Big Happy Futurama

If you had been lucky enough to visit the New York World's Fair in 1939-1940, you might have seen a sci-fi metropolis, similar to the the one shown above, at General Motor's Futurama exhibit. I'm talking the real Futurama. The original Futurama. The incredible 37,000 square foot Futurama, stuffed full of over 2,000,000 miniature buildings - Norman Bel Geddes' miniatized, ultra-modernized city-of-the future. The hit of the show! Lines to get in grew up to over a mile long!

Tiny cars, small waterfalls, little puffy clouds, miniature airplanes hovering by - all within an incredibly intricate landscape. Future, baby, future.

A second Futurama was created for the New York World's Fair in 1964-1965. Here, terrestrial cities, undersea communities and lunar colonies were displayed side-by-side, in one big, happy General Motors universe. Wow!

For more info on Futurama, check out The Journal of Ride Theory Omnibus, edited by Dan Howland.