1958 Disney animation predicting the future

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. From YouTube.

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Comments

11 comments posted so far. Login to add a comment.

rated +1

1 Posted 703 days ago by dave9191

well 50 years later we have quite a few of those technologies, but they are either impractical or too expensive, and we have the joy of traffic and overcrowding and lots and lots of red tape.

But you gotta love the punch card system for programming the car :D

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2 Posted 703 days ago by shadowboy

great great ideas... :)

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3 Posted 702 days ago by poobaire

ok, i guess they didnt think about the necessity of excercise, which america has very well adopted (thats why were all fat disgusting slobs).

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4 Posted 702 days ago by BombDiggady (moderator)

Stupid video.
Lol, punch card destinations.

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5 Posted 702 days ago by LightAng3l

why the hell is it all about transportation ? ...did they think moving around is all we do in "the future" ... :|

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6 Posted 685 days ago by amnydhrreew

funny! i especially like the part about keeping snow and ice off the motorways by heating them! you guys won't even be able to afford to heat your own homes pretty soon, let alone miles of concrete!
happy motoring america!

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7 Posted 585 days ago by hawkeye

Things like the punch cards was what they could relate to back in the 50's when punch cards was the input/output card format of choice.

The Ideas of those days seems pretty far fetched, even silly. However things like backup cameras, Information signs on highways and other things have come to pass.

This sure paints a rosy outlook on the future. I guess they never could visualised $ 4.00 gas. Those days you were paying .18 to .20 a gallon and most cars got 8-10 miles per gallon.
People did not travel very far.

Oh, well our future looks pretty bleak. If the goverment destabalizes the middle east you won't have to worry about $ 8.00 a gallon gas, it won't be avaiable at any price. Food, grocery stores will be empty as they were on Thursday just before Hurricane Rita hit the upper Texas coast. The only things on the shelves was salt and papper and pickeled pig's feet.

Sounds like the beginning of the 7 years of Tribulation the scriptures talk about.

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8 Posted 531 days ago by slrasta

Yeah, but meanwhile the population doubled and fuel is kinda getting hard to find...

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9 Posted 467 days ago by lukearoo

they werent thinking of crbon back then either. jets, heated road = super high carbon output
im not an enviromentalist or anything either, but we all know its bad

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10 Posted 241 days ago by Urmensch

Imagine how fat Americans would be if this had come true.

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11 Posted 121 days ago by Luth

This aint from the 50s.. lol.. its a joke ffs :D