Futurama

[LittleBigMan]

In the 1939 World's Fair, General Motors ran an exhibit called, Futurama, in which GM pitched it's vision of the world of tomorrow--1960. The following video is an entertaining look at this vision. While some aspects of the vision are startlingly accurate, a great deal is just as ridiculous, as you can well expect. (This video runs about 22 minutes. You should let it download for a while before you try to view it. I hope it's compatible with your media player. Click on MPEG-1. If it starts running, click pause and wait for complete download, or it will not play smoothly.)

http://www.open-video.org/details.php?videoid=4400

[RonH]

Pete, you have way too much time on your hands.
Doesn't your wife have some household projects for you to do? ;)



I liked the "superhighway". Lots of lanes but no cars. :)
I wish the trafffic around here would keep the speed at 50 mph (80 km/hr) as mentioned in the video. :(

[LittleBigMan]

I liked the "superhighway". Lots of lanes but no cars. :)

I liked quotes that went something like:

"The modern city of 1960. Fresh, clean air."

"Highways made safe, fast. Radio-controls automatically maintain safe space between vehicles."

"Lighted tubing in the curbing provides continuous lighting in the lanes."

"Each lane separated by dividers to keep traffic safely apart."

"Quarter-mile high skyscrapers each have landing pads for helicopters and
auto-gyros." (George Jetson, I think)

"New, redesigned cities with much more space allow the removal of undesireable business districts and slums."

[randya]

GM had a similar exhibit at the 1964 World's Fair in NYC. Of course, they were also pitching nuclear energy ('atoms for peace') as clean and safe at the World's Fair in 1964, too...as an eight year old, I got a nice irradiated dime from the friendly folks at that exhibit,to put in my pocket next to my reproductive organs, proving just how safe nuclear power was!!!