"Modern Inventions" Production Art (1937)

Jeff over at 2719 Hyperion has some amazing production art from the 1937 Donald Duck short film Modern Inventions, including this sketch of our one-eyed robot butler. A clip from the short appears below. The entire short can be found on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set The Chronological Donald, Volume One.

See also:
Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)

Man and the Moon (1955)

The Disneyland TV show episode Man and the Moon originally aired December 28, 1955 and was released theatrically outside the United States.

The entire episode prominently showcases Werhner von Braun's torodial space station. The clip below dramatizes what a space mission may involve some day in the distant (paleo)future.

You can view a clip of the program here and you can find this program in its entirety on the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond.

See also:
Challenge of Outer Space (circa 1950s)
Mars and Beyond (1957)
Animal Life on Mars (1957)
Plant Life on Mars (1957)

Space Station X-1 (circa 1955)

The image above is from an insert in the Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond DVD set. The image was used in Disneyland as the poster for the Space Station X-1 attraction.

Space Station X-1 invited Disneyland guests to circle the earth from fifty miles up for a satellite view of America.

See also:
Tomorrowland, Disneyland Opening Day (1955)
Walt Disney Explaining the Carousel of Progress to General Electric (1964)

Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)

[Update: The Paleo-Future blog has moved. You can read and comment on this entry here.]

On May 14, 1958 the Disneyland TV program ran an episode called "Magic Highway, U.S.A." It examined the past, present and (paleo)future of transportation. The 2719 Hyperion blog has a great breakdown of the episode.

Below is a short clip of the episode as well as some paleo-futuristic still images. Many thanks to Paul at Waltopia for the video.

As father chooses the route in advance on a push-button selector, electronics take over complete control. Progress can be accurately checked on a synchronized scanning map. With no driving responsibility, the family relaxes together. En route business conferences are conducted by television.


I really wish that Disney would release this as part of their Walt Disney Treasures collection. (Maybe an entire DVD devoted to Disney paleo-futurism?) Better yet, they could offer every Disneyland program on iTunes or use an advertising-based model. I know that Disney likes to make their offerings scarce through limited release DVDs, but the free flow of information just breeds piracy if "legitimate" copies aren't made available.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Enjoy.

See also:
The Future World of Transportation
Walt Disney Explaining the Carousel of Progress to General Electric (1964)
EPCOT's Horizons
Tomorrowland, Disneyland Opening Day (1955)

Animal Life on Mars (1957)

In the 1957 Disneyland TV program and subsequent theatrical release of the film, Mars and Beyond speculated what astronauts would eventually find on the red planet. There were some interesting predictions of what animals future humans could find.

You can view a clip of the program here and you can find this program on the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond.

See also:
Plant Life on Mars (1957) 15 March 2007
Mars and Beyond (1957) 28 Feb 2007

Plant Life on Mars (1957)

We looked at how Disney portrayed humans living on Mars in the 1957 Disneyland TV show "Mars and Beyond" but the depiction of possible plants on Mars may be even more imaginative.

According to Steven Watts in his book The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (p. 309):
"[Mars and Beyond] was the most speculative program [and] it veered near the realm of science fiction with its imaginative description of possible life forms on the planet, [and] Martian weather conditions..."




You can view a clip of the program here and you can find this program in its entirety on the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond.

See also:
Mars and Beyond (1957) 28 Feb 2007