Life in the Future: 1976

Name this cartoon.



There’s a good chance you have never seen it before. It is from A Kitchen Cavalcade, a 1956 industrial short produced for General Motors’ Frigidaire division by John Sutherland Productions.

One of the fascinating things about this combination animation-live action film is it was the second short made by Sutherland in 1956 that was set in the future. The other was Your Safety First, a look at cars and life in the year 2000. This one spends part of its time in the year 1976.

Both are reminiscent of The Jetsons. But the writers of the Hanna-Barbera series weren’t the only ones grabbing science magazines and coming up with concepts of the future. It was not difficult for anyone with an imagination. As narrator Marvin Miller says in this short: “These things are based on actual trends, and following those trends to their logical ends.”

There are no flying cars in this short, but there are ones with bubble tops. They are self-driving. This gives more time for playing cards, reading the newspaper or talking to the wife on a bigger screen than a cell phone camera.



Here’s the home of 1976. No box-like condos. No Space Needle-esque Sky Pad Apartments. Like Green Acres, there’s land spreadin’ out so far and wide.



The House of Tomorrow has an indoor sandbox.



It has a push-button meal-maker. And a visi-phone. The Jetsons stole it!!! (No, they didn’t. See Marvin Miller’s narration above).



Sheets? Dishes? Use them once and throw them away. Environment? What’s that?



The boss is coming over for dinner. Just like on the...well, you know. Rosie isn’t hear to serve a pineapple upside-down cake, but there is dinner music on a concealed reel-to-reel tape machine (which isn’t much of an advancement from 1956).



And just like the you-know-whos, the bed comes out of the wall. The climate is controlled by the always-appealing “overhead radiation.” And there’s a built-in overhead television, too. Not to watch Johnny Carson, but to spy on the brat. Hey! Two people, but no separate beds!



The most gut-busting moments are in the live action parts. My favourite is when a housewife fantasizes about being in her dream kitchen. “Just as she sees herself its owner, its mistress, and its queen.” The Sutherland people resisted having a crown pop onto her head. Maybe because it would remind people of margarine.



And while the young co-ed dreams of a future by marrying the boy next door, what does he dream of? A car. Some things never change. (No doubt, it’s a concept car by film-backer General Motors).



The story is by True Boardman, who I gather also directed the live action portion. George Gordon is the animation director. The credited animators are George Cannata, Ken O’Brien and Tom Ray. Layouts by Bernie Gruver. Tom Oreb was responsible for the designs and the backgrounds are by Joe Montell, who had a futuristic pedigree working on Tex Avery’s The Farm of Tomorrow. There is, oddly, no music credit.

Sorry for the low-resolution and the reddish frames (there’s no mention of Technicolor on the print), but perhaps Steve Stanchfield will find a better copy some day and get it out on a disc with his well-restored Sutherland cartoons.

You can watch the short below, thanks to Indiana University.