I saw an interesting case of a very early car phone in the 1957 giant- bug/Peter Graves movie "Beginning of the End." The reporter heroine has a car phone that she uses to call her editor. Interestingly, it's treated in a completely matter-of-fact way, and not commented on as being unusual technology. It always made me curious, though, and I did a little digging. If I understand it right, she was using what amounted to a radio relay service. The car phone was basically radio technology, so you were "calling" an operator over the radio, who would then patch the radio caller into the regular phone network. It was a service they had in Chicago, where the movie was made, during the time it was filmed, but it was short-lived.
Another interesting one I saw is that Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon had an answering machine in an episode of the 1966 Batman series. In this case it *is* treated like a piece of advanced technology, on a par with Batman's amazing Bat-devices. On Mar 20, 1:22 pm, Diner <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 1:12:12 PM UTC-4, PGage wrote: > > > On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> The kids know how to use the Google and Wikipedia. Plus I've been > >> watching a fair amount of old TV on MeTV and while obsolete things > >> like pay phones, men wearing hats, and social smoking appear, they > >> don't keep anyone from figuring out what's going on in the episode. > > > This is a bit of a tangent, but I have been wondering if there is some > > summary of when changes in phone technology began showing up in television > > and movies? I was watching an old show with one of my children (youngest > > son) and he was amused by (and totally thrown out of the scene) a corded > > push button phone. I was a little surprised, as we have a corded phone, but > > it is in my office, and he never uses it (we live in an area where cell > > service is unreliable, as is the power, so we need a more reliable form of > > telephone communication). I told him my memories of when those old, first > > generation push button phones first came out, and what a boon it seemed to > > be for television shows and films, as they could now depict phone calls > > without the agony of waiting for the dial to return after each digit. That > > of course elicited a blank stare, so I went into a discussion of rotary > > phones, and what those were like (those he has never seen, at least not in > > real life). That got me to thinking of what I consider old tv shows and > > films, in which there was no direct dialing available, and people had to > > make their calls through an operator. My son was able to supply some > > examples of films and tv shows we had seen at the dawn of the mobile era, > > when they made a big deal of having a mobile (at first just a "car phone"), > > and the phone practically required a briefcase it was so huge. > > > So I am wondering if there is a summary somewhere of something like the > > following, showing the approximate year that various developments in > > telephoning appear in popular entertainments: > > > Direct Dialing > > Push Button Phones > > Cordless Phones > > Mobile Phones > > I distinctly remember that Frank Cannon (played by William Conrad on the > 1971-76 series "Cannon") had a phone in his car. That startled me as a kid, > because I had never seen such a thing. And even though I was only ten years > old when that show went off the air, I remember thinking that it was > ridiculous - that even if such a thing as a car phone actually existed, it > must be so expensive that a private eye like Cannon wouldn't be able to > afford it. > > -Tim -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
