Magic Highway USA (HQ)

An excerpt from the 1958 Disneyland TV Show episode entitled Magic Highway USA. In this last part of the show, an exploration into possible future Transportation technologies is made. It's hard to believe how little we've accomplished on this front since 1958, and how limited the scope for imagining such future technologies has become. Witness an artifact from a time where the future was greeted with optimism. Note the striking animation style here, achieved with fairly limited animation and spectacular layouts.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Transportation
• Highways
• Retro
• Paleo
• Futurism
• Cars
• Design
• Technology
• Tomorrowland
• Disney
• Animation
• 50's

[TDSfilmStudios]

Do you know that "Parking spaces will come to you!" What if your about to open your car door and your pulled down 8 floors and fall through a gap. There are so may dangers! I think it would be better if you kept things the same for now Disney.

[GreeboWorshipper]

Yeah, everything should just stay the same forever. Wouldn't want to take any chances!

[Surricks]

They seemed to think the world would be mostly depopulated, and that passenger trains would not exist.

[GreeboWorshipper]

The lack of people is a product of the modern art style combined with the frugal nature of animation for television. I'd recommend looking at the other programs Disney produced for the Tomorrowland series of TV shows before deriving some sort of social statement.

Passenger trains aren't mentioned because this vision of the future focuses on highways. Airplanes, motorcycles, commuter trains.and a multitude of other methods of transportation also aren't shown.

[GreeboWorshipper]

The assumption that this was developed merely by "cartoonists" is complete ignorance. Disney hired numerous scientists and futurists to work on the Tomorrowland series of TV shows. Automakers in particular had significant input into the development of this short.

Also, the predictions made in the video were meant to span centuries of development, so it's a bit premature to say they were wrong. As many have noted, a few of the devices and concepts here have already come to pass.

[jnkowens]

It was so enjoyable to watch this! Thank you for sharing.

[TDSfilmStudios]

???

[aayevents]

2:49 is Houston, 3:40 is the Google car, 7:36 will be the whole world once we implement this... maybe the lack of jet and atom cars is the reason that people fight electric cars to much.

[WDI2008]

Wasn't this featured in the Queue Area of Rocket Rods at Disneyland ? And in Horizons at Epcot ?

[Drebe73]

This is the world I've always dreamed of living in. Love these old Disney specials. I was inspired to look for this video after reading about it in the book Walt and the Promise of Progress City.

[TheMellowPumpkin]

This is why we Can't have nice things like this, because of stupid, ignorant people who hold on to the past and obsolete things like war and internal combustion engines. If we suppressed all the stupid people and gave the past a slip, we could all be living in a better tomorrow, like this.

[knightoflambda]

I get the weirdest reverse-nostalgia watching these reels.