“The action game that’s out of this world!”
Released in 1963 by Milton Bradley, the Jetsons Fun Pad game took a location directly from the animated television series and adapted it for family game night.
The Jetsons was an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera that originally aired from 1962 to 1963 in a primetime slot on the ABC network. The show followed the Space Age lives and adventures of the Jetson family: George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy. The Fun Pad was an entertainment complex featured in the episode A Date with Jet Screamer (season 1, episode 2).
GAMEPLAY
The central component of the game was the Fun Pad, a plastic structure assembled from three pads attached to a space dome that balanced on the tip of a stand. The object of the game was to distribute all 18 blue plastic space cars across the three pads without upsetting the balance and causing the cars to fall from the structure.
The spinner featured eight segments: two each in green, orange, pink, and “Choice”. Each of the three colours corresponded to one of the pads on the Fun Pad structure.
The player who first spun “Choice” started the game. Players then took turns spinning and placing a single space car onto the corresponding coloured pad. When a player landed on a “Choice” section of the spinner, they were permitted to place a space car on any pad. If a player caused the structure to tip and one or more cars fell from the pads, that player was eliminated from the game.
Once all the cars were successfully placed on the pads, play continued with players removing cars one at a time, again based on the spinner. The game ended when all the cars were placed and removed. The winner or winners were the players who never caused the structure to lose its balance, which could result in a single winner or multiple winners.
IN THE BOX
A complete game included the Fun Pad structure, consisting of the stand, pads, and space dome, 18 blue plastic space cars, and a spinner. Instructions were printed inside the box top.
COLLECTOR CONSIDERATIONS
Milton Bradley released numerous board and card games based on popular television series during the 1960s and later decades. Titles such as I Dream of Jeannie Game, The Addams Family Card Game, Milton the Monster, and M.A.S.H. adapted familiar small-screen characters for tabletop play. These games make strong additions to collections featuring pop culture properties and licensed merchandise, demonstrating how television franchises were extended through board and card games.
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