RETRO CLASSIC TV COMMERCIAL - 1950s - LIVE BETTER ELECTRICALLY (GE THEATER)

[bigjandles]

cool...... makes me wanna play fallout3

[cynikalb]

wow that's a lot of intro

[force311999]

"today's modern all electric living" would have ben great but they had to make electric so f-cking expensive so it never caught on

[AlbertoBarreradotcom]

Whats the name of the genre of this type of music?

[411Soulman1]

...but if you can afford it Yo' next range should be a VIKING or a WOLF (R).

[411Soulman1]

"Yo next range should be a GENERAL ELECTRIC." Now GE makes GAS - even "duel fuel" ranges.

[64098]

You can really enjoy hi-fi music

Instead of crud that might make you sick

You're as happy as can be

When you Live Better Electrically!!

Great compilation, even with the startling ad at the end!

[elc1960]

I watched this ad again, and discovered something odd: they show a little boy jumping on his bed in front of his parents, but what's strange is that he has bunkbeds but appears to be an only child! What an weird family. Or maybe they were planning for a "little brother or sister" for the boy? "Don't wake up if you hear moaning, Jimmy. It's just me and Mommy 'putting in a call to the stork' for a little brother for you."

[daryll1293]

@elc1960

haha wow... you just made my day :)

[boucheyfilms]

War!....war never changes...

[elc1960]

What? No images of Reddi Kilowatt? For shame Tony . . . for shame . . .

[Sheri451]

I read a book about Ronald Reagan, His daughter Patti sais they had a house built with total electric. He was part of GE Theater and they had speakers in every room including her and her baby brother Rons rooms. Her mother was hooked on nerve pills and would take them and scream and carry on like a nut. She hated Ronald and Jane's son Michael, The poor boy slept in the living room on the sofa when he visited. Nancy would complain about the boy all the time. I guess she was jealous of him.

[musicom67]

@Sheri451 Well, have you seen Michael Reagan lately (he's a radio host). Considering his boyhood, I guess it all makes sense now.

[TheBrotherOfSisters]

People in commercials  were TOOO happy back then.

[willy7369]

thank god for you tube we can relive good television and good wholesome commercials and ads that sold u and entertained u at the same time not like current TV ads and todays crap that litters the channels

[bestbets1]

50-1.00 Really Good Live Better Electrically

[erick103]

LMAO! Whats up with that ad at the end of the black kid eating chicken? Was that a real ad?

[EPICCCOMBOBREAKER]

@erick103

it wasn't at the end of that ad, no.

[JMMoosey]

You can just live better due to the greatness of Ronald Reagan.

[weedermann]

@JMMoosey Yes...I love Sarah Palin parody as much as the next person...

[munnsie100]

i am proud of general electric

[64098]

Darn, I guess I have to give up the gaslights and the wood burning stove.

[jenzeppelin]

very cute, charming little jingle/song.

[herbaliser555]

Ha ha! That kid at the end with the fried chicken X-D

[OldMrMemories]

I'll bet Don Draper and his crew were behind this advertisement

[sony635beyond]

WOW!! sounds great!!! in gonna write today!

[calimar28]

I want to live better electrically!

[munnsie100]

@calimar28 me too!

[zekepig]

socialism American style

[joebradio]

yep, it was thought at the time that the cost of generating electricity would continue to decline.. so much so that when the private power company bought the REA in my hometown they locked in rates (thinking they would go lower). Instead, they of course skyrocketed and to this day there are a batch of homes that tout that old rate as a selling point (didn't apply to new homes or ones with major changes)

[musicom67]

Lucky. If you lived on Long Island (NY), your average 'balanced billing' would range minimally $300 a month for normal family electricity use.

[jimspy1001]

Did anyone else see the slide at 2:58? WTF? Was that a joke or something? Surely they wouldn't have made a real ad like that? A black kid mawing on some fried chicken, going "mmmm-MMM" and then talking in ebonics? I mean, double WTF? Were we really THAT bad back then?

[musicom67]

No, that was an authentic GE advertisement, and was purely inserted DUE to the shock value it causes TODAY, but wasn't even a consideration back in the 40's! YES, Americans saw 'race' quite differently 60 years ago!

[musicom67]

@jimspy1001 That ad at 2:58 appeared in nationwide magazines in the late 1940's. The following quote from Vonnegut makes sense now, doesn't it? "History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again" ... WTF, right? Answer: We really WERE THAT bad back then! ....

[weedermann]

@musicom67 No, "we really WERE THAT bad back then!"--NOT. It was just that mainstream social opinion of anyone non-white could be unabashedly whatever white men said it was.

[inkey2]

@jimspy1001 oh yeah, it was really bad back then when it came to black and white race relations

[murraymae]

@jimspy1001 Yes, we really were that bad back then, and worst!!

cool that you noticed how awful that was, though. I cannot get that live better electrically song out of my head or that horrible cariture! Thanks 1950's.

[inkey2]

@jimspy1001 I have a theory about the Chicken & watermellon stereotype referred to in this video @2:58. The majority of black people before WW2 lived in the southern USA and in areas of agriculture and poultry, live stock etc. If you are starving, have no money, it's not that far a stretch to think that poor blacks could easily grab a mellon or a chicken from a neighboring farm......a chicken or a mellon is a hell of a lot more easy to grab and run with than a pig or a cow

[weedermann]

@inkey2 The fried chicken/watermelon imaging of blacks went back much further. You saw black-faced white men displaying hilarious stupidity overdoing "stereotypical negros" (eating watermelon) in DW Griffith's "Birth Of A Nation", in 1915.

[weedermann]

@jimspy1001 This was about 10-15 years before it was politically correct to pretend to social equality between racial groups. We were still colored/negros then.

[jimspy1001]

@weedermann - Ironically, I hate political correctness. I never say "African-American," I say "black", and I think a lot of people have gone overboard with the "sensitivity" thing (some people call me a racist. So be it.) But that's just WRONG on so many levels.

[KaptKan1]

Prior to this, people used the expression, "Now you're ccoking with gas!" as an expression of "modernity".  GE wanted people to buy its products, so it came up with an alternate slogan, "live better electrically". My grandparents' generation used the old slogan a lot, and I still say, "You're cooking with gas," to express upscale, hi-tech situations.

[timdub70]

Actually, they were trying to convert homes to "total electric" where there are no gas, wood,or other energy sources at the home. I only know of one house with the medallion in Loomis, Nebraska. I trick or treated at that house every year from 1964 into the early 70s.

[musicom67]

Interesting. Also, i'm told there were tracts of all-electric homes in OK and TX.

[neopia9]

@musicom67 I grew up in New Hampshire. Our house went up sometime in the 70s and it was originally all-electric, heating and all. Not until the mid-90s did we switch to propane for heating and hot water.

[force311999]

@timdub70 did they put medallion on the houses????

some villages have all electric homes if they have there own power co. and keep it cheep 

[mrath]

If you are viewing this commercial, wouldn't you already have electricity?

[DanielNievlas]

dear god you have a point....

[ForzaJersey]

I think this commercial was to encourage the purchase of more GE products

[musicom67]

Not in the rural areas of the USA during the 50's... You just still listened to battery-operated radios ("Farm Radios") and saw electric TV when you visited town.

[neopia9]

@musicom67 Besides,  even if you did have electricity, I think this commercial was more about selling GE appliances versus electricity itself. A lot of people back then used other energy sources such as gas for cooking and heating.

[dave00004483]

Wow have times ever changed. In those days, they were promoting the use of electricity--- sure, turn on the TV, air conditioner, and all the lights! It's cheap! It's efficient! Fast forward 50 years later, and now it's all about being "green" and shutting that damn stuff OFF. A complete turnaround. Interesting too, that Ronald Reagan, a popular GE Spokesman, firmly believed in technological advancements solving most of mankind's problems. Most people today wouldn't agree.

[DanielNievlas]

most people in the 20th century would certainly agree electricity was for the better of mankind, in survival and in health...lol common sense?

if you still don't see it that way..try researching mankind's problems in third world countries:)

[CrashingCrockery]

Again, if it weren't for electricity, it is doubtful folks would have learned of the Joys of Electricity! Alternative methods would be interesting. Smoke signals? Hee!

[BaronDixon]

Paul, you should post YOUR commercial of this Jingle as a video response here.

[miket1m]

I send 10 cents where?

[bestbets1]

@miket1m "Live Better Electrically,

P.O. Box 505 Great Neck L.L

New York

[tall32guy]

Heheh! So cute and cool! Love it. :)

[cheyenne86]

Happy new year 2009

[musicom67]

Can anybody identify these singers? The vocal arrangement is quite interesting, as is the key female vocalist. Probably studio folks...?