Want to know how visionary Walt Disney was? One of my all-time favorite Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color shows is Magic Highways USA. Even though the penetration for color televisions in the United States was less than 1% of households, the entire show was produced in color.
Walt Disney said, “We have long held that the normal gap between what is generally regarded as ‘entertainment’ and what is defined ‘educational’ represents an old and untenable viewpoint.” When Walt wanted to produce a film that had a strong educational responsibility, he often turned to Ward Kimball.
Kimball was the animator who fired up Walt’s passion for trains, which lead to the creation of Disneyland. Kimball also directed the landmark “Men in Space” series that was so influential President Dwight Eisenhower had the film shown in the White House to drum up support for the space program.
The show was broadcast on ABC on May 14, 1958. In typical Kimball style, the show takes us step by step through a complex subject and always to make sure that the last segment provided a foundation for what was to come. By the time you get to the end, you can believe virtually anything they told you is real. Even how they might speculate on the future.
I love it.
The television show begins with Walt looking over a scale model of a modern day (1958) freeway overpass. He reminds us “distance was a challenge” and American progress has been measured by our ability to overcome this limitation. He does not just talk about this but punctuates each point with a model. For example, to demonstrate how far transportation has evolved, he speaks behind a model of a Conestoga wagon and compares that to a model of a space age, fighter jet, hyper-modern car with huge fins and a glass canopy.
Next is a montage of point of view shots mounted on vehicles traveling America. The camera begins on the back roads and works its way up to the modern highway. There are historic and somewhat familiar shots of Los Angeles in the early 1950s. The music is the delightful instrumental Nation on Wheels by George Bruns. We are reminded that our national highways are important to American progress. Movement equals freedom. Our pursuit of happiness is dependent on individual mobility. Even our self-defense depends on our highways as shown by a shot of a jet fighter on the back of a flatbed truck.
The following animated segment takes us through the history of American transportation. We learn that every time we are confronted with a problem, we find a way to fix it. That solution then leads to other problems, and the cycle continues. This is the definition of progress.
We begin with the pilgrims. Isn’t that where America started? From footpaths to trails to roads, we ultimately learn that the automobile has taken over the world and our quality of life is diminishing even thought we have overcome the distance challenge. My guess is this program really spoke to people living in suburbs having to commute to downtown every day. The point is driven home that things are going to get worse unless we do something. Walt tells us, “The automobile has created a highly industrialized America of abundance and made us the most mobile people in the world. But with all the pleasure the automobile has given us it has overloaded our highways.”
We know there is a problem. Now we need to learn about the solution. By the time they are finished you will be supporting the construction of more freeways. The program becomes a plug for the new Federal Highway and the beginning of our Interstate system. The goal is to drive border to border without a stoplight.
The film describes the planning and construction process of a modern freeway. The enjoyment comes from watching historic footage that describing a process that is still in place but has been completely transformed by new technology and sensitivity to environmental and preservation concerns. The film represents a time when you could pretty much draw a line on a map and then build it there. Some of the before and after shots of the environment would make modern audiences cringe.
By this point, Kimball knows he has had to take a lighter approach and infuse the program with a bit of comedy. An animated montage of absurd transportation solutions is quickly flashed by.
Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” This is the peril of speculating.
Then the program goes in for the kill. A speculative look at what the best minds are saying is in our future. This is Walt describes as a, “realist look at the road ahead and what tomorrow’s motorists can expect in the year’s to come.” The objects are speed, safety, and comfort. Of course, there are going to be some guesses that are just wrong. Some came close but not exactly the way they projected. However, many of the ideas really did come to pass and have become part of our experience.
The misses include highways that would become illuminated at night with radiant heat to keep the pavement dry in rainstorms and melt away the snow. Instead of enclosing highways in air-conditioned tubes, we decided to just put air-conditioning in each vehicle. We did not get fog-dispelling devices or the combination flying ambulances with fire suppression and tow truck capabilities. A whole array of construction solutions was proposed, including a nuclear reactor that would melt mountains and build tunnels. Where are the highway escalators? Or the highways that go under the ocean so we can drive overseas and leave out planes and ships behind?
There are some ideas that were implemented differently than proposed. The radar screen for our windshield would evolve into a number of vision enhancement amenities now offered on some vehicles. Although we never saw cantilevered highways at the scale proposed during the program, some stretches of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado and parts of the Blue Ridge Highway in North Carolina come close. Today, you can push a few buttons and the automobile will determine your path but the computer will not drive you car for you as proposed.
Most interesting are the ideas that really have come true. For example, cars would become more powerful and signage will need to change to accommodate faster speeds. Digital displays, rear-view televisions, and geographic mapping systems with traffic information has become commonplace. The decentralization of our urban areas and the growth of the suburbs have been the trends for decades. Here, the future would resemble Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City.
Of course, we are reminded that happiness would only come when we have a network of highways. Home refueling stations was suggested and has been implemented for electric and natural gas vehicle owners. The integration of telecommunications technology has become reality. If you have enough money, your car can also become a boat. The use of technology to monitor roadway congestion and to track vehicles has also been widely implemented.
The program continues to move even farther out over the horizon. Will we become a society where we will park our sun powered electro-suspension car right in our own office or program our recreational vehicle and let it drive us to our location while we read the paper or watch television in the back? Will we begin to use rockets to transport goods?
Magic Highway USA demonstrates how to speculate and make the impossible plausible.
0 Yorumlar