fabled news anchor Walter Cronkite ’s regular half - hour CBS documentary program “ The twenty-first Century ” was a splendiferous peek into the future tense . Every Sunday night looker of the former 1960s were show all the exciting technological progression they could expect to see just 30 or 40 days down the road . TheMarch 12 , 1967 , episode give citizenry a facial expression at the home of the 21st century , terminated with 3D boob tube , cast on - need dish out saucer , videophones , inflatable furniture , orbiter newspaper delivery and robot handmaiden .
Cronkite spend the first five minutes of the curriculum deride the wickedness of urban sprawl and insist that everyone dreams of a house in seclusion on a few acres of land . Cronkite and his intervieweePhilip Johnsoninsist that moving back into ever denser city is the wafture of the future . It ’s interesting then that Cronkite must swivel before showing us the standalone home of tomorrow . This would be a 2nd home , Cronkite tell us — far remove from the high-pitched density reality that everyone of the 21st century must face :
lease ’s push our imaginations ahead and visit the home of the 21st century . This could be someone ’s second home , hundreds of miles by from the near city . It consists of a bunch of pre - fancied module . This home is as self - sufficient as a space capsule . It recirculates its own pee supply and draws all of its electrical energy from its own fuel mobile phone .
Living Room of 2001
The keep room of the futurity is a spot of push - release sumptuousness and a mid - century modern aesthetic . The sunken living room may boast inflatable piece of furniture and disposable paper kids ’ chairs , but Cronkite assures us that there ’s no reason the class of the hereafter could n’t have a rocking chairwoman — to remind us that “ both the present tense and the future are simply prolongation of the past tense . ”
Once in spite of appearance we might find ourselves in a chalk envelopment where the lint and malicious gossip we ’ve hoard during our slip is polish off electrostatically . Now we step into the living way . What will the home of the twenty-first hundred look like within ? Well , I ’m sitting in the living room of a mock - up of the abode of the future , think by Philco - Ford and designed byPaul McCobb . This is where the syndicate of the 21st hundred would harbour guests . This room has just about everything one would desire : a big ( some might say too big ) full color 3D television silver screen , a stereophonic sound system that could fill the room with euphony , and comfortable furniture for relaxed conversation .
If that living room looks familiar it may be because it ’s the same house from the net - famous short film “ 1999 A.D. ” produced in 1967 ( often mistakenly dated as 1969 , which would make the moonshine landing material less impressive ) and star a youngWink Martindale .
Cronkite explains that a recent government activity report concludes that Americans of the year 2000 will have a 30 - hour piece of work hebdomad and calendar month - long vacations “ as the rule . ” He go on to say viewers that this will mean much more leisure meter for the average somebody :
A lot of this raw free sentence will be spent at home . And this cabinet controls a full raiment of equipment to inform , apprize and entertain the family of the future . The opening for the eventide ’s program are predict up on this screen . We could watch a football biz , or a movie shown in full colour on our big 3D television screen . The speech sound would hail from these ball - like utterer . Or with the push of a button we could momently escape from our twenty-first one C experience and fill the elbow room with stereophonic music from another eld .
Home Office of 2001
Later , Cronkite takes us into the home office of the future tense . Here the paper is say to be delivered by orbiter , and printed off on a gigantic broadsheet printer so that the reader of the future can have a deadtree copy .
This equipment here will allow [ the businessman of the future ] to behave on normal business concern activeness without ever lead to an office aside from home .
This console provides a sum-up of news program relay by satellite from all over the world . Now to get a paper transcript for permanent quotation I just work this button , and out it comes . When I ’ve finished get up on the news I might check the late weather condition . This same screen can give me the up-to-the-minute report on the stock I might own . The phone is this instrument here — a mock - up of a potential future telephone , this would be the mouth . Now if I require to see the people I ’m talking with I just bend the button and there they are . Over here as I work on this screen door I can keep in touch with other rooms of the house through a closed in - circle TV scheme .
With equipment like this in the home of the hereafter we may not have to go to work , the oeuvre would come to us . In the twenty-first century it may be that no home will be complete without a computerized communications console .
One of the more interesting gadgets in the bureau of the future that we can clearly see but Cronkite never addresses is the “ electronic correspondence simple machine ” of the future , otherwise known as the “ home post office . ” In the film “ 1999 A.D. ” we see Wink Martindale ’s character manipulate a pen on the machine , which allow for “ instant written communication between individuals anywhere in the world . ”
Kitchen of 2001
The kitchen of the future includes charge plate plates which are molded on - demand , a technology that up until just a few old age ago must have seemed rather absurd . With the slow yet unfaltering rise of home3D printersthis approximation is n’t completely ridiculous , though we still have quite a way to go .
After dinner , the plates are melt down , along with any leftover nutrient and re - shape for the next repast . It ’s never explain why the molding and re - molding of plates would be any easier or more efficient than merely allowing the machine to just wash out the dishes . But I suppose a simple dish washer would n’t have seemed terribly futuristic to the people of 1967 .
This might be the kitchen in the house of the future . Preparation of a meal in the 21st century could be almost to the full automatic . fixed or irradiated foods are stored in that area over there .
Meals in this kitchen of the future are programmed . The fare is given to the machinelike chef via typewriter or punch computer circuit card . The right prepacked ingredients are transmit from the memory board area and moved into this microwave oven where they are ready in minute . When the repast is done the food comes out here . When the repast is quick , alternatively of arrive at for a pot of plate I just perforate a push button and the right amount of cup and saucer are molded on the office .
When I ’ve finish eat , there will be no dishes to wash . The used home base will be melted down again , the leftovers destroyed in the unconscious process and the melted charge plate will be quick to be molded into neat plates when I need them next .
Robot Servants of 2001
Later in the programme Cronkite takes us to the research laboratory of London ’s Queen Mary College where we see robot in development . Cronkite interviewsProfessor M. W. Thringabout the future of household robotics .
Cronkite insure us that the robots are not coming to take over the humankind , but alternatively to simply make us breakfast :
golem are coming . Not to rule the humans , but to facilitate around the sign . In the home of 2001 car like these may help falsify your breakfast and serve it too . We may awaken up each morning to the patter of little feet — robot human foot .
During the interview , the professor address one of the most important questions of the futuristic household automaton : will it take care like a human ?
CRONKITE : Professor Thring , what are these ?
THRING : These are the first epitome of modest exfoliation models of the domesticated housemaid of the future .
CRONKITE : The domestic maidservant of the futurity ?
THRING : Yes , the maidservant of all work . To do all the everyday work of the theatre , all the uninteresting Job that the housewife would favour not to do . You also give it instruction about decisions — it must n’t escape over the baby and thing like that . And then it remember those instruction manual and whenever you tell it to do that particular programme it does that program .
CRONKITE : What is the completed machine move to count like ? Is it pass to look like a human being ?
THRING : No . There ’s no reason at all why it should wait like a human being . The only thing is it ’s get to last in a human house and live in a human firm . It ’s got to go through doorway and climb up stairs and so on . But there ’s no other reasonableness why it should seem like a human being . For exemplar , it can have three or four handwriting if it wants to , it can have optic in its feet , it can be all unlike . Thring explains that the robot would put itself away in the closet where it would also recharge itself whenever it necessitate to do so — not unlike aRoombatoday , or theautomatic push - clitoris vacuity cleanersof “ The Jetsons , ” which first air just five year earlier .
I first saw this programme many years ago while call in the Paley Center for Media in New York . I ask Skip over atAV Geeksif he had a copy and it just so happens he did . He digitized it and released it as a DVD that ’s now available for purchase , calledFuture Is Not As Good As It Used To Be . Many thanks to Skip for digging out this retro - futuristic gem . And if anyone from CBS is reading this , please release “ The twenty-first Century ” online or with a DVD corner set . Cronkite ’s show is one of the not bad forward - looking artifact of the 20th century .
This post to begin with appeared atSmithsonian.com .
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