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.
Duration : 0:8:47
Tags: 50's, Animation, Cars, Design, Disney, Futurism, Highways, Paleo, Retro, Technology, Tomorrowland, Transportation
Air conditioned …
Air conditioned highways? I have a knob inside my car for that. But amazingly, several predictions are right on — poor driving visibility augmented with on-screen radar (infrared), route mapping shown on a screen (GPS), air ambulances (helicopters)… coincidence or prescience?
I checked both of …
I checked both of those out, but its neither of them. This isn’t a Disney thing.
If I ever find it again, I’ll let you know.
Sounds like part of …
Sounds like part of Disney’s Tomorrowland series on space. Both “Man and the Moon” and “Mars and Beyond” cover popular historical theories on extraterrestrial life. You can find them on youtube.
Once, I vaguely …
Once, I vaguely remember seeing an animated video similar to this which showed how extraterrestrials, if observing earth, could easily misunderstand that cars were the dominant organism on earth. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Link please?
Fascinating Jetsons …
Fascinating Jetsons style film. Disney always impresses. There are still many films like this playing at Disneyworld. Good stuff.
Do men not work …
Do men not work anymore? Have women stopped shopping? Is that scenario any less believable or accurate than it would have been in 1958? I see women shopping with their kids all the time.
Gender roles *have* changed since then, but you’re making baseless assumptions about topics this animation had really nothing to say about.
Something about the …
Something about the narrator’s voice is kinda scary — mixed with this utopian look at the future, of course. Everything was so declarative, and don’t forget the whole “DAD goes to work, MOM and kids go to shop …” thing
Amazingly, with all …
Amazingly, with all this progress, gender roles remain persistently rigid and stratified. “The father to his office, mother and son to the shopping center”
They assumed the …
They assumed the highway system, roads and other forms of transportation would be expanded to meet the needs of a growing population. How silly of them.
Another problem is …
Another problem is back in the 50′s they didn’t take in consideration the amount of traffic that we would have today on our highways and streets.
lol. so far into …
lol. so far into the future…and still no metric system!
You’d have to bring …
You’d have to bring everything with you from earth and recycle it endlessly. Wall-E depicts a spaceship with no plants, animals or any resources for that matter. A completely unsustainable biosphere where people just live naturally in space.
Also: an environment where any and all resources would be precious wouldn’t have obese people obsessed with material possessions. They’d be constantly struggling to survive, no matter how many robots were at their disposal.
“moving to space …
“moving to space where there are virtually no natural resources to be had”
Just because there are no trees or lakes in space doesn’t mean theres no natural resources.
There’s nothing …
There’s nothing realistic about the future that Wall-E proposes. If the earth became a pile of garbage, moving to space where there are virtually no natural resources to be had would not be a viable alternative, no matter how many robots you had. It’s probably the most childish of Pixar’s films based on that premise alone.
I think this video just assumes that medicine has advanced and that dieting, exercise and common sense haven’t gone away.
Amazing ” …
Amazing “Electro-supension car” (a bit like a MAGLEV?) at 7:10.
And we thought the futurists working on Minority Report had invented that…
And the Parthenon, …
And the Parthenon, also depicted, is already surrounded by Athens sprawl.
The cantilevered highways are not a bad idea if you have the materials science for it, and actually would ‘deface natural wonders’ less than existing mountain road construction does. There is a valley in Hawaii where they built an elevated interstate because it would have less impact on the environment than a surface road.
SUV’s actually came …
SUV’s actually came about as a result of CAFE standards. Prior to the mid 80′s the station wagon was the largest segment of the ‘family vehicle’ market. When CAFE standards were introduced, technology available to manufacturers at the time made this important segment much more difficult and expensive to produce.
Since the demand for family vehicles wasn’t going to go away, manufacturers responded by shifting this market to the light truck category, which had lower standards.
Behold, SUV’s.
I think a much more …
I think a much more realistic future is Wall-E.
As ashamed as I am to admit it. All this luxury this video shows ignores how fatter people would get.
The episode this is …
The episode this is from is essentially a history of the automobile. By design, this projection is essentially only concerned with automobiles and the highway. It wasn’t intended to be a general treatise on the future of transportation as a whole. There also aren’t any airplanes anywhere.
And I don’t think the 50′s futurists expected the passenger train to recede in popularity as much as it did in America. Once planes became safe and affordable, long-distance passenger trains were dead here.
okay – passenger …
okay – passenger train.
Yeah, I guess the …
Yeah, I guess the part starting at 5:43 just doesn’t exist.
not a train to be …
not a train to be seen anywhere!
Actually you’re …
Actually you’re right. I think I mixed it up with Meet the Robinsons (which very much has 1950s future-aesthetics)… because I could have sworn that Wall-E had some retro-futurism elements in the space-ship, etc, but that doesn’t seem right now that I think of it.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen either of them, so eh D:
I think they got …
I think they got rid of Rocket Rods. It was no where in sight last time I went.
Shame, it was one of the best rides. If anything, Autopia should’ve bit the dust.
I thought it was an …
I thought it was an incredibly naive and preachy film. It also presents a horrible vision of the future to instill onto children.
Also: I saw the statements it had to make on over-consumption and obesity as an obvious criticism of modern day consumer habits and lifestyles. Nothing to do with the 50′s or retro futurism.