Christopher Cook wrote…
I remember seeing The Jetsons on at night; I was six when it premiered. We had color TV. Dad worked in the electronics department at Sears so he got the family a set.
I also read that ABC still didn't have color capabilities yet so they had The Jetsons (and The Flintstones) transmitted to them in color from NBC and ABC would relay them to their affiliates. We were in the San Diego market and this posed a secondary issue. The ABC station there was XETV/channel 6 and it was licensed to Tijuana, Mexico. As such, they could not have shows sent from ABC so they either had shows recorded "bicycled" to them from an ABC station (likely KABC in Los Angeles) or they were transmitted from another ABC station (again likely KABC) which XETV beamed to households.
That sounds like a lot of work just to get a show on the air that I wanted to see. It's still a very vivid memory for me, watching the first episode of The Jetsons. I remember a certain joy at recognizing a few of the voice actors and a certain frustration that the end credits went by so fast. I wanted to study them and see which names I could recognize from other Hanna-Barbera shows.
Watching TV was very different back in the days before VCRs or DVRs or anything that let you record the show and watch it when you wanted to watch it and as many times as you wanted to watch it and even still-frame moments. Back then, you got one shot at it.
I have a story I've told…somewhere…about helping get George O'Hanlon hired to reprise his role as George Jetson in the revival of the series. I could have sworn I've told it on this blog but I can't find it anywhere. When I get back from Comic-Con, I'll search my files to see where I could have told it and if I can't find that I did, I'll write it up and post it here. Basically, they initially didn't cast Mr. O'Hanlon to do his own voice because they thought he was dead…and because of Leonard Maltin and me, they found out otherwise.