setting is combined with standard sitcom elements, which serve as the series' main focus. Smithsonian's Matt Novak, in an article called "Why The Show Still Matters" asserts, "Today The Jetsons stands as the single most important piece of 20th century futurism." Novak continues, "It’s easy for some people to dismiss The Jetsons as just a TV show, and a lowly cartoon at that. But this little show—for better and for worse—has had a profound impact on the way that Americans think and talk about the future." Reception After the announcement of the fall 1962 network television schedule Time magazine characterized The Jetsons as one of several new situation comedies (along with The Beverly Hillbillies, I'm Dickens... He's Fenster, and Our Man Higgins) that was "stretching further than ever for their situations"; after all the season's new shows had premiered—a season "responding to Minow's exhortations"—the magazine called the series "silly and unpretentious, corny and clever, now and then quite funny." Of all the aforementioned programs in the Time article including The Jetsons, only The Beverly Hillbillies (which would remain on the air until CBS's rural purge in 1971) would make it back for a 2nd season in 1963. Thirty years later, Time wrote: "In an age of working mothers, single parents and gay matrimony (same-sex marriage), George Jetson and his clan already seem quaint even to the baby boomers who grew up with them." In contrast, economist Jeffrey A. Tucker wrote in 2011 that The Jetsons is "distinguished in science-fiction lore by the fact that it is a rare attempt in this genre that actually succeeds in predicting the future." Apart from flying cars, which are as yet unfeasible in the real world ("a lot of fun, until that first accident occurs"), much of the technology of The Jetsons has become commonplace: people now communicate via video chat on flat screens; domestic robots such as the Roomba are widespread, and various high-tech devices are used for leisure. Tucker notes that The Jetsons depicts neither a grim dystopia nor an idyllic utopia, but rather a world where capitalism and entrepreneurship still exist and technology has not changed fundamental elements of human nature. In 2017, Devon Maloney from The Verge described the show as a "bone-chilling dystopia", stating how a reboot-comic book revealed that an environmental apocalypse caused humans to seek refuge in aerial cities. Maloney also notes the lack of people of