Judy's Birthday Surprise

Judy's Birthday Surprise
File:.png
Premiere date	September 19, 1985
Run time	21:59
Starring	George O'Hanlon Penny Singleton Daws Butler Janet Waldo Don Messick Jean Vander Pyl Frank Welker
Music composed by	Hoyt Curtin
Writer(s)	Mark Young
Voice director(s)	Gordon Hunt
Episode navigation
← Previous	Next →
Title card

"Judy's Birthday Surprise" is the fourth episode of The Jetsons season two, and the twenty-eighth overall. It aired on September 19, 1985 in syndicated markets that featured The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera programming blocks. It was written by Mark Young, and voice directed by Gordon Hunt.

Judy realizes there's more to popularity when she thinks everyone forgot her birthday.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor
Astro	Don Messick
Judy Jetson	Janet Waldo
Nick Nova	Unavailable
Andy Andromeda	Unavailable
Curly Quasar	Unavailable
George Jetson	George O'Hanlon
Cosmo Spacely	N/A (or indistinguishable)
Elroy Jetson	Daws Butler
News reporter	Unavailable
Jane Jetson	Penny Singleton
Torpedo Tucker
Jet Screamer
Mickey Meteorite	Unavailable
Rosie	Jean Vander Pyl
Orbitty	Frank Welker
Saturn slugs	N/A
Henry Orbit

Locations

• Earth
  • United States
    • Orbit City
      • Skypad Apartments
        • [[Jetson residence
      • Orbit High School

Objects

• Di-Di (Selma Diamond)
• Memo Minder
• Chutes
• Visaphone
• Plutonian Poetry Vol. 1

Vehicles

• Flying cars

Music

The music was composed and conducted by Hoyt Curtin.

Release

Dates are in order of release:

• United States: September 19, 1985 in syndication

Behind the scenes

• The episode tries to fill out time by beginning the episode with Astro chasing a cat, and another scene with George being woken up by his talking alarm.
• This episode attempts to deal with the popularity of Judy, which was always implied in the first season.
• Even though Orbit High School had appeared in the opening theme song, it hadn't appeared in a single appeared in season one.
• Andy Andromeda is the first African American in the series.
• This episode reveals one source of power for space cars is fuel pellets.
• Judy mentions a pancake tablet, which replaces real food in this episode.
• Judy is a Libra.
• Judy reveals her limerick interest.

Errors

• Even though Judy has her own car in this episode, in later episodes she talks about wanting her own.
• Orbit High looks nothing like it does in the opening theme song.
• Having Spacely at Judy's birthday party seems highly improbable. To add to that, he's only in one shot, and when he says happy birthday, it's simply his mouth moving along with the family saying it. This suggests that it was an addition by the animator(s), instead of a script direction.
• The boy at the right of Astro, when he pops at the cake, doesn't have lips.

Everlasting influence

• Flashbacks to this episode are shown in "The Century's Best."

In other languages

Language	Name	Meaning

Home availability

• In the United States:
  • June 2, 2009: Warner Home Video releases The Jetsons: Season 2, Volume 1 on DVD.
  • October 13, 2020: Warner Home Video releases The Jetsons: The Complete Series (Hanna-Barbera Diamond Collection edition) on DVD.
  • June 21, 2022: Warner Home Video releases The Jetsons: The Complete Series on DVD.