Judy's Turn To Cry

We're talking about Judy Jetson here lately so let's have a look at the lovely young lady when she's a bit older. As you may recall, after they did The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera did a series in which the infants Pebbles and Bamm Bamm were advanced to teenage. Several times, they also tried to sell a series that would do likewise with the futuristic family, adding about ten years to Judy and her brother Elroy. This is one of about eighty thousand presentation drawings that were done over the years to try and make that show happen, most of them the handiwork of the late Iwao Takamoto.

At one point, I was asked to do some writing for it and it's kind of interesting why they picked me. Someone, probably Joe Barbera, decided that the key to the idea was to make them like Donny and Marie Osmond were on their hit variety series produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. I was working for H-B but I was also, at the same time, working for Sid and Marty Krofft. So it seemed logical to turn things over to me, even though I hadn't worked on the Donny and Marie show. I didn't understand that, either. In any case, I never did any development work on The Judy and Elroy Show (or whatever it might have been called) but I did have one short meeting with Mr. Barbera about it. I remember there was a drawing similar to this one and there was also a duplicate of it in which the boy had reddish hair. I asked why and Mr. B explained that they weren't certain if it should be a sister/brother show or, like Pebbles and Bamm Bamm, a girl friend/boy friend show. So they had some art in which the boy wasn't supposed to be an older Elroy. He was supposed to be a new character who was dating Judy. The Freudian possibilities were infinite.

There were also a couple versions of this show developed that revived the Jet Screamer character and had him dating Judy, or maybe one was about Judy chasing after him or something. All the permutations I saw also had Astro the Dog in them and some had the little character you see above who was Astro's nephew, I suppose. During the meeting to discuss my possible involvement, he didn't have a name yet. I suggested "Tralfaz" and Barbera looked at me oddly and asked, "Where have I heard that name before?" I explained to him that in one episode of The Jetsons, it was revealed that Astro's birth name was Tralfaz. J.B. laughed and said, "How come you know that kind of stuff and I don't?" There was also a version where Astro was somehow in charge of watching over a whole litter of little dogs like this one. Not long after that meeting, H-B did a cartoon no one remembers called Astro and the Space Mutts.

That's about all there is to this story. And don't worry, I haven't forgotten. Another chapter in the ongoing series of how Scrappy Doo was born will be along soon in this space.