Here’s to the Future…And You! – Home of Future Living restored film w/Sound!

Our latest film restoration is a trip backward and forward in time! We’ll let How Bowers (who is also a voice on our podcast) explain:

So many visions of the future are so off the mark that they often end up being laughable—a trait put to good use in the “Looking Back at Tomorrow” segments in Epcot Center’s Horizons pavilion. It’s especially remarkable then that in 1975 Disney debuted a post-show for the RCA-sponsored Space Mountain attraction at Walt Disney World that predicted the household of today with uncanny accuracy.

Here’s a short list of things the attraction got right:

  • Huge wall-mounted widescreen flat panel televisions
  • Curved flat panel televisions
  • Laptop computers
  • Video chat
  • Online shopping
  • Online learning
  • Video games with motion controllers
  • Baby and home security video monitors
  • Movies on shiny discs
  • The general acceptance of unnaturally colored hair

What it didn’t quite get:

  • No Internet
  • No cordless or cell phones
  • Streaming video (RCA could have foreseen this, but as one of the points of the attraction was to sell Select-A-Vision players, it’s excusable
  • Teens still being excited about Elvis

Besides the futurism, guests also got to see themselves displayed on television sets, which was quite a novelty at that time. They also got to hear a super-catchy Buddy Baker song, “Here’s to the Future,” with a repeated refrain that “RCA leads the way.”

 

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World Famous Dave Ensign
January 17, 2015 11:40 pm

it’s somewhat early. They’re still watching football. Later it would be changed to the squid scene from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

World Famous Dave Ensign
January 17, 2015 11:42 pm

oh. There’s still a set of stairs from one of the original sets under the rock work. Nice lime green color. It’s the only trace besides the boy and his dog at the end.

Jake ryan
Jake ryan
August 4, 2022 2:27 pm

Not quite true, technically. The screen in the last actual room (where the dog and boy wound up in the FedEx version) that showed weird hexagonal patterns is the original screen that previously showed football and 20K. In fact, the same original massive projector was even used. Sadly, it was covered with a piece of metal in the 2009 refurb, but the screen is still there behind it. The projector is still there as well, just shut off and rotting away. At the time it was decommissioned, it was actually the oldest projector still being used on property.

tina t
January 24, 2015 2:51 am

Try to find more videos of the Home of Future Living. I so sad this is gone

HowBowers
Admin
June 3, 2015 12:02 pm

Dave, that’s amazing that there’s still a little piece of the original down there. It used to make me crazy that they would only demolish what was absolutely necessary but now I love the fact that they’re so frugal bits and pieces of old things survive.

Elisa Gold
Elisa Gold
July 25, 2015 8:32 am

Excellent! But you forgot the young boy holding a live frog at a neighbor’s front door. The neighbor had a video camera in the home and a two way speaker so he could talk to “Tommy” or “Timmy” (can’t recall exactly) and tell him he couldn’t come in right at the moment.
I saw a TV ad the other day for exactly the same type of system!

Lola B
Lola B
March 23, 2022 6:58 pm
Reply to  Elisa Gold

I am so glad someone else remembers all of this! I was there when I was 10 years old, and I never forgot it. Today my son pulled up this video and it was so awesome to see those things that were so vivid in my memory still! Wish there was more to the video!

Cari
Cari
August 10, 2015 1:51 pm

I wish the Disney execs would leave things like this alone! It was much more interesting to look at, they could easily updated it to a future home of today. What is in there now is so boring! Come on Disney imagineers let’s try being a little more creative!

Gary
September 22, 2020 1:54 pm

I’m late to the party here, but the t shirt the guy is wearing is from the original The Longest Yard movie. Burt Reynolds wore it in the movie.

Jake ryan
Jake ryan
August 4, 2022 2:11 pm

You can add Ring doorbells to the list now that they exist. There was a scene where a boy was trying to get into the neighbor’s house to show them a frog he caught, and the neighbor is talking to him through a video doorbell system.

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