Meet George Jetson. No, I'm not signing the theme song. I mean, get ready to meet him, because he is supposed to be born today. Or, ya know, maybe not. Welcome to one of the weirdest debates on the internet. The whole conversation began when studious fans of The Jetsons noticed that the show was supposed to take place a hundred years from its original airdate. Since the show came out in 1962, fans have come to believe that The Jetsons takes place in 2062. So why is 2022 significant? In an episode of the original series, George confirms that he's 40 years old.
With the aforementioned information in mind, Jetsons fans began to pore over every episode hoping to find a specific date for George's birthday. Why spend time on such an inane pursuit, you ask? There are few things more exciting to pedantic fans like myself than watching a piece of media that takes place in the future slowly become anachronistic. It ain't much, but it's honest work.
Let's dispense with the date, first: As far as we can tell, there is no canonical evidence that George Jetson's birthday is July 31. Or any date; we can't find anything in the actual show that ever commits to a birthday for this poor awful man. No episodes seem to take place during it, it never seems to have been referenced as a plot point in any of the show's three seasons (either the first, from 1962, or the two revival seasons from the '80s), and the only source that's ever cited for it is an easily edited Fandom wiki. (Meanwhile, Wikipedia has locked down edits on George's page in order to combat the hordes of George Jetson birthday truthers currently storming its gates.) So there's that part de-bunked/definitively de-funned. The 2022 part, meanwhile, does have at least a little, squint-and-it-tracks, smidge of canonicity to it. As our own colleagues at Gizmodo pointed out a few years back—while tackling the equally important question of whether George and Jane's seven-year age gap revealed uncomfortable truths about their relationship—there's text that suggests that George Jetson is, in fact, 40.