GM Futurama - 1939 World's Fair - Part 2

[MaryStewart]

there's great ideas here!

[Ropponmatsu2]

A GIANT DIRIGIBLE HANGER! Resting in a pool of liquid!



[ChrisVaughn85]

We wanted this...and Hitler wanted GERMANIA!

[MrBroadcastme]

"1 million persons"fuck u old guy u degenerate bastured!!!!

[redjupiter2]

PLEASE pay attention. This film was from the year 1939. It depicts what GM wanted for 1960. Al freeway covered country where OIL is king and cars are necessary. Well we have it, and now it is in massive disrepair and our nation is addicted to OIL. Ahhh the future.

[Vapora]

This just blew my mind! I can't believe we had all this stuff back in the 1960's. Why did we get rid of all the awesome stuff...aren't we supposed to be moving forward with technology?

[eclipse572]

by the year 2200+ our documentaries similar to this (on this day) will be laughed at by people from that era

[Gizoughte]

well at least there aren't lady gaga or justin bieber in the 1960's

[hueypham04]

for some reason i feel there needs to be a guy and two robot puppets watching this with me

[flexwheelR]

Dear 2011,

By now I thought you would have had flying cars and teleporation devices...but congratualtions on your iPhone 4.

Sincerely,

1960

[Robo991]

Damn, cant imagine this was made almost 72 years ago..

[0814ma]

The idea was that the highways would displace - i.e., DESTROY - the slums, and that their residents would disperse into better-quality neighborhoods.

That was the idea behind public housing - "Let's tear down the slums and build new ones." It didn't work.

[PtAltmVansanTarr]

@theheightsrock adverts for an engineering solution to contemporary problems w/o taking human nature into account....

[rpmasse01]

How can you have fresh air in a city made for cars...? Didn't they thought of that?

[srita764]

ITS DUBAI!!!

[srita764]

avoid the slum areas. new york wanted to incorporate the slum areas into the city...

P.S the music is corny as hell.

[Evilfisher]

i wanna see the modern version of this...

*turs on TV* argg pop and lady gaga everywhere

*turns off*

[gopconservative78]

too bad this was 50 years ago!

[RedWolfSV]

How very optimistic. Some of the technical achievements were spot on but society is still made up of people and people cause many of their own problems. Technology alone cannot cure human nature. That has to take place in the soul.

P.S. Where's my autogyro? I woke up in the wrong world . . . again!!!

[bettygoodbody]

the only dirigible in use then was the goodyear blimp. they got the freeways really down to what happened, and the roads. they did not count on vietnam but so many things are right. there is a landing deck for helicoptors across the street from me but i doubt in 1960 that was the case. no elevated sidewalks. and the air, whew!!! big error there. see the funny looking thing holding up the bridge, too thin at the bottom. the guys in the film that were young ended up in ww2.

[1point61803]

Wow, I didn't know Snow White and The Wizard of Oz were made before WWII.

[GregRt66]

This is considered to be retro futurism

[GregRt66]

This is considered to be retro futurism

[rhxthm]

this is what we were doing while poland and lithuania got raped by the soviet union and germany? oh lol, america.

[XFTW3]

they were suppose to build all this in 21 years?

[snorobindo]

A piece of anthology...Such enthousistic vision juste before WW2

[cell9song]

"And highways will be routed AWAY from such undesirable areas such as "SLUMS"

evidently, the world of tomorrow doesn't include those pesky "Negroes"

[cme98]

what drugs were executives at GM on when they approved this film? The city of 1960, looks more like Debai, 2010.

[allpainppd]

...and just who in the hell did they think was going to be paying for all thoes ivory towers, and streets of gold. Swing and a miss.

[IBothSuckAndBlow]

Well they got one thing right, there's fuck all trees.

[Doomsday2060]

'On many of the buildings are landing decks... for helicopters'

I didn't even know helicopters was a word back in 1939...

I could watch these futuristic 30s videos all day long. thanks for uploading

[jennifermallet]

Thanks to RR13 for this.... so helpful in my research.

[Firefox9895]

Is that music electronic or has the age of the film made it sound like that?

[3zy]

@Firefox9895 Sounds like an electric organ, the type they used on the radio at the time.

[ntmoe]

The music starting at 0:56 is "May Night" by Selim Palmgren.

[theheightsrocks]

It sure looks pretty: too bad they couldn't have imagined suburban sprawl, 2-hour commutes (even with the monster highways), zero mass transit, isolated communities, the evisceration of our cities, the alienation of our people...

Jeez, America: are you really surprised things are the way they are right now?

[mikper7]

@theheightsrocks Oh yeah, things are terrible now. Significant recognition of child abuse and molestation (unheard of 70 years ago), significant increase in life expectancy, significant advances in cancer treatment, significantly more advanced crime solving techniques, significantly less industrial waste and pollution. Sure, things are absolutely terrible now compared to 70 years ago... Lighten up.

[mikper7]

@mikper7 Not to mention segregation, rampant and accepted racism, and fairly regular lynchings of blacks in the south. It was a wonderful world I tell ya!

[theheightsrocks]

@mikper7 Look, there's good and bad in everything: I know things have gotten better in a lot of ways. Bigotry is immoral, and institutionalized hate is a nice thing to be rid of.

But they've gotten worse, too: the increase in life expectancy you cite is a wash, seeing as how the rising obesity and diabetes epidemics have caused average life expectancies to trend DOWNWARDS (see cdc.gov for stats).

[theheightsrocks]

@mikper7 Oh yeah, the advances in cancer treatment you cite are unattainable for most poor folks because of the rampant inflation of the cost of health care. There's less pollution per capita... but more people live out in the sprawl, driving more miles, adding to their waistline while subtracting from their lifespan... can't really say it's all groovy, friend...

[hallj100]

I hope everybody who saw this at the Fair got their money back by now.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The future looked like Los Angeles?

[ChristineMcQueen]

"Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?"

[mrlandroverdiscovery]

wow what happend to the world they had great plans for it? 

[huibruben]

in a church that can be wathever we make it...it's the ONLY reference to a democratic civil sociëty. And there's a lot of GM sighns everywhere, ofcource.

Otherwise, the people who made this GM Futurama display really had good contact to technicians.

And that other notion: technology saving time yet creating new jobs, I don't think it's completely unrealistic.

It's just that the populationgrowth as it was in 1939 hasn't kept steem.

Today, the census is much lower, it takes the steam off progress

[mattfishca]

It is interesting to think that today, we live far after the "future" envisioned here. Many of the things we have today could not even be fathomed, even by future theorists in 1939.

[noxure]

@mattfishca Computers are doubling speed every 18months, thats 100 times faster every 10 years, 10.000 times every 20 years and 1.000.000 times faster every 30 years...

So, a task that takes your desktop computer 11 days to complete will only take 1 second in 2040. It's impossible to imagine what scientific discoveries and engineering possibilities will be in our grasp on this scale of advancement.

[dzonikg]

@noxure

so what ,computer is not a scientrist.In a fact since 2000 there was almost no single invention.

[noxure]

@dzonikg You have no idea what you're talking about.

[oqmedia]

I love the dirigible hanger! Let's not forget the futuristic music....

[ncmountaingal1960]

Looks more like 2060 than 1960. Think of how old fashioned 1960 seems to us now. Just look at old tv shows from that time! Of course, World War II stopped all of mankind's progress and put us 20 years behind where we should have been by 1960. How dumb war is! Think if all the money spent on wars would have been spent on man's progress how much better the world would be today!

[RedWolfSV]

@ncmountaingal1960 Amen!

[VagianTuerous]

The future ain't what it used to be, lol.

[RedWolfSV]

@VagianTuerous Well put  ;-)

[BoogsterSU2]

@missmolly842 WTF?? this is NOT a cartoon you idiot!

[salbella1]

in the future we'll all have "self-emptying bowel micro robots" so we never have to get up while lying naked in a been bag chair eating cheetos. I saw it on national geographic

[insideadhd]

Can you imagine the viewers' experience of seeing this much of the world from this perspective? How many average people do you think had traveled by air at this point?

[jmrwacko]

2:51 Wow, correct prediction of helipads!

[ncmountaingal1960]

Too bad World War II interrupted these "plans". Think of all the money that was wasted on that war that could have advanced mankind.

[jsl151850b]

I like the center tower suspension bridge.

They exist now.

[hamster700]

its facinating to see how pple backthen invisioned the future which is now are past

[websuspect]

River city kind of looks like Missouri.

[LordoftheKaty]

I want that model city!!!

[indabushwoman]

And this is how the brainwashing of America began...

[wnxsystem]

and to think alot of these concepts are used today- the multi laned highway, suburbs, city centers etc

[EdisonTechCenter]

the future... suburbs, no one thinking of the social impact of being great distances from friends, parents, relatives. but still an interesting concept at the time.

[WorldwideChurchOfGod]

The kids on here don't seem to understand how revolutionary this World's Fair was. Consider the fact that this was nearly 70 years ago. Most of the country was still using dirt roads!

[orion1077]

@WorldwideChurchOfGod

The kids here DO understand what this was. They DO know that people back then lived in MUCH different conditions and that this affected their imagination, beliefs, and hopes for the future...and ALSO that these hopes were being relentlessly used to drive them and get them to serve interests of the few and the knowledgable....These days are exactlly over,but we're getting there...for example the "church of god" has hardly any impact on the kids today...thank f**k for that

[orion1077]

@WorldwideChurchOfGod

correction.."these days AREN't exactlly over..."

[LukeWarm05]

Boy! I can't wait for 1960!

[TheMorgothBauglir]

@LukeWarm05 Me Neither! :D

[Trekkerjon]

The dream pretty much became reality. A lot of old architecture was destroyed during the 50s and 60s.

[UncleFeedle]

Sadly, WWII was about to break out and the dream soon died. I only wonder how things might have been had the war not occurred. It's such a shame. This was old-school America, with vision, conviction and balls. Those qualities seemed to die in the war as well.

[Mathadar]

Alot of what was mentioned in both parts did happen. Zoning for Residential Buisness etc. Did happen. Same for the parks, just go to Memphis and tell me it doesn't look like those "images of the Future"