The trailer for the 1976 film The Late Great Planet Earth, based on the book by Hal Lindsey, follows a formula you're probably familiar with by now.

Apocalypse porn of the 1970s like The Late Great Planet Earth and Future Shock push the idea that "my generation" is special. Late Great contends that many people of the past have predicted the end of the world is near, (and though the world is obviously still here), our generation is special! Our generation will truly see the End Times!

The Late Great Planet Earth, like Future Shock, was hosted by Orson Welles. I'm not sure if Welles was just cashing a paycheck or if he believed what he was selling, but as we've seen repeatedly on this blog people seem to be particularly receptive to these apocalyptic messages during tough economic times.

Late Great Planet Earth trailer
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Then, as now, Man believed himself too sophisticated for prophecies. But now, prophetic pattern exist that cannot be forgotten, cannot be ignored.

Previously on Paleo-Future: 

• Future Shock (1972)
• Nuclear Holocaust Before 1999
• The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon
• The Prophetic Year 2000 (1968)
• Nuclear War to Start September 12, 2006
• Future Shock - Babytorium (1972)
• Future Shock - Electrical Stimulation (1972)
• Future Shock - Skin Color (1972)

The May 4, 1972 Oshkosh Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, WI) predicted that by the year 2000 the "long-haired culture" would dramatically influence mainstream Americans through the normalization of communal living. Some of the article's predictions are bullet-pointed below. You can read the article in its entirety here.

• Commune nurseries will be built where each of the adults, male and female, will work with all of the commune children one day a week.
• The kitchen will be large to accommodate large numbers in meal preparation and cleanup. The dining room, furnished with picnic-type tables and benches, will have few decorations.
• Ecology and "current youth values" which de-emphasize material goods will mean homes are sparsely furnished.
• Showers will replace bathtubs to better conserve water.
• Computer-programmed delivery of goods will decrease dependence on the family car.
• The "self-sufficient home" will have its own power source, with all waste being recycled into usable food and household objects.

1972 May 4 Oshkosh Daily Northwestern - Oshkosh WI paleofuture

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• 1999 A.D. Intro (1967)
• Family Life to be Altered Greatly by 21st Century (1968)
• Civilized Adultery (1970)
• Living Room of the Future (1979)

The April 24, 1960 edition of Arthur Radebaugh's Closer Than We Think imagined a futuristic world of robot-driven trains. Looking at this image makes me think that someone could produce some pretty awesome steampunk art featuring James J. Hill and a Katrina Van Televox type robot, even though the "robots" described in this strip weren't of the humanoid variety.

Future trains will be fully automatic -- robots that can regulate their own speed and control their own movements to meet the most precise schedules.

The Union Switch and Signal Division is currently working on two kinds of electronic "brains" to make this possible. One type would be a trackside "decision maker," to regulate train speed, routing, starting and stopping. The other would be a "control servo," to signal that the robot train is obeying orders -- or isn't, and why. A central monitoring panel would oversee train movements for hundreds of square miles. The first such installation may be on the New York subway shuttle trains.

Next week: Lunar Power Pack

Thanks to Tom Z. for supplying the color version of this strip.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Closer Than We Think (1958-1963)
• Farm to Market (1958)
• Speed is Key to Future Travel (1965)
• Car-on-Train Pallet System (1968)
• Robot Drivers (1985)

To find a logo for Paleo-Future, I've posted a job to the crowdsourcing website CrowdSpring.

The idea behind CrowdSpring is that people like myself who may not have a lot of money to hire a designer can post their job, say what they're willing to pay, and choose a winner between the entries. The deadline for my logo is February 18, 2010 at 12:18 AM, GMT but if you submit before that I'm able to provide feedback, which gives the designer a chance to revise their work.

I'm well aware of the critiques of crowdsourcing websites like this, as my designer friends have given me an earful about how websites like this devalue their work. I'm inclined to disagree. I don't have much money and I'm not about to ask my friends who are designers to work for free, which I feel would actually devalue their work. Crowdsourcing lets someone like me put a design job out into the community and if a designer feels like its worth their time because of the money or because they enjoy my blog, everyone wins.

You can read the creative brief and submit logos here. Thanks to any and all designers who take up the challenge!

-Matt

The January 3, 1968 Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) ran this cartoon depicting the "Museum of Extinct Americana." Rural Americans and private dwellings were thought to be on their way out.

While more Americans of the year 2000 were living in urban areas, American farmers haven't yet gone the way of the quagga. (This is probably a stupid city-boy question, but how common are pitchforks on farms today?)

The recent housing bubble burst put the hurt on a lot of Americans who own their own home, but this cartoon was likely commenting on population growth and the belief that the United States was at capacity; with Americans of the year 2000 living in increasingly cramped conditions.

I wish the cartoonist had included more artifacts in his museum. Do you suppose he could have guessed that the printed newspaper would be struggling as much as it has the past few years?

MARCH OF TECHNOLOGY -- Many miracles are just around the corner as today's basic research becomes tomorrow's gadgets. But many familiar facets of present-day life will vanish as the year 2000 approaches, as this cartoon illustrates.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Farmer Jones and the Year 2000 (1956)
• Farm to Market (1958)
• Are We Heading Toward the Day Everything Stops? (1968)
• Family Life to be Greatly Altered by 21st Century (1968)

People of the year 2000, amazed at the sight of a horse. (French postcard circa 1910)

At the turn of the 20th century we saw a lot of speculation that, thanks to the automobile, the horse could very well be extinct by the year 2000. The excerpt below comes from the October 19, 1890 Chillicothe Constitution (Chillicothe, MO).

As one watches an electric motor, does he wonder whether a hundred years hence a horse will not be as rare as a camel or an elephant is to-day?

 Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Future of Steam (1889)
• Predictions for 1993 (1893)
• What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)
• In the Twentieth Century (1901)
• More Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (1901)
• French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)

The Turf Club is a bar, so unfortunately it's not an all-ages event. But if you're underage I'm sure you can find a good fake ID by Tuesday. Rumor has it that the first 10 people who arrive will receive a free hoverboard. But rumor also has it that I'm a liar. Swing by and drink up; it should be a good time.

I don't want to miss plastic skyscrapers; frozen-food dinners in one package... wireless transmission of electricity; the chance to live energetically to the grand old age of 150 years. Screwball? Nothing of the kind. All of these things are here already in the minds of men; in scientific possibility; in materials. They just have to be put together. -- Eddie Rickenbacker, 1945

From the book Future: A Recent History by Lawrence R. Samuel.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Will War Drive Civilization Underground? (1942)
• Tomorrow's Kitchen (1943)
• After the War (1944)
• Space Travel to be Commonplace (1957)

We've looked at many advertisements that use the push-button future as a way to position products as cutting edge or innovative. But when the Future is used in this ad from the August 19, 1965 Marion Sentinel it just seems lazy.

Where is Father looking, and what --oh gawd, WHAT?-- will pushing those buttons do to that poor futuristic city? I think Daughter's been dipping into Mother's little helper, which would explain her crazy eyes, but doesn't explain why almost everyone is looking at a different point in space.

I guess the lesson here is that if you want to see the Future just look up and to your left. And leave your mouth slightly agape.

Oh, and shop at A & H Appliance.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• How Experts Think We'll Live in 2000 A.D. (1950)
• Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
• Monsanto House of the Future (1957)
• The Electronic Brain Made Beef Stew (1959)
• Monsanto House of the Future Brochure (1961)
• Refrigerators... In Space! (1965)
• 1999 A.D. (1967)
• Little Work, Big Pay Forecast Year 2000 (1969)

Arthur Harkins, director of the graduate program in futures research at the University of Minnesota, is even quoted as saying that android-human relationships might be treated as common-law marriages. I suppose as long as people didn't get gay-robo-married the U.S. would be okay with that. I can hear the asinine protest chants already, "it's WALL-E and EVE, not Elektro and Steve!" 

The entire piece appears below.

He comes home every night, grabs a beer and falls asleep in front of the television. You might as well be married to a robot, you say. Well, by the year 2000, you could be.

He may even look like Cary Grant, talk about white-water rafting, be able to fix a drink and possibly even be good in bed," says Arthur Harkins, director of the graduate program in futures research at the University of Minnesota.

"One of the things we're seeing now is that people are shopping for other people the way they'd shop for an appliance," he says, citing the proliferation of computerized dating services, explicitly worded personal want ads and marriage brokers. "You're buying something that makes you happy."

Domestic robot systems are expected to come on the market by the mid-1990s, according to Harkins, and sell for several thousand dollars. These highly sophisticated androids can be programmed to offer a wide range of human personality traits. ("We can even make them neurotic") and are likely to be purchased by "people who have difficulty opening up to other human being," he says.

These surrogate spouses would be beneficial to very lonely people.

But can you fall in love with a robot? "Why not?" says Harkins, citing a bedridden hospital patient. "Along comes this wonderful android who doesn't care a bit about that, whereas other human beings may not be so inclined."

The union between man and machine would not be recognized as legal, Harkins says, but perhaps could be treated as a common-law marriage. And there's no question of a messy divorce. "Just trade it in, I suppose," the scientist says.

Another example of future schlock was the robot pets offered by Neiman-Marcus last Christmas, which Harkins says only strengthens his theory that people today want certainty. "They want somebody predictable," he says.

But Harkins says he doesn't want to trade in his own wife for a robot -- just yet. Not even, he fantasizes, "a Margot Kidder robot."

"I'd be bored stiff," he says. "But I may get to be 70 years old and look at a Mae West robot with a great deal of interest."

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Robots for Romantic Old Maids (1928)
• Elektro and Sparko Ad (1956)
• Sex in the Year 2019 (1986)
• Impacts of Robotic Sex (1997)