How the Past Saw the Future

[Deco-Doll-1928]

I don't know if anyone has seen this video, but it is probably one of the funniest videos I have seen. I've been always curious about this topic (how the past sees the future). One of my classmates many years ago, told me that by the year 2000 we would have flying cars. Year 2000 passes, where's my flying car?! lol!

[video=youtube;H1aNPPj6AAY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1aNPPj6AAY[/video]

 

[thecardigankid]

Ooooh swish!

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

At least some of "Eve's" clothing looked somewhat wearable. And I've seen plenty of heels with cutouts - but that poor man! Ouch! That was just plain hideous. Futuristic Assyrian? I've got a fun book, "The Future that Never Was". Plenty of oddball/amusing ideas (and a few on target). Maybe I've just not seen them, but future prediction, particularly in regards to fashion, seems to have died out. But now I'm feeling the urge to search YouTube for more videos like this one. They are tons of fun! But I do want to have a WayBack machine just so I could ask them "what were you thinking?"

 

[Steven180]

Hilarious.

A "hair raising time" came a little before 2000 in bouffants!

And unfortunately, skirts have almost disappeared entirely.

"...candies for cuties," why don't they just say chocolate?

...and is that ITN the same as today, or just a distributor mark?

M.

 

[davidraphael]

here are some visions of the future from the Worlds Fair of 1939:

FUTURAMA!
part 1:
[video=youtube;74cO9X4NMb4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cO9X4NMb4[/video]

part 2:
[video=youtube;WU7dT2HId-c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU7dT2HId-c[/video]

The above are public domain so you can download a copy of this legally.

1939 ELEKTRO the Smoking Robot!!!
[video=youtube;T35A3g_GvSg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35A3g_GvSg[/video]

Birth of TV at World's Fair
[video=youtube;U4hPX_PLC-o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4hPX_PLC-o[/video]

(Not quite the birth, of course - the Third Reich had already been broadcasting for a few years...)

 

[scottyrocks]

The man's hairstyle looked like it was from the 1960s at best (or maybe the 1760s). They should really try to get their decades (or centuries) correct.

 

[C-dot]

These predictions are hilarious now. Like this car, the Simca Fulgar, which we were all supposed to be driving by 2000:

They seem to have based a lot of their predictions off the Jetsons lol

 

[olive bleu]

I absolutely love this stuff.can't wait to watch the clips at home (can't really watch videos on my work computer..)

 

[Connery]

These postcards were produced by German chocolate company Hildebrands in the beginning of the 20th century and pictured what life would be like in the year 2000.

A Quick Stroll on the Water

Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine Future TSA Agent

Roofed Cities

Weather Control Machine

Summer Holidays at the North Pole

Personal Airships

 

[olive bleu]

That's awesome..so they expected travel and technology would change, but not fashion??

 

[wahine]

Well, it seems that at least one of the visions came almost true, didn't it.

Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine Future TSA Agent

 

[DNO]

Well, as Criswell said in the introduction to Plan 9 from Outer Space:

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future."

And you may want to check out the film Shape of the Things to Come (1936). I believe it's public domain and available on the Internet Archive site. My current avatar is Raymond Massey (a good Toronto boy) all dressed up for the future, taken from that film.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

There's a entire blog devoted to the subject with everything you've ever wanted to know:

http://www.paleofuture.com/

 

[C-dot]

There's a entire blog devoted to the subject with everything you've ever wanted to know:

http://www.paleofuture.com/

Thanks a million for this!

 

[LoveMyHats2]

I am not sure how many folks here recall a magazine called Omni. However before it went out of publication, it had an article that recalled perhaps 100 predictions of development and advances in technology that was published in one of their own issues in the early 1980's. Over one hundred of their predictions went from fiction to fact by the late 1990's.

Something else I always think about, as maybe you do at times as well. When my Great Grandparents were young, Horse and Buggy was the norm for travel, there were no "atomic powered" anything, Buck Rogers was total fiction, no man on the moon yet, no rockets and no jets, no less than one pound babies being born and living, computers were fictionally mention by fiction writers as were ray guns, and no "gizmo" to place something that was totally frozen into and zap it into a plate of food in a minute or two. As some of you may recall, on the show, "Star Trek" they would "flip" open a communicator and ask to be "beamed up"...(cell phone prototype)?, and if you really think as you look at the ads that have been showcased here, most of them have in some form become a reality. I think it tends to support that for us as mankind (women included in this), to make something we must "dream" it first.

 

[_Nightwing]

I can see the artist of this one: "Hmm, well, yes of course the handlebar moustache will never die. Preposterous." *paint paint*

 

[Shangas]

These postcards were produced by German chocolate company Hildebrands in the beginning of the 20th century and pictured what life would be like in the year 2000.

Roofed Cities

That actually looks pretty cool. It was a common vision of the future. You'll see a LOT of schematic drawings like that. Just look for them.

Summer Holidays at the North Pole

Give it another millenia or two when the ice-caps have melted, and then that might actually happen.

Oh wait...there's no LAND AT THE NORTH POLE.

Scrap that idea...

Personal Airships

The steampunks amongst us are working on prototypes as we speak...

 

[Stearmen]

Fanny Pack

The man in the first clip was wearing two inventions that did come to fruition, the cell phone and the fanny pack.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I am not sure how many folks here recall a magazine called Omni. However before it went out of publication, it had an article that recalled perhaps 100 predictions of development and advances in technology that was published in one of their own issues in the early 1980's. Over one hundred of their predictions went from fiction to fact by the late 1990's.

Something else I always think about, as maybe you do at times as well. When my Great Grandparents were young, Horse and Buggy was the norm for travel, there were no "atomic powered" anything, Buck Rogers was total fiction, no man on the moon yet, no rockets and no jets, no less than one pound babies being born and living, computers were fictionally mention by fiction writers as were ray guns, and no "gizmo" to place something that was totally frozen into and zap it into a plate of food in a minute or two. As some of you may recall, on the show, "Star Trek" they would "flip" open a communicator and ask to be "beamed up"...(cell phone prototype)?, and if you really think as you look at the ads that have been showcased here, most of them have in some form become a reality. I think it tends to support that for us as mankind (women included in this), to make something we must "dream" it first.

Yes exactly. (See my signature line.)
Quite a few things have come into being which started with a mere thought. Maybe not in the exact form one might have personally envisioned, but it seems that sooner or later, science fiction really does become science fact.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

1935 Purves Monowheel
[video=youtube;ktD-SN3C4h4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktD-SN3C4h4&NR=1[/video]