters on The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, Our Miss Brooks (Mr. and Mrs. Conklin), The Flintstones, and Gilligan's Island (to Mr. and Mrs. Howell), to name a few. The Jetsons, using this plot in the 80's, does differ from earlier examples, where inevitably it turns out to be a mistake (i.e. the radio station made a mistake on Gilligan's Island) or one or more of the main characters turns out to be a victim of a practical joke (i.e Our Miss Brooks).
George and Jane would probably end up being heavily audited or investigated by the government, since they would have been routinely filling out federal or tax forms as a married couple, when they technically weren't.
Generally, if a couple enters into a spousal relationship in good faith, most Western governments will consider it legitimate.
Despite taking place 100 years in the future and technology advancing accordingly, the society in the Jetsons has not culturally progressed past the early 1960's. Especially true of the first season. Women work exclusively as housewives or secretaries and must rely entirely on their husband's salary. George is stuck in the rat race in a miserable and menial job, of which he lives in constant fear of his job security. By acting out familiar sitcom scenarios in the far flung future, The Jetsons paints a picture of a culturally stagnant world.
From Robo-WrestleMania:
Fridge Horror / Tear Jerker: In this universe, The Big Show was frozen for a century. When news of his disappearance came out, wouldn't WWE investigate? What about his Real Life family? Assuming they exist in the Jetsons universe, how would they have felt? Had Elroy's time travel equation not played a part in the plot, would it have turned into a Futurama-esque situation?
