Here’s a short film produced by Bell Labs featuring the 1962 Seattle Expo. It’s really a self-congratulatory piece that showcases Bell Labs’ innovations in personal communications. Some of these technologies missed the mark so much it’s laughable, but it’s also inspiring that these prototypes existed in the first place. The Bell-Boy in particular, a pager of sorts connected to one home phone line that could access anyone in the household who was wearing it.
Anyway, the film is most remarkable to me for its “accidental” shots of the Expo outside of the Pavilion. There’s a lot of high quality incidental footage that’s worth paying attention to.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 did a great sendup of this piece, and I was tempted to post that instead, but it felt better to share the clean version. Will YOU answer the call of Century 21?
-ds