1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000
Downloaded from
YTS.MX

2
00:00:04,754 --> 00:00:08,087
(soft electronic music)

3
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000
Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

4
00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:13,800
- [Matt] Agriculture in
the world of tomorrow

5
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:15,040
will be so mechanized

6
00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:17,910
that farms will actually
resemble factories.

7
00:00:17,910 --> 00:00:21,180
Crops and livestock will be
raised on regular schedules

8
00:00:21,180 --> 00:00:24,290
under uniform and carefully
controlled conditions.

9
00:00:24,290 --> 00:00:26,920
Sensors, those automatic control devices

10
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:28,660
for today's wonder machines,

11
00:00:28,660 --> 00:00:30,400
will be adapted to the requirements

12
00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:32,440
of precision agriculture.

13
00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:34,690
They will take the place of human judgment

14
00:00:34,690 --> 00:00:37,600
in deciding and reacting
to soil conditions,

15
00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:39,920
crop maturity, moisture levels,

16
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:42,940
weather forecasting,
feeding needs, et cetera.

17
00:00:42,940 --> 00:00:45,320
Bendix researcher W.E. Kock

18
00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:47,350
has reported that instruments to do this

19
00:00:47,350 --> 00:00:50,010
already exist or will soon be developed.

20
00:00:50,010 --> 00:00:52,680
The final part of the
job for tomorrow's farms

21
00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:55,600
will involve the packaging
of the grown foodstuffs

22
00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:57,240
and their shipment to market,

23
00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,483
accomplished just as automatically
as the growing itself.

24
00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:03,540
- [Interviewer] Do we have
something like that today?

25
00:01:03,540 --> 00:01:05,290
- It's not as streamlined

26
00:01:05,290 --> 00:01:08,500
as the monorail that's zooming overhead.

27
00:01:08,500 --> 00:01:10,080
I think what's fascinating

28
00:01:10,080 --> 00:01:12,080
about these past predictions of the future

29
00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:15,540
is that examples like the factory farm

30
00:01:15,540 --> 00:01:18,330
showed just how spot on some
of these predictions could be.

31
00:01:18,330 --> 00:01:21,343
It's just not necessarily in
the form that we saw them in.

32
00:01:22,220 --> 00:01:24,740
What kind of influence
can a comic strip have?

33
00:01:24,740 --> 00:01:27,400
Well, it can have an outsized influence

34
00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:29,980
when it seeps into the broader culture

35
00:01:29,980 --> 00:01:31,750
of something like The Jetsons.

36
00:01:31,750 --> 00:01:34,680
Again, what kind of
influence can a cartoon have?

37
00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:37,720
Well, Tim Cook, just a few years ago,

38
00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:39,827
held up his iPhone during
an interview and said,

39
00:01:39,827 --> 00:01:41,920
"This is The Jetsons."

40
00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:45,650
Well, iPhone and all
kinds of Apple products

41
00:01:45,650 --> 00:01:47,960
are direct descendants of The Jetsons,

42
00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:50,520
which is a direct descendant
of Closer Than We Think.

43
00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:54,030
These futures are all
connected in such a way

44
00:01:54,030 --> 00:01:57,440
that they're all aspirational things.

45
00:01:57,440 --> 00:01:59,720
They're the way that we
want to see the world

46
00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:03,317
and they have to exist before
we can make them that way.

47
00:02:04,345 --> 00:02:07,262
(futuristic music)

48
00:03:58,630 --> 00:04:01,430
- We had a huge loft space
down in Old City Philadelphia,

49
00:04:01,430 --> 00:04:03,700
across from Ben Franklin's house.

50
00:04:03,700 --> 00:04:06,840
And it was really wild and
the rent was really cheap

51
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:08,480
and I had a moving company.

52
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:09,750
And we had this big space.

53
00:04:09,750 --> 00:04:11,920
Up front was our archive
and research library.

54
00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:14,920
In the back, was the office
for the moving company.

55
00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:18,040
And in the middle was all
this exhibition space.

56
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:21,540
At one point, doing salvage work for fun

57
00:04:21,540 --> 00:04:23,600
at a place that was closing
down, a photographer,

58
00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:26,630
a commercial photographer in
Philadelphia in Center City.

59
00:04:26,630 --> 00:04:28,520
So instead of buying these individually,

60
00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:30,560
I was pulling them all into one big pile.

61
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:32,420
And I kept grabbing boxes of negatives

62
00:04:32,420 --> 00:04:33,500
and throwing them in the pile.

63
00:04:33,500 --> 00:04:35,620
And he said, "What do you
want with those negatives?"

64
00:04:35,620 --> 00:04:37,927
I said, "I don't know,
but I want to have them

65
00:04:37,927 --> 00:04:38,967
"because you're gonna throw them out."

66
00:04:38,967 --> 00:04:41,290
And he says, "Well, you
can't use them for anything."

67
00:04:41,290 --> 00:04:42,820
Said, "It doesn't matter."

68
00:04:42,820 --> 00:04:46,760
And they were all large
format negs, the 4x5 negs,

69
00:04:46,760 --> 00:04:48,500
and there were thousands and thousands

70
00:04:48,500 --> 00:04:52,953
and thousands of them in
endless mid-size boxes.

71
00:04:54,170 --> 00:04:56,227
So I bought the whole
pile of things from him

72
00:04:56,227 --> 00:04:58,110
and one of the kids who
was working for me there,

73
00:04:58,110 --> 00:05:01,063
was not work for him and he
could see that that was coming.

74
00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:03,360
And he needed some more work.

75
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:04,850
He didn't have any other job lined up.

76
00:05:04,850 --> 00:05:05,697
He says, "Well, tell you what?

77
00:05:05,697 --> 00:05:07,567
"How about if I organize
all those negatives

78
00:05:07,567 --> 00:05:10,310
"that are in the back of
the space on the shelves?"

79
00:05:10,310 --> 00:05:12,770
Well, a few days into it,

80
00:05:12,770 --> 00:05:15,870
he came up and threw down
on this one light table

81
00:05:15,870 --> 00:05:20,870
these very large format, more
8-1/2 x 11 size negatives.

82
00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:24,760
He says, "I think you need to see these,"

83
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,270
and he put them down on the table.

84
00:05:27,270 --> 00:05:29,814
And it was the work of Arthur Radebaugh.

85
00:05:29,814 --> 00:05:32,564
(ethereal music)

86
00:05:34,570 --> 00:05:38,053
I absolutely exploded with joy.

87
00:05:42,170 --> 00:05:43,480
It was amazing work.

88
00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:45,071
You could tell in an instant.

89
00:05:45,071 --> 00:05:47,821
(ethereal music)

90
00:05:53,387 --> 00:05:56,210
And the feeling, looking
across this big light table

91
00:05:56,210 --> 00:05:58,243
and seeing all this futuristic imagery,

92
00:06:02,710 --> 00:06:04,452
yesterday's vision of the future.

93
00:06:04,452 --> 00:06:07,202
(ethereal music)

94
00:06:11,310 --> 00:06:13,210
But all images I'd never seen before.

95
00:06:13,210 --> 00:06:14,640
That's the thing.

96
00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:17,490
In my world and in my
taste and in my collecting,

97
00:06:17,490 --> 00:06:18,960
we had lots of that sort of thing,

98
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:21,360
but it would be science fiction covers

99
00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:24,390
and pulp magazine covers
and that sort of thing.

100
00:06:24,390 --> 00:06:26,540
But I'd never seen any of these.

101
00:06:26,540 --> 00:06:30,330
And then there was one that was a clue,

102
00:06:30,330 --> 00:06:35,050
just similar in style, to
a Motor cover that we had.

103
00:06:35,050 --> 00:06:38,210
And I saw the signature that
said Radebaugh on the negative

104
00:06:38,210 --> 00:06:39,680
and we went into the collection

105
00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:41,140
and pulled out the Motor covers,

106
00:06:41,140 --> 00:06:43,350
and sure enough, that was his work.

107
00:06:43,350 --> 00:06:46,100
So we had somebody, we had somebody,

108
00:06:46,100 --> 00:06:48,280
we had a name to work with.

109
00:06:48,280 --> 00:06:49,660
The instant I saw them,

110
00:06:49,660 --> 00:06:51,310
I decided there was
going to be an exhibit.

111
00:06:51,310 --> 00:06:53,210
The instant they were on that table.

112
00:06:53,210 --> 00:06:57,360
Originally, we had
planned to do an exhibit

113
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:00,193
just of the negs as they were, but larger.

114
00:07:01,510 --> 00:07:03,600
That was a great idea,

115
00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:06,090
but the practicality of it wasn't there

116
00:07:06,090 --> 00:07:08,820
'cause they weren't as exciting

117
00:07:08,820 --> 00:07:11,150
when they weren't popping somehow.

118
00:07:11,150 --> 00:07:13,620
Something was flat.
And some of them, in our equipment,

119
00:07:13,620 --> 00:07:16,253
were defaulting to certain pale colors,

120
00:07:17,210 --> 00:07:18,530
and there was some excitement there.

121
00:07:18,530 --> 00:07:20,030
So that sort of kicked the doors open

122
00:07:20,030 --> 00:07:22,580
and we decided to colorize
some of them because we can

123
00:07:22,580 --> 00:07:23,540
and because it was ours

124
00:07:23,540 --> 00:07:25,490
and because there was no one to say no.

125
00:07:26,470 --> 00:07:28,740
And we presented those in that way.

126
00:07:28,740 --> 00:07:30,090
And we decided to go ahead

127
00:07:30,090 --> 00:07:32,550
and put together an
exhibit and set a date.

128
00:07:32,550 --> 00:07:36,730
At that point, one of
the local punk rock kids

129
00:07:36,730 --> 00:07:41,180
who appeared on the scene
was a young Jared Rosenbaum.

130
00:07:41,180 --> 00:07:44,090
He was not interested in
working for the moving company.

131
00:07:44,090 --> 00:07:47,330
He was interested in
taking some of what we had

132
00:07:47,330 --> 00:07:48,750
and doing something with it.

133
00:07:48,750 --> 00:07:49,583
And he did.

134
00:07:49,583 --> 00:07:50,737
He took the project and ran with it

135
00:07:50,737 --> 00:07:52,984
and it was an awful lot of fun.

136
00:07:52,984 --> 00:07:54,530
- Radebaugh came onto
the scene with a bang.

137
00:07:54,530 --> 00:07:55,680
It was kind of amazing.

138
00:07:56,610 --> 00:07:59,823
There he was, a really
young fellow in his 20s,

139
00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:05,490
in the Depression,
basically, just scraping by,

140
00:08:05,490 --> 00:08:09,320
making peanuts decorating candy
boxes and stuff like that.

141
00:08:09,320 --> 00:08:13,990
And then somebody within
the company he's working for

142
00:08:13,990 --> 00:08:17,390
sees his work and was like,
"I'm gonna be your agent,"

143
00:08:17,390 --> 00:08:19,897
and comes back to
Radebaugh one day and says,

144
00:08:19,897 --> 00:08:21,717
"I just sold one of your pieces of artwork

145
00:08:21,717 --> 00:08:24,297
"to Motor Magazine for $450."

146
00:08:24,297 --> 00:08:28,590
And if you think about 1935 and $450,

147
00:08:28,590 --> 00:08:30,303
I went back and checked
that 'cause I was like,

148
00:08:30,303 --> 00:08:33,140
"No, that number can't be
right, that is so much money."

149
00:08:33,140 --> 00:08:35,570
Before that, he was
making like $25 a week.

150
00:08:35,570 --> 00:08:39,270
- We started to put together a website

151
00:08:39,270 --> 00:08:42,670
about Arthur Radebaugh,
the futurist illustrator.

152
00:08:42,670 --> 00:08:45,340
We showed the negatives that we had.

153
00:08:45,340 --> 00:08:49,250
And because I'm such an insane

154
00:08:49,250 --> 00:08:52,690
and voracious paper collector,

155
00:08:52,690 --> 00:08:57,460
it suddenly gave me a new
focus to attack all the time.

156
00:08:57,460 --> 00:09:00,663
I mean, I was in get mode.

157
00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:04,323
And so, if he was on one Motor cover,

158
00:09:04,323 --> 00:09:06,123
then we looked at every Motor cover.

159
00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:10,710
If we found an advertisement
for a particular company,

160
00:09:10,710 --> 00:09:13,583
then we found all the
ads from that company.

161
00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:17,980
And so we were able to
build a visual body of work.

162
00:09:17,980 --> 00:09:19,570
- When the United States got involved

163
00:09:19,570 --> 00:09:21,620
in World War II in the 1940s,

164
00:09:21,620 --> 00:09:23,510
he went and served in the Army.

165
00:09:23,510 --> 00:09:27,670
- In the Pentagon,
apparently, designing weaponry

166
00:09:27,670 --> 00:09:31,360
and designing ordinance,
designing innovative but practical

167
00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:33,680
implements that the Army could use.

168
00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:35,470
There's some information about things

169
00:09:35,470 --> 00:09:37,480
that he was involved in.

170
00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:40,780
He did blacklight panels
for inside of vehicles

171
00:09:40,780 --> 00:09:44,330
so that the driver could
see their instrument panels,

172
00:09:44,330 --> 00:09:47,210
but they couldn't be seen by the enemy.

173
00:09:47,210 --> 00:09:50,850
He designed, apparently, the
shapes of some Army vehicles,

174
00:09:50,850 --> 00:09:52,980
like a personnel carrier or a tank.

175
00:09:52,980 --> 00:09:55,070
He may have done all kinds of stuff there,

176
00:09:55,070 --> 00:09:57,370
but it's been kind of
opaque to us to find.

177
00:09:57,370 --> 00:09:58,410
I think we can only guess

178
00:09:58,410 --> 00:10:01,650
that he was prolifically
churning out imaginations,

179
00:10:01,650 --> 00:10:03,600
but how much of that was taken seriously

180
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:05,053
and actually implemented?

181
00:10:06,430 --> 00:10:09,150
- After World War II,
Radebaugh went back to Michigan

182
00:10:09,150 --> 00:10:12,690
and worked for everyone from Coca-Cola

183
00:10:12,690 --> 00:10:16,070
to the big three automakers in Detroit.

184
00:10:16,070 --> 00:10:19,110
- [Rachel] He does illustrations
for William Stout's Scarab.

185
00:10:19,110 --> 00:10:23,940
He does ad work for
Studebaker, Bendix, Nash,

186
00:10:23,940 --> 00:10:28,940
United Airlines, Hastings
Piston Rings, Dodge,

187
00:10:29,660 --> 00:10:32,830
he does a menu cover
for Burlington Zephyr,

188
00:10:32,830 --> 00:10:36,940
which is a train line, and Motor Magazine.

189
00:10:36,940 --> 00:10:38,680
- [Jared] I want to
call those images fiery.

190
00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:42,152
They are so colorful and
they're so abstracted

191
00:10:42,152 --> 00:10:44,860
and they're so just like
levitating in space.

192
00:10:44,860 --> 00:10:48,210
- [Rachel] Or it's on a drawing
board and out the window.

193
00:10:48,210 --> 00:10:53,180
You can see the city looks
like it's two miles below

194
00:10:53,180 --> 00:10:55,270
the artist's studio.

195
00:10:55,270 --> 00:10:57,360
- And then you move into the post-war era

196
00:10:57,360 --> 00:10:59,300
and maybe people had just had had

197
00:10:59,300 --> 00:11:00,960
so much grimness during the war

198
00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,740
that they just wanted to
be liberated from it all.

199
00:11:03,740 --> 00:11:08,127
But the new sentiment and
feeling in advertising,

200
00:11:08,127 --> 00:11:10,450
it's just like happy, smiling,

201
00:11:10,450 --> 00:11:12,370
everybody's got this big grin.

202
00:11:12,370 --> 00:11:13,493
He definitely doesn't have that

203
00:11:13,493 --> 00:11:15,810
sort of like magnificent grimness

204
00:11:15,810 --> 00:11:18,240
of his early Motor Magazine covers.

205
00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:20,370
And then especially when he works his way

206
00:11:20,370 --> 00:11:23,080
into syndicated, like
Closer Than We Think,

207
00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:24,330
some of the column work,

208
00:11:24,330 --> 00:11:26,890
it becomes a lot more like a Sunday funny,

209
00:11:26,890 --> 00:11:29,940
so that's partially a
product of that's what it is,

210
00:11:29,940 --> 00:11:32,470
but it also, I think,
really reflects the time,

211
00:11:32,470 --> 00:11:34,477
which was a lot more kind of like

212
00:11:34,477 --> 00:11:37,250
the future is going to be happy

213
00:11:37,250 --> 00:11:39,320
and everybody's going
to be really affluent

214
00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:40,190
and we're all gonna live

215
00:11:40,190 --> 00:11:42,400
in these big, sterile bubble houses

216
00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:46,620
and everybody is gonna be
very white and very smiling

217
00:11:46,620 --> 00:11:48,760
and very gleaming at all times.

218
00:11:48,760 --> 00:11:50,790
And you don't necessarily get that feeling

219
00:11:50,790 --> 00:11:52,160
from his work in the '30s.

220
00:11:52,160 --> 00:11:54,240
Sure, like the lines
are really aerodynamic,

221
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:56,230
but just also this art deco quality to it.

222
00:11:56,230 --> 00:12:00,170
And there's just this
intensity to the colors

223
00:12:00,170 --> 00:12:03,150
that I think really changes,
the palette changes,

224
00:12:03,150 --> 00:12:05,070
as you move through his career.

225
00:12:05,070 --> 00:12:07,690
- He was highly successful in the 1930s,

226
00:12:07,690 --> 00:12:09,930
but the 1930s has a different attitude

227
00:12:09,930 --> 00:12:11,410
than the post-war years.

228
00:12:11,410 --> 00:12:13,520
1930s is about progress.

229
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:15,900
Look how far we've actually come.

230
00:12:15,900 --> 00:12:19,510
And that was a very, very
popular promoted idea

231
00:12:19,510 --> 00:12:20,610
through the 1930s.

232
00:12:20,610 --> 00:12:21,860
So there's certainly an idea of

233
00:12:21,860 --> 00:12:24,850
well, we've come this
far, how far can we go?

234
00:12:24,850 --> 00:12:28,300
But it wasn't quite the same
as what happened after the war.

235
00:12:28,300 --> 00:12:31,920
During World War II, you
had so many people become

236
00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:34,950
completely in touch with
technology and science

237
00:12:34,950 --> 00:12:36,100
that they had never experienced before.

238
00:12:36,100 --> 00:12:38,490
You have women working in factories

239
00:12:38,490 --> 00:12:40,940
doing blueprint drawings and machine shop

240
00:12:40,940 --> 00:12:42,460
and welding and riveting.

241
00:12:42,460 --> 00:12:44,300
You have men who were in the military

242
00:12:44,300 --> 00:12:45,890
who were experiencing radar

243
00:12:45,890 --> 00:12:48,970
and they're being handed
extremely advanced airplanes

244
00:12:48,970 --> 00:12:52,640
and they're learning about jet
technology and other things.

245
00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:56,730
So the post-war America was
really in tune with technology

246
00:12:56,730 --> 00:12:59,110
and science like they'd never been before.

247
00:12:59,110 --> 00:13:00,340
Men and women.

248
00:13:00,340 --> 00:13:05,040
Radebaugh, although he had
clearly had a bent for the future

249
00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:07,920
before the war, you could see
he's doing futuristic cities

250
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:09,260
for some of his ads.

251
00:13:09,260 --> 00:13:13,440
When he became syndicated,
it really comes together.

252
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:14,680
There's no doubt, it really comes together

253
00:13:14,680 --> 00:13:17,500
with Can You Imagine, which
was just the perfect timing

254
00:13:17,500 --> 00:13:19,310
in the 1940s right after the war

255
00:13:19,310 --> 00:13:22,310
because people were so
in love with this idea of

256
00:13:22,310 --> 00:13:25,083
technological utopia
more than ever before.

257
00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:27,540
- He found an avenue,

258
00:13:27,540 --> 00:13:29,930
his cartoon strip, Can You Imagine,

259
00:13:29,930 --> 00:13:32,200
to have a continuous career.

260
00:13:32,200 --> 00:13:35,370
Because what happened in the marketplace

261
00:13:35,370 --> 00:13:39,990
was, once you were not
marketable to the studios,

262
00:13:39,990 --> 00:13:43,530
you were let go or you
were given less work,

263
00:13:43,530 --> 00:13:46,370
and then you were more or less phased out.

264
00:13:46,370 --> 00:13:49,653
This allowed him some type
of direction in his career.

265
00:13:50,770 --> 00:13:55,770
- It's clearly in the
style of the late 1940s.

266
00:13:56,294 --> 00:13:58,730
It's almost stoic.

267
00:13:58,730 --> 00:14:03,550
It has that rather dry,
but very aspirational

268
00:14:03,550 --> 00:14:05,940
concept vehicle look.

269
00:14:05,940 --> 00:14:07,970
Closer Than We Think is much more playful.

270
00:14:07,970 --> 00:14:10,970
Obviously, Closer Than We
Think as a Sunday funny strip,

271
00:14:10,970 --> 00:14:13,210
it's a little bit more tongue-in-cheek.

272
00:14:13,210 --> 00:14:15,130
It's a little bit more fun.

273
00:14:15,130 --> 00:14:18,300
Whereas Can You Imagine is
a little more buttoned down.

274
00:14:18,300 --> 00:14:21,610
It's got its bow tie
on and its hair combed.

275
00:14:21,610 --> 00:14:24,510
It's got that look of something

276
00:14:24,510 --> 00:14:26,630
that's a little more antiseptic

277
00:14:26,630 --> 00:14:29,300
and it's ready for primetime,

278
00:14:29,300 --> 00:14:31,580
even though it's still a futuristic,

279
00:14:31,580 --> 00:14:33,650
utopian vision of the future.

280
00:14:33,650 --> 00:14:38,000
And I think that that's
coming out of the time period.

281
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,120
It's coming out of World War II.

282
00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:43,060
And it doesn't mean
that it's not still fun,

283
00:14:43,060 --> 00:14:47,930
but once we get to the
late 1950s and early 1960s,

284
00:14:47,930 --> 00:14:50,860
Radebaugh, where he's
doing Closer Than We Think

285
00:14:50,860 --> 00:14:55,860
and you have these just
amazing streamlined cars,

286
00:14:56,050 --> 00:14:58,230
it's just a lot more playful.

287
00:14:58,230 --> 00:15:03,230
It's not quite as rigid
and almost militaristic.

288
00:15:03,710 --> 00:15:05,990
- The Closer Than We Think work,

289
00:15:05,990 --> 00:15:08,810
we found a couple of pieces of it.

290
00:15:08,810 --> 00:15:11,793
But fairly early into our process,

291
00:15:12,770 --> 00:15:14,900
we were contacted by someone

292
00:15:14,900 --> 00:15:19,800
who had managed to acquire
somebody else's scrapbooks

293
00:15:20,830 --> 00:15:22,350
of Radebaugh things.

294
00:15:22,350 --> 00:15:24,240
Kids used to cut things out all the time

295
00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:26,520
and stick them into scrapbooks.

296
00:15:26,520 --> 00:15:28,260
So why not Radebaugh?

297
00:15:28,260 --> 00:15:30,800
You know, some kid was
doing that every week

298
00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:31,973
about the future.

299
00:15:32,870 --> 00:15:35,760
And so this fellow was
able to acquire that

300
00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:38,070
and then suddenly had a collection,

301
00:15:38,070 --> 00:15:40,330
which he then continued to build on.

302
00:15:40,330 --> 00:15:41,570
So he got in touch with us

303
00:15:41,570 --> 00:15:43,360
and was able to provide those for us

304
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,370
and that was a real eye opener as well.

305
00:15:46,370 --> 00:15:50,730
Imagine if your career is illustration

306
00:15:50,730 --> 00:15:52,570
in a world that couldn't get enough

307
00:15:52,570 --> 00:15:55,130
really good illustration for magazines,

308
00:15:55,130 --> 00:15:57,570
for covers, for ads,

309
00:15:57,570 --> 00:15:59,970
and to suddenly have that all disappear,

310
00:15:59,970 --> 00:16:02,900
because we were into
photography, all of a sudden.

311
00:16:02,900 --> 00:16:05,210
It happened practically overnight.

312
00:16:05,210 --> 00:16:09,980
Before, photography in
advertising was just not done.

313
00:16:09,980 --> 00:16:12,023
It seemed third rate.

314
00:16:13,490 --> 00:16:15,370
And then, all of a
sudden, it was accepted.

315
00:16:15,370 --> 00:16:17,490
And it was just like having the whole rug

316
00:16:17,490 --> 00:16:18,500
pulled out from underneath him.

317
00:16:18,500 --> 00:16:23,500
So he then reinvented himself
as this Sunday funnies guy.

318
00:16:25,010 --> 00:16:27,220
- The first edition of
Closer Than We Think

319
00:16:27,220 --> 00:16:29,410
ran in January 1958.

320
00:16:29,410 --> 00:16:34,190
No coincidence that Sputnik
launched in October of 1957.

321
00:16:34,190 --> 00:16:37,350
The first manmade artificial satellite,

322
00:16:37,350 --> 00:16:39,120
launched by the Soviet Union.

323
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:42,500
The first strip was actually
about manmade satellites.

324
00:16:42,500 --> 00:16:43,920
I mean, that's what fascinates me about it

325
00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:47,460
is that Closer Than We Think was pristine,

326
00:16:47,460 --> 00:16:49,780
artifact of the Cold War, in that respect.

327
00:16:49,780 --> 00:16:53,740
It was a direct response
by the United States

328
00:16:53,740 --> 00:16:58,740
to get kids interested in
science through the funny pages.

329
00:16:59,010 --> 00:17:02,650
We kind of forget that the Sunday funnies

330
00:17:02,650 --> 00:17:06,380
was this popular medium,
especially in the 1950s,

331
00:17:06,380 --> 00:17:08,280
that everyone read.

332
00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:11,390
And Closer Than We Think,
as this techno-utopian

333
00:17:11,390 --> 00:17:14,410
vision of tomorrow, gives kids this

334
00:17:14,410 --> 00:17:17,540
not only educational
futurism, if you will,

335
00:17:17,540 --> 00:17:22,520
but this sort of rally around
what the future could be like

336
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:23,690
against the Soviets,

337
00:17:23,690 --> 00:17:27,970
if it's satellites or
even streamlined cars.

338
00:17:27,970 --> 00:17:30,190
It's a very Americanized vision

339
00:17:30,190 --> 00:17:32,787
of what the future is gonna look like.

340
00:17:32,787 --> 00:17:35,000
- It was an exuberant expectation

341
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:36,530
of the future that was gonna come true

342
00:17:36,530 --> 00:17:39,660
like all these drawings
were showing people.

343
00:17:39,660 --> 00:17:41,840
We were gonna ride around
in self-driving cars.

344
00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:43,360
Now it's coming true.

345
00:17:43,360 --> 00:17:45,050
We were gonna ride around in cars

346
00:17:45,050 --> 00:17:48,660
that were sort of big glass
canopy teardrops and things.

347
00:17:48,660 --> 00:17:52,820
And the exuberance of the
technological expectation

348
00:17:52,820 --> 00:17:55,900
was really quite wonderful.

349
00:17:55,900 --> 00:17:58,500
- There was kind of a
technological optimism

350
00:17:58,500 --> 00:18:00,230
based on the fact that
we had just figured out

351
00:18:00,230 --> 00:18:03,000
how to crack the atom.

352
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:06,650
There was an idea that
we were gonna be able to

353
00:18:06,650 --> 00:18:09,160
make technological advances,

354
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,460
which even started to
appear in industrial design.

355
00:18:12,460 --> 00:18:15,130
Cars started trying to look futuristic.

356
00:18:15,130 --> 00:18:17,880
Toasters started trying
to look futuristic.

357
00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:22,230
And Radebaugh, in his drawing career,

358
00:18:22,230 --> 00:18:24,478
was part of that movement.

359
00:18:24,478 --> 00:18:26,150
There were many other people

360
00:18:26,150 --> 00:18:28,150
drawing futuristic looking cars.

361
00:18:28,150 --> 00:18:30,730
His were among the
better examples of that.

362
00:18:30,730 --> 00:18:33,680
So he was used to the
idea of thinking about

363
00:18:34,710 --> 00:18:37,300
where is design gonna go,
where is technology gonna go.

364
00:18:37,300 --> 00:18:40,700
And when he had the idea
of Closer Than We Think,

365
00:18:40,700 --> 00:18:43,690
he somehow knew enough
about industrial design

366
00:18:43,690 --> 00:18:47,190
and automotive design and technology

367
00:18:47,190 --> 00:18:48,560
to be able to make some great guesses

368
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:50,640
about where things might be heading

369
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:52,350
and what might be possible in the future

370
00:18:52,350 --> 00:18:55,190
if somebody took the time
to actually build it.

371
00:18:55,190 --> 00:18:57,130
- A lot of Radebaugh's stuff came true

372
00:18:57,130 --> 00:18:59,750
because he was really

373
00:18:59,750 --> 00:19:03,370
working from this very
practical starting point.

374
00:19:03,370 --> 00:19:06,550
And so you could really go a
couple decades into the future

375
00:19:06,550 --> 00:19:08,910
or maybe sometimes, more or less,

376
00:19:08,910 --> 00:19:13,910
and see that he was tapped
into actual product development

377
00:19:14,310 --> 00:19:17,173
and he was thinking through, sometimes,

378
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,800
really big picture things and
sometimes really small things,

379
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:22,810
like the TV watch.

380
00:19:22,810 --> 00:19:24,008
There was a trajectory there

381
00:19:24,008 --> 00:19:27,000
and it was just kind of
based around this real thing.

382
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:29,083
- It's very hard to predict the future.

383
00:19:30,230 --> 00:19:32,750
If you look at the history of predictions,

384
00:19:32,750 --> 00:19:34,690
it isn't very encouraging.

385
00:19:34,690 --> 00:19:37,460
A year or two before the Wright Brothers,

386
00:19:37,460 --> 00:19:39,963
most people were saying
flight's impossible.

387
00:19:41,550 --> 00:19:44,140
Nobody predicted the internet.

388
00:19:44,140 --> 00:19:47,870
Self-driving cars now seem
like they're inevitable.

389
00:19:47,870 --> 00:19:50,330
Again, if you go back just 10 years,

390
00:19:50,330 --> 00:19:52,130
anybody who knew anything about this

391
00:19:52,130 --> 00:19:55,120
was saying that computers
will never be able

392
00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:57,470
to navigate streets like this.

393
00:19:57,470 --> 00:19:59,290
So it's hard to make specific predictions,

394
00:19:59,290 --> 00:20:01,790
but if you look at long-term trends,

395
00:20:01,790 --> 00:20:05,520
what you can see is that,
over decades or centuries,

396
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,120
you can predict that human lifespans

397
00:20:08,120 --> 00:20:09,660
will continue to get longer.

398
00:20:09,660 --> 00:20:12,760
You can predict that economic growth

399
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,280
will keep pulling people out of poverty.

400
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:18,180
You can predict that
everyone on the planet

401
00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:19,610
will be connected to the internet,

402
00:20:19,610 --> 00:20:22,240
which means that all
those billions of brains

403
00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:24,210
that, so far, haven't
been able to contribute

404
00:20:24,210 --> 00:20:27,090
to human culture will be able to.

405
00:20:27,090 --> 00:20:28,690
Those kinds of predictions, you can make

406
00:20:28,690 --> 00:20:31,620
because you're looking at
the long-term and trends,

407
00:20:31,620 --> 00:20:32,960
but making a specific prediction

408
00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:36,640
about a specific piece of
technology is really hard,

409
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,670
which is why what Radebaugh has done,

410
00:20:39,670 --> 00:20:41,820
or what Radebaugh did was so amazing

411
00:20:41,820 --> 00:20:46,053
and kind of unbelievable
when you take a look at it.

412
00:20:47,390 --> 00:20:49,310
- Doctors are looking ahead to the time

413
00:20:49,310 --> 00:20:51,870
when manmade substitutes will replace

414
00:20:51,870 --> 00:20:54,060
many sections of the human body.

415
00:20:54,060 --> 00:20:56,470
And in tomorrow's world,
hospitals may stock

416
00:20:56,470 --> 00:20:58,630
many synthetic human parts,

417
00:20:58,630 --> 00:21:01,520
just as they have blood
and bone banks today.

418
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,840
Tiny valves now used in space mechanisms

419
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:07,500
will strengthen defective hearts.

420
00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:09,400
Plastic meshes are being tested

421
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:12,510
to reinforce weak chest
and abdominal walls.

422
00:21:12,510 --> 00:21:15,100
Other plastics are
undergoing experimentation

423
00:21:15,100 --> 00:21:19,380
as trellises along which
arteries will rebuild themselves.

424
00:21:19,380 --> 00:21:22,440
Hospitals of the future
may well be warehouses

425
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:24,990
of spare human parts
as well as headquarters

426
00:21:24,990 --> 00:21:26,700
for installing them.

427
00:21:26,700 --> 00:21:28,010
Fascinating.

428
00:21:28,010 --> 00:21:30,310
To be honest, it's mostly true.

429
00:21:30,310 --> 00:21:35,037
It's not true yet, but the root towards it

430
00:21:35,900 --> 00:21:38,920
is uncannily accurately described here.

431
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:40,950
The idea of having organ banks,

432
00:21:40,950 --> 00:21:43,050
places where organs are stored

433
00:21:43,050 --> 00:21:45,970
for transplantation into people,

434
00:21:45,970 --> 00:21:48,000
is something that doesn't exist yet,

435
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:49,560
but people are certainly working on it,

436
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,950
and in fact, a company that
we spat out just last year,

437
00:21:52,950 --> 00:21:57,130
that company is actually
developing exactly that thing

438
00:21:57,130 --> 00:21:59,800
based on a technological
breakthrough that they made

439
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,970
that is going to make
it much more possible

440
00:22:02,970 --> 00:22:04,620
to cryo-preserve organs,

441
00:22:04,620 --> 00:22:06,380
to take an organ from a donor

442
00:22:06,380 --> 00:22:11,070
and to reduce it to, let's say
liquid nitrogen temperatures,

443
00:22:11,070 --> 00:22:13,340
in a manner that does not
damage it and, therefore,

444
00:22:13,340 --> 00:22:15,240
that allows it to be warmed up again later

445
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:16,550
and given to someone.

446
00:22:16,550 --> 00:22:18,620
That's a technology that we absolutely,

447
00:22:18,620 --> 00:22:20,800
vitally need in organ transplantation

448
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,980
because, at the moment, if
you can't freeze an organ

449
00:22:23,980 --> 00:22:25,910
when you take it out of somebody,

450
00:22:25,910 --> 00:22:28,250
it only lasts for a few
hours, and that's not enough.

451
00:22:28,250 --> 00:22:30,190
If we talk about the next paragraph,

452
00:22:30,190 --> 00:22:32,900
valves that might
strengthen defective hearts

453
00:22:32,900 --> 00:22:35,500
and the meshes to reinforce things,

454
00:22:35,500 --> 00:22:37,970
these things are, indeed,
already happening.

455
00:22:37,970 --> 00:22:40,020
The whole field of tissue engineering,

456
00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:42,110
which kind of started to emerge

457
00:22:42,110 --> 00:22:44,480
maybe 30 years after this was written

458
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,230
and which had a bunch of
false starts, actually,

459
00:22:47,230 --> 00:22:48,920
that field is now really burgeoning

460
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:51,570
with a number of very promising

461
00:22:51,570 --> 00:22:53,640
and successful companies in that space.

462
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,970
And again, these things
are really moving forward.

463
00:22:55,970 --> 00:22:57,290
Of course, things have changed

464
00:22:57,290 --> 00:23:00,630
with different materials that
are being used keep improving.

465
00:23:00,630 --> 00:23:04,497
The ways in which we create these valves

466
00:23:04,497 --> 00:23:08,570
and these trellises, as this
thing calls them, have changed,

467
00:23:08,570 --> 00:23:10,690
but the general concept
is pretty much exactly

468
00:23:10,690 --> 00:23:12,050
what this paragraph describes.

469
00:23:12,050 --> 00:23:12,923
It's uncanny.

470
00:23:15,610 --> 00:23:20,570
- We had this whole web of
people who had known him,

471
00:23:20,570 --> 00:23:22,890
who are now old, but had known
them when they were young

472
00:23:22,890 --> 00:23:26,620
working in this illustration
house in Detroit.

473
00:23:26,620 --> 00:23:29,250
- New Center Studios
arises out of this sort of

474
00:23:29,250 --> 00:23:33,350
post-war surge in the
automobile industry in Detroit

475
00:23:33,350 --> 00:23:37,240
where, before the war,
maybe all the companies

476
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:39,210
would put out essentially one automobile

477
00:23:39,210 --> 00:23:40,500
and then it'd be like the high end

478
00:23:40,500 --> 00:23:42,230
and low end version of that.

479
00:23:42,230 --> 00:23:46,500
After the war, they try to
target all the available markets

480
00:23:46,500 --> 00:23:48,807
and they make very different
marks within the company,

481
00:23:48,807 --> 00:23:51,450
its different brands,
different automobiles come out.

482
00:23:51,450 --> 00:23:55,330
And concomitantly, there's
this surge in advertising

483
00:23:55,330 --> 00:23:58,100
and brochures to get at all
these different markets of

484
00:23:58,100 --> 00:24:00,100
everybody should have an
automobile, and ideally,

485
00:24:00,100 --> 00:24:03,390
everybody would be buying
a new one every two years.

486
00:24:03,390 --> 00:24:06,050
And so the commercial art world in Detroit

487
00:24:06,050 --> 00:24:07,670
just kind of exploded.

488
00:24:07,670 --> 00:24:10,610
The affluence of something
like New Center Studios

489
00:24:10,610 --> 00:24:12,233
was really remarkable.

490
00:24:16,070 --> 00:24:18,673
- Then by a fortunate break,

491
00:24:19,630 --> 00:24:22,080
there was an opening at New Center Studios

492
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,300
in the Fisher Building
right at the end of the war.

493
00:24:25,300 --> 00:24:30,300
New Center Studios, at that
time, with the volume of artwork

494
00:24:31,043 --> 00:24:35,200
that was coming into the Detroit area

495
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:37,500
from the automotive
companies that was needed,

496
00:24:38,470 --> 00:24:40,860
brought in a lot of illustrators
from all over the country.

497
00:24:40,860 --> 00:24:45,860
- Detroit automotive advertising
is an ever-revolving cycle.

498
00:24:46,420 --> 00:24:49,750
It's a very competitive
market, and each year,

499
00:24:49,750 --> 00:24:53,170
the community has to come up
with a new look or new style

500
00:24:53,170 --> 00:24:56,290
to present to the client
to freshen up the product.

501
00:24:56,290 --> 00:24:59,440
- Now, basically, it all
started with the artwork.

502
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,510
Photography had not really

503
00:25:01,510 --> 00:25:03,590
come into the advertising picture.

504
00:25:03,590 --> 00:25:06,403
The talent they had
there was unbelievable.

505
00:25:07,360 --> 00:25:11,460
Illustrators, car painters,
figure people, re-touchers.

506
00:25:11,460 --> 00:25:14,520
Even had three or four
lettering men alone,

507
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:16,520
just lettering headlines.

508
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,080
Things weren't done in typesetting form

509
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:19,340
in those days either.

510
00:25:19,340 --> 00:25:20,920
Maybe they wanted a certain typeface

511
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,850
to be reflected in the ads

512
00:25:22,850 --> 00:25:25,200
so they kept, imagine
that, all hand lettering.

513
00:25:26,140 --> 00:25:31,140
Gradually, an artist that I
worked with, Art Radebaugh,

514
00:25:31,180 --> 00:25:32,770
we kind of became good friends.

515
00:25:32,770 --> 00:25:33,880
I really enjoyed Art.

516
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,593
He was really a great guy to
communicate with and talk to.

517
00:25:37,593 --> 00:25:39,430
He'd come and talk to me occasionally.

518
00:25:39,430 --> 00:25:41,260
Our photographic, our little department

519
00:25:41,260 --> 00:25:42,447
was at the back of the studio

520
00:25:42,447 --> 00:25:45,520
and he would come by every day and stop.

521
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,930
And when he got talking,
when you got to know him...

522
00:25:47,930 --> 00:25:48,763
I don't know why.

523
00:25:48,763 --> 00:25:49,623
He liked me.

524
00:25:51,090 --> 00:25:52,670
I went out one time with him

525
00:25:52,670 --> 00:25:56,460
to do a series of pictures
of automobile dealerships

526
00:25:56,460 --> 00:25:58,060
that he was going to illustrate.

527
00:25:59,300 --> 00:26:02,410
And that's when we really got
into talking and conversing.

528
00:26:02,410 --> 00:26:04,580
He was a quiet individual,

529
00:26:04,580 --> 00:26:05,900
kept to himself,

530
00:26:05,900 --> 00:26:07,910
just a real gentleman, in my opinion.

531
00:26:07,910 --> 00:26:09,660
I really liked Art.

532
00:26:09,660 --> 00:26:13,870
Time Magazine was up above the
studio in the Fisher Building

533
00:26:13,870 --> 00:26:17,080
and they had heard about Art

534
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:19,510
because, at that time, he
was just getting into this

535
00:26:19,510 --> 00:26:21,500
Can You Imagine series.

536
00:26:21,500 --> 00:26:22,880
They wanted to do something unique,

537
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:24,627
so Art said, "Look at
what I'd like to do then,"

538
00:26:24,627 --> 00:26:26,527
and they came down and approached him.

539
00:26:27,587 --> 00:26:32,017
"We would like to do something
in blacklight possibly, Art."

540
00:26:33,210 --> 00:26:35,070
So Art came up with the idea,

541
00:26:35,070 --> 00:26:39,330
I want to do a nude in blacklight.

542
00:26:39,330 --> 00:26:41,130
I want to paint the nude fluorescent

543
00:26:42,070 --> 00:26:46,040
and he had a vision of
this whole thing set up.

544
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,007
So in the set-up of the situation,

545
00:26:48,007 --> 00:26:51,810
and this model was on a tiered box,

546
00:26:51,810 --> 00:26:53,700
he wanted to do a profile of her

547
00:26:53,700 --> 00:26:56,470
and he was gonna have his white ascot.

548
00:26:56,470 --> 00:26:59,130
So in the dark, he would be glowing,

549
00:26:59,130 --> 00:27:00,660
background would be glowing,

550
00:27:00,660 --> 00:27:03,230
and the girl, obviously the background,

551
00:27:03,230 --> 00:27:04,970
there she is glowing in the dark.

552
00:27:04,970 --> 00:27:06,880
And when it came to futuristic drawings

553
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:11,660
that he would get into, I never
saw a reference around him.

554
00:27:11,660 --> 00:27:14,050
A lot of artists would have reference

555
00:27:14,050 --> 00:27:16,510
if they're illustrating say a figure

556
00:27:16,510 --> 00:27:18,910
or a background or what have you.

557
00:27:18,910 --> 00:27:20,220
He did not do that.

558
00:27:20,220 --> 00:27:21,970
I never saw that at all.

559
00:27:21,970 --> 00:27:23,853
Everything he did was in his head.

560
00:27:26,150 --> 00:27:27,910
- It became clear that...

561
00:27:28,750 --> 00:27:31,940
They had a whole stable
of really terrific artists

562
00:27:32,900 --> 00:27:34,900
doing illustration work for advertising.

563
00:27:36,010 --> 00:27:39,060
And they would send out examples

564
00:27:39,060 --> 00:27:41,960
of various artists' work
to potential clients,

565
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:43,690
and they would include
Radebaugh's work in there

566
00:27:43,690 --> 00:27:47,810
because Radebaugh was
kooky and interesting.

567
00:27:47,810 --> 00:27:49,760
But he didn't get a lot of work.

568
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,370
They loved his work and so
they would hire somebody

569
00:27:53,370 --> 00:27:54,870
that was in association with him

570
00:27:54,870 --> 00:27:57,120
that was part of that same club,

571
00:27:57,120 --> 00:27:58,880
but that was a little more down to earth

572
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,120
that they could sell their toothpaste

573
00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:03,990
or hubcaps or whatever it may be.

574
00:28:03,990 --> 00:28:05,480
- I think when we interviewed people,

575
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:09,300
what we learned was the way
any professional art studio

576
00:28:09,300 --> 00:28:11,783
would have operated at that time.

577
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:15,960
It was a fast-paced life.

578
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:17,880
People would be pulling all-nighters

579
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,270
to get an ad collection done.

580
00:28:21,270 --> 00:28:22,990
There's a lot of drinking and smoking.

581
00:28:22,990 --> 00:28:26,690
Lots of people working on
any particular ad campaign,

582
00:28:26,690 --> 00:28:29,000
and not just on a particular ad campaign,

583
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,590
but also on single pieces of artwork.

584
00:28:31,590 --> 00:28:36,590
Where Radebaugh's name might
be on the piece of artwork,

585
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,970
there were other men who
working on the piece as well,

586
00:28:40,970 --> 00:28:45,090
people who might have
penciled the automobile in

587
00:28:45,090 --> 00:28:46,410
to make sure that, in fact,

588
00:28:46,410 --> 00:28:49,150
it did look like a Dodge Luxury Liner

589
00:28:49,150 --> 00:28:50,993
from that particular year.

590
00:28:57,650 --> 00:29:01,800
- As an illustrator, you
bring certain things to it.

591
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:06,650
And my advertising illustration background

592
00:29:07,570 --> 00:29:10,300
and my personality as a painter

593
00:29:10,300 --> 00:29:12,650
wants things to be positive

594
00:29:12,650 --> 00:29:16,800
and not cold and foreboding,

595
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,260
but yet warm and inviting.

596
00:29:19,260 --> 00:29:24,260
A futurist illustrator, they have an idea

597
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,040
about the way something should be

598
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,240
and then they might illustrate that,

599
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,510
that aspect of looking into the future.

600
00:29:33,510 --> 00:29:35,260
I try to bring as much of that,

601
00:29:35,260 --> 00:29:37,870
personally, out of myself as I can,

602
00:29:37,870 --> 00:29:42,870
but yet, I am still
restricted by another person's

603
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,710
vision of the future, which
I'm illustrating for them.

604
00:29:46,710 --> 00:29:51,710
You have to be very empathetic
to the cause and the mission.

605
00:29:53,340 --> 00:29:55,500
I've always been interested in space,

606
00:29:55,500 --> 00:30:00,450
hardware, planes, spaceships.

607
00:30:00,450 --> 00:30:02,770
When I was a little boy,
I watched Flash Gordon

608
00:30:02,770 --> 00:30:05,140
every afternoon on television

609
00:30:05,140 --> 00:30:07,920
and thought that was
the most fantastic thing

610
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,460
that you could do is fly around on a ship

611
00:30:11,460 --> 00:30:12,970
from planet to planet.

612
00:30:12,970 --> 00:30:15,300
So I always had an interest in that

613
00:30:15,300 --> 00:30:19,953
and I always try to keep current
as possible and whenever,

614
00:30:20,930 --> 00:30:23,010
something to read or follow.

615
00:30:23,010 --> 00:30:27,520
- If you're doing a straight
future vision of something,

616
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:29,800
it has to be consistent
with why it looks that way

617
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:30,763
in that world.

618
00:30:34,770 --> 00:30:38,017
It's very philosophical in a strange way.

619
00:30:39,740 --> 00:30:44,740
And when you're doing a
job for a commercial client

620
00:30:44,810 --> 00:30:48,730
that wants you to create a
future look for whatever reason,

621
00:30:48,730 --> 00:30:51,540
then you invent with this tailored look

622
00:30:51,540 --> 00:30:54,610
that fits their agency.

623
00:30:54,610 --> 00:30:55,970
Sounds sort of...

624
00:30:57,150 --> 00:30:58,816
Well, it is.
It's a business.

625
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,430
So I create my scenario

626
00:31:03,430 --> 00:31:05,690
and illustrate why it would be that way

627
00:31:05,690 --> 00:31:08,530
and go ahead and make it all up.

628
00:31:08,530 --> 00:31:10,600
But within the industrial
design background,

629
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:11,850
I can make it all up

630
00:31:11,850 --> 00:31:14,200
and it looks like it
really should be that way.

631
00:31:15,250 --> 00:31:17,270
- I would ask for certain information

632
00:31:17,270 --> 00:31:19,350
or they would provide pretty much

633
00:31:19,350 --> 00:31:21,490
everything I needed visually.

634
00:31:21,490 --> 00:31:24,558
And sometimes, the authors of
the project would be there,

635
00:31:24,558 --> 00:31:27,800
and then I'd go away and produce a drawing

636
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:32,020
and bring the preliminary sketch back,

637
00:31:32,020 --> 00:31:35,740
which is a line drawing,
we're showing the apparatus

638
00:31:35,740 --> 00:31:38,310
or subject pretty carefully.

639
00:31:38,310 --> 00:31:41,650
And then I'd return once I got the okay

640
00:31:41,650 --> 00:31:46,610
with some particular comments,
which I would adjust.

641
00:31:46,610 --> 00:31:49,500
Then I'd come back, get a second approval,

642
00:31:49,500 --> 00:31:53,370
then take it back and create
the full color illustration

643
00:31:53,370 --> 00:31:54,260
and deliver it.

644
00:31:54,260 --> 00:31:59,260
- Radebaugh was a futurist,
but not working alone.

645
00:31:59,870 --> 00:32:01,870
And things that he was tapping into

646
00:32:01,870 --> 00:32:04,540
were already somehow
being used in the design

647
00:32:04,540 --> 00:32:07,380
of other things that we
were already collecting.

648
00:32:07,380 --> 00:32:08,830
So it fit in with that

649
00:32:08,830 --> 00:32:10,960
and we would constantly
reference back and forth

650
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:12,520
between other things,
and then sometimes find

651
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,120
another piece of Radebaugh's work

652
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:18,570
in a file full of things
that had to do with toasters

653
00:32:19,460 --> 00:32:21,330
or race cars or something.

654
00:32:21,330 --> 00:32:23,280
There would be something that we had saved

655
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,840
and slipped in there and it
ended up being Radebaugh's work.

656
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:28,680
We learned he was called an imagineer

657
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:30,590
because we would read
it in various places.

658
00:32:30,590 --> 00:32:33,300
It was presented as a
sort of official feeling,

659
00:32:33,300 --> 00:32:36,610
like he was not just an imagineer,

660
00:32:36,610 --> 00:32:37,900
but he was the Imagineer.

661
00:32:37,900 --> 00:32:40,380
It was a word that we
weren't familiar with,

662
00:32:40,380 --> 00:32:44,300
that was assigned to him
because he'd earned it.

663
00:32:44,300 --> 00:32:45,600
It just had that feel.

664
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,330
I've never seen it
anywhere before or since

665
00:32:47,330 --> 00:32:50,590
except, some years later,

666
00:32:50,590 --> 00:32:52,460
when he wasn't using it anymore

667
00:32:52,460 --> 00:32:54,050
and it was suddenly owned,

668
00:32:54,050 --> 00:32:58,450
and I'm sure copyrighted, by
Disney and their Imagineers.

669
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:04,020
- It seems to have originated
with Alcoa Aluminum in 1943.

670
00:33:04,020 --> 00:33:08,180
It seems to have come a very
common term at that point

671
00:33:08,180 --> 00:33:11,010
where they were advertising
that you should do imagineering

672
00:33:11,010 --> 00:33:12,610
to enhance your business.

673
00:33:12,610 --> 00:33:14,560
And then other people started using it.

674
00:33:15,943 --> 00:33:18,650
So a good chance that Radebaugh
didn't create the term

675
00:33:18,650 --> 00:33:21,710
and just absconded with it, you might say,

676
00:33:21,710 --> 00:33:23,320
and made it his own.

677
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:25,380
And then it becomes a term

678
00:33:25,380 --> 00:33:26,800
that is applied to numerous people

679
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,670
like Bill Stout, who did the
Stout's Scarab automobile

680
00:33:29,670 --> 00:33:32,270
and did the Ford Trimotor.

681
00:33:32,270 --> 00:33:36,380
People started using it to
identify him, Imagineer Stout.

682
00:33:36,380 --> 00:33:38,480
Imagineer, this guy, he's an imagineer.

683
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,790
It was starting to become
a term in the late '40s,

684
00:33:40,790 --> 00:33:43,280
mid- to late '40s, to describe people

685
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:45,270
who were kind of visionary.

686
00:33:45,270 --> 00:33:48,070
I could easily see Radebaugh
just making it his own,

687
00:33:48,070 --> 00:33:52,600
taking it and embracing
it and making it his term.

688
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,010
With the national distribution
that he no doubt had

689
00:33:55,010 --> 00:34:00,010
with his strips like Can You
Imagine, then it became his.

690
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:04,900
As a historian who studies
a lot of designers,

691
00:34:04,900 --> 00:34:06,200
I often find that they take credit

692
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:07,680
for things they didn't do,

693
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:11,340
they have big egos, they
inflate their importance,

694
00:34:11,340 --> 00:34:14,410
knowingly create mythologies
that are not true

695
00:34:14,410 --> 00:34:16,770
for various different purposes.

696
00:34:16,770 --> 00:34:19,260
Radebaugh says he created
the Ferris wheel parking lot

697
00:34:19,260 --> 00:34:20,480
and that was actually something done

698
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:22,590
by Westinghouse in the 1920s,

699
00:34:22,590 --> 00:34:25,300
probably before he even
started as an illustrator,

700
00:34:25,300 --> 00:34:28,530
as well as it was at the 1933 World's Fair

701
00:34:28,530 --> 00:34:31,270
and they were all throughout Chicago.

702
00:34:31,270 --> 00:34:32,720
Why he took credit for that,

703
00:34:32,720 --> 00:34:34,200
did he think he could get away with it

704
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:35,210
because it had been so long,

705
00:34:35,210 --> 00:34:37,670
or did he actually think
that he invented it?

706
00:34:37,670 --> 00:34:39,450
I don't think he actually invented it.

707
00:34:39,450 --> 00:34:41,690
I'm convinced that he actually

708
00:34:41,690 --> 00:34:43,240
knew he could get away with it.

709
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,140
- I get the impression
that, when people see this,

710
00:34:47,140 --> 00:34:52,140
they see hope and I see fear.

711
00:34:53,690 --> 00:34:57,330
It's the ways that we
might be able to survive

712
00:34:57,330 --> 00:35:00,230
a suddenly perilous world.

713
00:35:00,230 --> 00:35:02,720
But it's all an escape plan.

714
00:35:02,720 --> 00:35:07,100
None of it, to me, is
particularly positive.

715
00:35:07,100 --> 00:35:08,910
People are living in bubbles

716
00:35:10,300 --> 00:35:11,810
or under the water

717
00:35:13,370 --> 00:35:14,700
or in space

718
00:35:16,350 --> 00:35:18,343
because the world has been destroyed.

719
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,108
To me, it's frightening.

720
00:35:23,108 --> 00:35:25,775
(ominous music)

721
00:35:29,300 --> 00:35:32,930
A small amount of it is dealing
with things that we would

722
00:35:32,930 --> 00:35:35,820
really need help with in
the world at the time.

723
00:35:35,820 --> 00:35:37,670
I think it's really beautiful

724
00:35:37,670 --> 00:35:40,550
and there are aspects
of it that are hopeful,

725
00:35:40,550 --> 00:35:45,490
but so much of it has nothing
to do with the natural world,

726
00:35:45,490 --> 00:35:49,210
either altering actual
agriculture of the time

727
00:35:49,210 --> 00:35:52,340
or actual landscapes of earth

728
00:35:52,340 --> 00:35:54,523
or just not being on it whatsoever.

729
00:35:55,570 --> 00:35:57,320
I just wonder what people's responses were

730
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,130
to Closer Than We Think, if
it was making them hopeful.

731
00:36:00,130 --> 00:36:02,480
It seems like it must have in a way

732
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:04,000
because, at a time where, all of a sudden,

733
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,380
things seemed really scary,

734
00:36:06,380 --> 00:36:11,380
of the potential of mass nuclear warfare,

735
00:36:11,700 --> 00:36:14,900
these seem like great encouraging visions

736
00:36:14,900 --> 00:36:17,683
of an American future specifically.

737
00:36:18,990 --> 00:36:21,120
We're the largest collection
in the entire world.

738
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:23,860
Our collection holds over
three million pieces.

739
00:36:23,860 --> 00:36:27,580
2.5 million of that is
comic strip clippings

740
00:36:27,580 --> 00:36:30,610
and tear sheets, so a whole
page of the newspaper torn out,

741
00:36:30,610 --> 00:36:32,600
in this case, the comic section.

742
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,430
But about 400,000 of it is original art,

743
00:36:35,430 --> 00:36:36,610
and it can be original art

744
00:36:36,610 --> 00:36:38,270
from things like Closer Than We Think.

745
00:36:38,270 --> 00:36:39,310
This collection came to us

746
00:36:39,310 --> 00:36:41,210
from the International
Museum of Cartoon Art,

747
00:36:41,210 --> 00:36:44,470
which was one of the first
museums in the United States

748
00:36:44,470 --> 00:36:47,340
dedicated solely to
comics and cartoon art,

749
00:36:47,340 --> 00:36:48,930
founded by Mort Walker,

750
00:36:48,930 --> 00:36:50,580
who was the creator of Beetle Bailey,

751
00:36:50,580 --> 00:36:53,140
famous comic strip that's
still around today.

752
00:36:53,140 --> 00:36:56,210
He founded this museum
and was just gaining,

753
00:36:56,210 --> 00:36:59,230
I think, close to 200,000 pieces

754
00:36:59,230 --> 00:37:01,880
from various other institutions,

755
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:04,240
be it syndicates that were closing down

756
00:37:04,240 --> 00:37:06,630
and had leftover original art

757
00:37:06,630 --> 00:37:09,000
or proof sheets from
comics that they had run.

758
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,660
So he amassed this very large collection,

759
00:37:10,660 --> 00:37:14,090
and after the museum had been
around for a couple decades,

760
00:37:14,090 --> 00:37:17,960
when they finally folded,
their collection came to us.

761
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,240
So that's where we got it
but, from my understanding,

762
00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:24,590
he got it originally from the
Chicago Tribune's archive.

763
00:37:24,590 --> 00:37:26,940
We have a climate controlled facility

764
00:37:26,940 --> 00:37:30,110
so our archive where all
of our original art is kept

765
00:37:30,110 --> 00:37:32,630
is constantly at a low
temperature and humidity,

766
00:37:32,630 --> 00:37:35,760
monitored 24 hours a day
under very high security.

767
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,200
And the Closer Than We Think collection

768
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,983
is within acid-free boxes
in that archival space.

769
00:37:42,910 --> 00:37:47,060
Of Arthur Radebaugh's work, we
have about six or seven boxes

770
00:37:47,060 --> 00:37:49,620
of original art from Closer Than We Think

771
00:37:49,620 --> 00:37:52,510
as well as an entire book of proof sheets

772
00:37:52,510 --> 00:37:54,900
from the Chicago Tribune
of Closer Than We Think

773
00:37:54,900 --> 00:37:56,093
and of Jet Swift.

774
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:00,243
Here's the first one.

775
00:38:04,580 --> 00:38:08,480
This is Bristol board and he,
unlike with the other ones,

776
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:09,980
where that texture is coming from that,

777
00:38:09,980 --> 00:38:12,973
for this, he actually
did an airbrush effect,

778
00:38:14,220 --> 00:38:16,090
splatter paint, I think.

779
00:38:16,090 --> 00:38:18,340
But yeah, it is on pretty
thick Bristol board

780
00:38:19,450 --> 00:38:21,957
or illustration board is
what it's also called.

781
00:38:23,381 --> 00:38:26,298
(futuristic music)

782
00:41:04,690 --> 00:41:08,380
- I find that the shocking
thing about Radebaugh is

783
00:41:08,380 --> 00:41:10,680
how many of his predictions
aren't just close,

784
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:12,810
but are right on the money.

785
00:41:12,810 --> 00:41:17,810
So it's kind of crazy
stuff that he was inventing

786
00:41:19,050 --> 00:41:24,050
or fantasizing about in 1960
or '61 is only now happening.

787
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,040
- Well, I tell people
the future came true,

788
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:31,780
but it came true in little bits and pieces

789
00:41:31,780 --> 00:41:33,750
called consumer goods.

790
00:41:33,750 --> 00:41:36,380
- He drew a wristwatch TV.

791
00:41:36,380 --> 00:41:38,890
It's kind of amazing how targeted

792
00:41:38,890 --> 00:41:39,920
some of the predictions are.

793
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:43,100
And other ones, he was right in seeing

794
00:41:43,100 --> 00:41:44,320
that there was a need for something

795
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,040
or that something would be possible,

796
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:48,830
but maybe didn't see
how it would be applied.

797
00:41:48,830 --> 00:41:53,210
A Roomba is not the same as a
robot housemaid is a good one.

798
00:41:53,210 --> 00:41:55,660
They're not exactly the
same, but he was seeing

799
00:41:55,660 --> 00:41:58,810
that we're gonna have robotic appliances

800
00:41:58,810 --> 00:42:01,510
doing some of the heavy
lifting of housework

801
00:42:01,510 --> 00:42:04,070
that nobody wants to do.

802
00:42:04,070 --> 00:42:07,180
Wall-to-wall television has
existed for about a decade.

803
00:42:07,180 --> 00:42:10,770
You know, 100 inch screens and bigger.

804
00:42:10,770 --> 00:42:12,950
Robot warehouses now exist.

805
00:42:12,950 --> 00:42:16,560
Amazon is mostly robot warehouses.

806
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:17,810
Rocket mailmen.

807
00:42:17,810 --> 00:42:19,840
So he didn't get this quite right,

808
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,520
but his idea that your mail
would get delivered to you

809
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:25,700
by some kind of transport

810
00:42:25,700 --> 00:42:30,440
is Amazon and Google both
experimenting with drone delivery.

811
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,450
It's like took the person
out of the equation,

812
00:42:33,450 --> 00:42:35,370
but the idea that something was gonna come

813
00:42:35,370 --> 00:42:38,780
directly to you by some mechanical device,

814
00:42:38,780 --> 00:42:40,190
it turns out to be right.

815
00:42:40,190 --> 00:42:42,840
He had a thing called
One-World Job Market,

816
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,600
which LinkedIn and the
rest of our social networks

817
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:48,650
are kind of making us all global citizens.

818
00:42:48,650 --> 00:42:52,350
People are applying for
jobs in far-off locations

819
00:42:52,350 --> 00:42:56,770
using this networked
economy that we now have.

820
00:42:56,770 --> 00:42:58,270
He did a couple things about education.

821
00:42:58,270 --> 00:43:01,540
Push-Button Education or
Every Home a Classroom.

822
00:43:01,540 --> 00:43:04,380
You can now go on the
internet and take courses

823
00:43:04,380 --> 00:43:06,240
at almost any college in the country.

824
00:43:06,240 --> 00:43:07,810
You can go on Udacity.

825
00:43:07,810 --> 00:43:09,433
You can see things on YouTube.

826
00:43:10,584 --> 00:43:14,000
The idea that education now
comes to you in your home

827
00:43:15,410 --> 00:43:17,430
happens all the time now.

828
00:43:17,430 --> 00:43:19,290
- When it comes to gauging

829
00:43:19,290 --> 00:43:21,860
whether Radebaugh's
predictions are accurate,

830
00:43:21,860 --> 00:43:23,300
I think it's tough to say.

831
00:43:23,300 --> 00:43:27,190
I think every old
prediction for the future

832
00:43:27,190 --> 00:43:29,000
is sort of Rorschach test

833
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,940
because you're gonna
see what you wanna see.

834
00:43:31,940 --> 00:43:36,940
Let's take a Radebaugh
prediction of video phone.

835
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,280
You see an executive at his desk.

836
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:40,430
He's got a video phone.

837
00:43:40,430 --> 00:43:41,760
Was that accurate?

838
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:43,120
Sure, we've got Facetime,

839
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:45,550
we've got all these technologies

840
00:43:45,550 --> 00:43:47,610
that give us the video phone.

841
00:43:47,610 --> 00:43:49,930
Does it look like Radebaugh's particular

842
00:43:49,930 --> 00:43:53,700
vision of the video phone
with the circular screen

843
00:43:53,700 --> 00:43:54,880
sitting on the executive's desk?

844
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:56,080
No, it doesn't.

845
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,453
So, can you call that prediction accurate?

846
00:43:59,350 --> 00:44:02,170
Sure, no, I don't know.

847
00:44:02,170 --> 00:44:03,950
I don't have a video phone
that looks like that.

848
00:44:03,950 --> 00:44:06,910
Would be pretty cool
if I did, but I don't.

849
00:44:06,910 --> 00:44:10,420
Every piece of futurism
is a Rorschach test.

850
00:44:10,420 --> 00:44:12,530
No one is psychic.

851
00:44:12,530 --> 00:44:15,470
That's what makes old
visions of the future fun.

852
00:44:15,470 --> 00:44:17,800
No one's gonna get it 100% right.

853
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,640
And even if someone was
really, really close,

854
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:23,610
it's still gonna be just a little bit off.

855
00:44:23,610 --> 00:44:25,050
It's gonna be just enough off

856
00:44:25,050 --> 00:44:26,893
that it's gonna look really cool.

857
00:44:27,870 --> 00:44:29,270
- Cartoonists have had a history

858
00:44:29,270 --> 00:44:32,470
of drawing futuristic scenes

859
00:44:32,470 --> 00:44:37,100
and a lot of it is because, I
think, cartooning is escapism.

860
00:44:37,100 --> 00:44:39,550
I mean, it's a really isolated practice.

861
00:44:39,550 --> 00:44:41,140
People who are making things,

862
00:44:41,140 --> 00:44:44,220
especially dailies coming
out every single day,

863
00:44:44,220 --> 00:44:46,780
are spending a lot of time alone

864
00:44:46,780 --> 00:44:48,920
in a room focusing on this stuff.

865
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,000
And so there's a lot of dreaming involved.

866
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:52,550
Creating visions of the future

867
00:44:52,550 --> 00:44:55,730
is not something that started
with Radebaugh by any stretch.

868
00:44:55,730 --> 00:44:58,130
Dating back to the really early 1900s,

869
00:44:58,130 --> 00:45:00,800
some similar ideas to what
Radebaugh would do later,

870
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,670
especially with people
flying on propellers

871
00:45:04,670 --> 00:45:07,030
that are attached to their back.

872
00:45:07,030 --> 00:45:09,360
Radebaugh was not a known cartoonist

873
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,120
in the grand scheme of things.

874
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,240
I don't think that Closer Than We Think

875
00:45:13,240 --> 00:45:15,150
was widely syndicated.

876
00:45:15,150 --> 00:45:20,150
His name is not known by almost
any scholars in the field.

877
00:45:21,660 --> 00:45:23,660
Even when I first started researching him,

878
00:45:23,660 --> 00:45:26,110
no one I knew had ever heard
of him and the people I know

879
00:45:26,110 --> 00:45:28,260
are the people who know about this stuff.

880
00:45:28,260 --> 00:45:30,930
So I think he was probably
really well known, I would guess,

881
00:45:30,930 --> 00:45:35,930
in the science and automotive
illustration world,

882
00:45:36,810 --> 00:45:39,930
but in a lot of ways,
he wasn't a cartoonist.

883
00:45:39,930 --> 00:45:41,163
He was an illustrator.

884
00:45:42,710 --> 00:45:46,240
- It was amazing to me
that he was so obscure

885
00:45:46,240 --> 00:45:51,240
because the science fiction
people all have their favorites

886
00:45:51,900 --> 00:45:54,080
and love them and honor them

887
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:56,340
and there're articles written about them.

888
00:45:56,340 --> 00:45:59,240
- He's parallel to Frank R. Paul.

889
00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:01,420
Paul has a very quirky style.

890
00:46:01,420 --> 00:46:03,070
Radebaugh has a very quirky style.

891
00:46:03,070 --> 00:46:04,380
But they're working in different fields,

892
00:46:04,380 --> 00:46:06,690
where I feel like Paul is strictly

893
00:46:06,690 --> 00:46:08,700
in the science fiction community

894
00:46:08,700 --> 00:46:12,850
and Radebaugh is kind of
selling this to everyone else.

895
00:46:12,850 --> 00:46:17,330
- So his stuff wasn't
as popularly embraced

896
00:46:17,330 --> 00:46:21,180
and remembered as the science
fiction and pulp covers

897
00:46:21,180 --> 00:46:23,710
that we still know and love today,

898
00:46:23,710 --> 00:46:25,340
that any number of people can tell you

899
00:46:25,340 --> 00:46:27,470
who those artists are.

900
00:46:27,470 --> 00:46:30,020
He had just fallen through the cracks.

901
00:46:30,020 --> 00:46:32,330
- We looked and looked for a
science fiction connection,

902
00:46:32,330 --> 00:46:34,267
like, "Oh, he must have done a cover of

903
00:46:34,267 --> 00:46:35,990
"an Isaac Asimov book
or something like that."

904
00:46:35,990 --> 00:46:39,300
There was really no
apparent Radebaugh overlap

905
00:46:39,300 --> 00:46:40,980
with the world of science fiction.

906
00:46:40,980 --> 00:46:44,130
Even though, at least on the surface,

907
00:46:44,130 --> 00:46:46,400
his work looks so closely aligned

908
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,310
to what science fiction
was and what it was doing.

909
00:46:49,310 --> 00:46:50,300
I feel like, in some ways,

910
00:46:50,300 --> 00:46:51,896
I want to tease out this difference of

911
00:46:51,896 --> 00:46:56,896
Radebaugh was working on
futuristic consumer products

912
00:46:58,170 --> 00:47:01,210
and he wasn't necessarily talking
about alternate realities.

913
00:47:01,210 --> 00:47:03,510
Like the realities are
still sort of like this

914
00:47:04,970 --> 00:47:09,150
happy, sterile, gleaming,
white 1950s reality,

915
00:47:09,150 --> 00:47:12,347
but just with flying cars
instead of regular cars.

916
00:47:12,347 --> 00:47:14,230
It was a little bit different from what

917
00:47:14,230 --> 00:47:15,830
at least some of science fiction was doing

918
00:47:15,830 --> 00:47:18,780
and sort of proposing
these different futures

919
00:47:18,780 --> 00:47:21,360
in which fundamentals
were really different.

920
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:26,360
Radebaugh's work was
external and superficial.

921
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,920
He was superficial in
this really captivating,

922
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:31,410
beautifully raw way,

923
00:47:31,410 --> 00:47:32,730
but it was really about...

924
00:47:32,730 --> 00:47:34,530
You know, I think he said it himself.

925
00:47:34,530 --> 00:47:37,227
I mean, his quote is, "halfway
between science fiction

926
00:47:37,227 --> 00:47:39,030
"and designs for modern living."

927
00:47:39,030 --> 00:47:41,000
He was definitely always
on the consumer end

928
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,470
and maybe it's just because
his professional life

929
00:47:43,470 --> 00:47:45,420
was within the commercial art world.

930
00:47:45,420 --> 00:47:47,070
Maybe he could've taken a different path

931
00:47:47,070 --> 00:47:50,220
and ended up more enmeshed
with science fiction

932
00:47:50,220 --> 00:47:52,150
or with film or something like that,

933
00:47:52,150 --> 00:47:56,400
but he really was largely
a commercial artist,

934
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:00,917
and so his material was
all kind of riffing off of,

935
00:48:00,917 --> 00:48:03,610
you know, here's this
consumer product we have now,

936
00:48:03,610 --> 00:48:06,160
here's what the Radebaugh
version of this looks like

937
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:09,500
that is so much cooler,
glossier, more luminous

938
00:48:09,500 --> 00:48:12,720
partakes of this sense of the things

939
00:48:12,720 --> 00:48:14,270
that we think of as futuristic,

940
00:48:14,270 --> 00:48:17,940
aerodynamic and
rocket-propelled and atomic

941
00:48:17,940 --> 00:48:21,630
and micro or macro or whatever,

942
00:48:21,630 --> 00:48:25,290
made something seem really
futuristic at that time.

943
00:48:25,290 --> 00:48:26,640
- I think that it's a possibility

944
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:28,900
he could've gone off and done other things

945
00:48:28,900 --> 00:48:31,600
because you go where the money is.

946
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,000
But I think, in this
case, it was fortuitous

947
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:35,270
that he ended up in
the automobile industry

948
00:48:35,270 --> 00:48:38,650
because he already had
an inclination towards

949
00:48:38,650 --> 00:48:40,810
science and technology and the future,

950
00:48:40,810 --> 00:48:43,473
and the automobile industry
was very much about that.

951
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:49,050
- Closer Than We Think is
largely forgotten today.

952
00:48:49,050 --> 00:48:50,860
When I first started blogging about it

953
00:48:50,860 --> 00:48:55,253
and learned about Closer
Than We Think back in 2007,

954
00:48:56,290 --> 00:48:58,500
there wasn't much online about it at all.

955
00:48:58,500 --> 00:49:00,580
Most people had forgotten
about it, obviously,

956
00:49:00,580 --> 00:49:03,650
since it was a 50 year old comic strip.

957
00:49:03,650 --> 00:49:06,640
There was sort of this residue from it.

958
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:08,790
It had inspired so many things.

959
00:49:08,790 --> 00:49:13,527
It was this cultural
touchstone from 1958 to 1963

960
00:49:14,790 --> 00:49:18,500
that inspired things like The Jetsons.

961
00:49:18,500 --> 00:49:21,720
The Jetsons obviously
touched so many people.

962
00:49:21,720 --> 00:49:23,620
It premiered on the tail end

963
00:49:23,620 --> 00:49:26,050
of Closer Than We Think's run,

964
00:49:26,050 --> 00:49:28,600
which ended in January of 1963.

965
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:33,600
The Jetsons premiered in
late September of 1962.

966
00:49:33,690 --> 00:49:36,700
But we forget that The
Jetsons was a parody show.

967
00:49:36,700 --> 00:49:40,210
The Jetsons was parodying things
like Closer Than We Think.

968
00:49:40,210 --> 00:49:42,540
Closer Than We Think was this sort of

969
00:49:42,540 --> 00:49:45,130
golden age of futurism, if you will,

970
00:49:45,130 --> 00:49:48,170
and The Jetsons came around to parody it,

971
00:49:48,170 --> 00:49:51,070
to parody at precisely that thing.

972
00:49:51,070 --> 00:49:53,530
And people who were too young

973
00:49:53,530 --> 00:49:56,670
when they saw The Jetsons
don't remember that.

974
00:49:56,670 --> 00:49:59,810
They remember The Jetsons
as that pure futurism.

975
00:49:59,810 --> 00:50:03,070
They remember The Jetsons
not as this parody show,

976
00:50:03,070 --> 00:50:08,070
which it was, not as this
great ridicule of futurism

977
00:50:08,190 --> 00:50:10,530
that people had been going through

978
00:50:10,530 --> 00:50:13,070
with the flying cars and the jet packs

979
00:50:13,070 --> 00:50:16,600
and all of the golden age
that had already happened.

980
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,392
- Now this is going back into the '60s.

981
00:50:19,392 --> 00:50:23,210
What I did was run in
my head a timeline of...

982
00:50:23,210 --> 00:50:24,330
We still had four wheels

983
00:50:24,330 --> 00:50:27,020
'cause it gonna go to car companies.

984
00:50:27,020 --> 00:50:30,430
But what I was doing was
synthesizing a future

985
00:50:30,430 --> 00:50:32,600
where cars looked like this.

986
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:34,960
And it was commercial,
so it was for U.S. Steel.

987
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:37,630
They had a steel trim,
they were made from steel,

988
00:50:37,630 --> 00:50:38,770
and so forth.

989
00:50:38,770 --> 00:50:41,460
So I was synthesizing a whole

990
00:50:41,460 --> 00:50:45,250
technological, stylistic put-together

991
00:50:45,250 --> 00:50:47,040
that was attractive to people

992
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:49,990
that were in the business of
designing cars for the future.

993
00:50:51,590 --> 00:50:52,640
- You know, Syd...

994
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:53,870
Actually, I think there was some parallels

995
00:50:53,870 --> 00:50:55,780
between Syd and Radebaugh

996
00:50:55,780 --> 00:50:59,410
because Radebaugh keeps
becoming rediscovered

997
00:50:59,410 --> 00:51:01,677
by new generations and people
keep falling in love with him.

998
00:51:01,677 --> 00:51:04,850
And the same things
happened with Syd's artwork.

999
00:51:04,850 --> 00:51:06,870
And actually, one of
the interviews with Syd,

1000
00:51:06,870 --> 00:51:09,547
in one of the magazines, Syd says,

1001
00:51:09,547 --> 00:51:12,017
"A lot of my artwork, it has the same look

1002
00:51:12,017 --> 00:51:14,127
"through time in a sense."

1003
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:16,940
So he's like, "it worries me sometimes,"

1004
00:51:16,940 --> 00:51:18,040
but on the other hand,

1005
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:20,220
still, no one surpassed him.

1006
00:51:20,220 --> 00:51:21,810
No one's come along and replaced him,

1007
00:51:21,810 --> 00:51:25,070
so it's still, even
after all these decades.

1008
00:51:25,070 --> 00:51:26,100
I can tell you from having

1009
00:51:26,100 --> 00:51:28,110
looked at a lot of
designers over the years

1010
00:51:28,110 --> 00:51:32,340
and artists as well, but mainly designers,

1011
00:51:32,340 --> 00:51:34,130
if something hasn't come true,

1012
00:51:34,130 --> 00:51:36,950
as far as they're concerned, it still can

1013
00:51:36,950 --> 00:51:38,850
so there's no problem reusing it.

1014
00:51:38,850 --> 00:51:40,450
And I've seen designers

1015
00:51:40,450 --> 00:51:41,780
that have actually just taken a rendering,

1016
00:51:41,780 --> 00:51:45,310
erased the date on it, and dated it again

1017
00:51:45,310 --> 00:51:46,980
to the present day.

1018
00:51:46,980 --> 00:51:49,630
And it can be a 25 year old,
a 30 year old rendering.

1019
00:51:50,630 --> 00:51:52,780
Usually, it needs to be redone,

1020
00:51:52,780 --> 00:51:53,970
and that's what Radebaugh did.

1021
00:51:53,970 --> 00:51:55,910
He may have recycled ideas.

1022
00:51:55,910 --> 00:51:57,270
It was like, well, why not?

1023
00:51:57,270 --> 00:51:58,453
Why not recycle ideas?

1024
00:51:59,380 --> 00:52:00,213
They're good ideas.

1025
00:52:00,213 --> 00:52:01,460
They're exciting ideas.

1026
00:52:01,460 --> 00:52:03,253
They haven't come true yet,

1027
00:52:04,655 --> 00:52:06,610
but that doesn't mean
they won't come true,

1028
00:52:06,610 --> 00:52:08,470
so why not make a new rendering?

1029
00:52:08,470 --> 00:52:11,220
So he does and he updates
them, which is great.

1030
00:52:11,220 --> 00:52:12,620
And he brings that idea back,

1031
00:52:12,620 --> 00:52:14,340
and maybe he even popularizes ideas

1032
00:52:14,340 --> 00:52:15,900
that people had forgotten about,

1033
00:52:15,900 --> 00:52:19,130
which is a whole 'nother
interesting thing.

1034
00:52:19,130 --> 00:52:22,580
Who knows who he inspired
to try and make it happen.

1035
00:52:22,580 --> 00:52:23,690
Well, this hasn't happened yet,

1036
00:52:23,690 --> 00:52:28,373
and maybe some youngster who
read his strip went forward.

1037
00:52:29,610 --> 00:52:32,560
- A lot of the Closer
Than We Think features

1038
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:36,270
are being fed from articles

1039
00:52:36,270 --> 00:52:38,570
that Radebaugh was reading at the time.

1040
00:52:38,570 --> 00:52:40,870
Maybe friends of his that
were scientists or engineers

1041
00:52:40,870 --> 00:52:42,170
were sending him this stuff.

1042
00:52:42,170 --> 00:52:45,600
He was processing it and writing the text

1043
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:48,840
that would feed into these
beautiful illustrations

1044
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,100
that he would build around them.

1045
00:52:51,100 --> 00:52:53,730
He even put himself in
a lot of the features

1046
00:52:53,730 --> 00:52:57,020
as the narrator, so this
is entirely his dream world

1047
00:52:57,020 --> 00:52:58,660
that he's coming up with, but oftentimes,

1048
00:52:58,660 --> 00:53:01,203
inspired by other scientists and engineers

1049
00:53:01,203 --> 00:53:03,753
that were actually doing
this research at the time.

1050
00:53:04,630 --> 00:53:06,400
- Closer Than We Think is
the zenith of his career

1051
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,240
because that's when he
had the most exposure

1052
00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:11,830
where most people finding
out who Radebaugh is

1053
00:53:11,830 --> 00:53:13,180
or seeing his work.

1054
00:53:13,180 --> 00:53:17,140
So certainly going from
the automotive field

1055
00:53:17,140 --> 00:53:19,340
into a comic strip sort of format

1056
00:53:19,340 --> 00:53:23,220
was definitely not a downgrade.

1057
00:53:23,220 --> 00:53:24,820
It was certainly not a demotion.

1058
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:27,110
I feel very confidently

1059
00:53:27,110 --> 00:53:30,170
that that was a huge boon for his career.

1060
00:53:30,170 --> 00:53:33,330
- At the same time that
Radebaugh was doing

1061
00:53:33,330 --> 00:53:36,960
Closer Than We Think, there
was Athelstan Spilhaus,

1062
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:39,630
who was in Minnesota at the time.

1063
00:53:39,630 --> 00:53:42,930
He was an academic who wrote Our New Age,

1064
00:53:42,930 --> 00:53:46,870
which was another Sunday
funny that came out

1065
00:53:46,870 --> 00:53:48,770
nearly at the exact same time,

1066
00:53:48,770 --> 00:53:51,480
and this comic strip was
a little bit different.

1067
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:54,640
It wasn't explicitly about the future.

1068
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:57,530
It had plenty of futuristic themes.

1069
00:53:57,530 --> 00:54:00,490
And it was much more broadly
about science and technology.

1070
00:54:00,490 --> 00:54:04,210
And Athelstan Spilhaus
actually said, explicitly,

1071
00:54:04,210 --> 00:54:05,880
that he wanted this comic strip

1072
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:09,390
to inject some subliminal education

1073
00:54:09,390 --> 00:54:11,000
into the Sunday funnies.

1074
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:12,750
Contrasting with Closer Than We Think,

1075
00:54:12,750 --> 00:54:15,650
he was very explicit
in saying that this was

1076
00:54:15,650 --> 00:54:19,980
a direct response to Sputnik
and the Soviet Union's threat

1077
00:54:19,980 --> 00:54:22,180
to the western world as it were.

1078
00:54:22,180 --> 00:54:24,590
The differences between
Closer Than We Think

1079
00:54:24,590 --> 00:54:27,670
and Our New Age are pretty interesting

1080
00:54:27,670 --> 00:54:32,360
in that both were very
techno-utopian, if you will.

1081
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,830
Both were very optimistic.

1082
00:54:35,830 --> 00:54:40,830
Closer Than We Think was
much more sort of fun-loving.

1083
00:54:42,690 --> 00:54:45,950
Closer Than We Think took
it three steps further.

1084
00:54:45,950 --> 00:54:48,860
Our New Age certainly
had a futuristic bent,

1085
00:54:48,860 --> 00:54:51,080
but it definitely felt dryer.

1086
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:54,690
It definitely felt more
educational, if you will.

1087
00:54:54,690 --> 00:54:57,040
Not to use that in a derogatory way,

1088
00:54:57,040 --> 00:54:58,970
but it definitely felt like something

1089
00:54:58,970 --> 00:55:00,890
that you'd read in school.

1090
00:55:00,890 --> 00:55:04,220
Closer Than We Think had
the streamlined cars,

1091
00:55:04,220 --> 00:55:05,960
the supersize crops,

1092
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:08,980
and much more fantastical
visions of the future.

1093
00:55:08,980 --> 00:55:12,670
Our New Age sort of flirted
with that on occasion.

1094
00:55:12,670 --> 00:55:16,120
Our New Age had kangaroo butlers.

1095
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:18,320
He definitely didn't hang its hat

1096
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:21,730
on the more outlandish
visions of the future,

1097
00:55:21,730 --> 00:55:23,400
which isn't to say that
Closer Than We Think

1098
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:25,160
was always outlandish.

1099
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:28,300
It certainly had a lot of
things that have come true,

1100
00:55:28,300 --> 00:55:30,680
mechanized hearts, satellites,

1101
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:33,450
all kinds of things that we have today.

1102
00:55:33,450 --> 00:55:37,380
Our New Age is this
huge, multi-panel strip,

1103
00:55:37,380 --> 00:55:40,690
whereas Closer Than We Think
is a single panel strip.

1104
00:55:40,690 --> 00:55:45,580
And Our New Age takes advantage
of the multi-panel strip

1105
00:55:45,580 --> 00:55:50,580
because it typically chronicles
history, present to future.

1106
00:55:50,790 --> 00:55:54,050
That's sort of the way that
every strip is structured,

1107
00:55:54,050 --> 00:55:58,490
whereas Closer Than We Think
is just about the future.

1108
00:55:58,490 --> 00:56:01,300
Radebaugh, after his very last strip

1109
00:56:01,300 --> 00:56:06,140
of Closer Than We Think,
in January of 1963,

1110
00:56:06,140 --> 00:56:10,420
goes right into making a
new strip called Jet Swift,

1111
00:56:10,420 --> 00:56:15,420
which actually mirrors
Our New Age a little bit.

1112
00:56:15,420 --> 00:56:20,140
The whole Jet Swift strip
mirrors Our New Age's

1113
00:56:21,050 --> 00:56:24,560
past, present, future sort of formula

1114
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:28,190
and becomes a multi-panel strip.

1115
00:56:28,190 --> 00:56:33,190
I'm not sure that Jet Swift
was inspired by Our New Age,

1116
00:56:34,690 --> 00:56:37,623
but there's definitely a
lot of similarities there.

1117
00:56:38,650 --> 00:56:40,980
- We don't know why Closer
Than We Think ended.

1118
00:56:40,980 --> 00:56:42,810
It's anyone's guess what
the reason could be.

1119
00:56:42,810 --> 00:56:45,680
Most likely, it was not
as marketable anymore.

1120
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:47,670
Maybe as times were changing,

1121
00:56:47,670 --> 00:56:50,390
there was less of an
obsession with futurism.

1122
00:56:50,390 --> 00:56:51,223
Who knows?

1123
00:56:51,223 --> 00:56:53,290
And so something like Jet Swift

1124
00:56:53,290 --> 00:56:56,770
I think was much more
marketable towards children

1125
00:56:56,770 --> 00:57:00,040
and probably selling
more papers in that way.

1126
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,610
The last Closer Than We
Think was Family Computer

1127
00:57:02,610 --> 00:57:04,780
on January 13, 1963,

1128
00:57:04,780 --> 00:57:06,770
and then immediately one week later,

1129
00:57:06,770 --> 00:57:10,360
Radebaugh followed up with Jet
Swift and His Science Stamps

1130
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,110
on January 20, 1963.

1131
00:57:13,110 --> 00:57:16,850
He has this character, Jet
Swift, that's this young boy

1132
00:57:16,850 --> 00:57:21,850
essentially narrating
lessons of past history

1133
00:57:22,090 --> 00:57:25,150
on how rockets have been
used throughout time

1134
00:57:25,150 --> 00:57:27,820
and then where he sees
those inventions going.

1135
00:57:27,820 --> 00:57:30,173
And they're done in the shapes of stamps.

1136
00:57:31,350 --> 00:57:33,560
It's not exactly a comic,

1137
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:35,660
but it has a little bit
more of a strip feel

1138
00:57:35,660 --> 00:57:38,470
and there is a sequential narration to it

1139
00:57:38,470 --> 00:57:41,120
because the stamps advance in time

1140
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:45,450
through the ways that different
discoveries have been made

1141
00:57:45,450 --> 00:57:47,080
depending on what his subject is,

1142
00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:50,790
and typically ending in
what Jet Swift's idea

1143
00:57:50,790 --> 00:57:54,433
or Radebaugh's idea of
what the next step will be.

1144
00:57:57,710 --> 00:58:01,610
- Americans soon may see a
new kind of family second car

1145
00:58:01,610 --> 00:58:04,880
run by batteries and
boasting hot rod agility

1146
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:08,850
and of adequate size and speed
for limited distance use.

1147
00:58:08,850 --> 00:58:11,500
Stinson Aircraft at San Diego

1148
00:58:11,500 --> 00:58:15,470
and the Washington Water
Power Company, Spokane,

1149
00:58:15,470 --> 00:58:17,110
have working models.

1150
00:58:17,110 --> 00:58:18,800
A Detroit auto manufacturer

1151
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:21,180
also has a big project in this field.

1152
00:58:21,180 --> 00:58:23,660
These electro-cars will run about

1153
00:58:23,660 --> 00:58:25,700
70 miles between chargings,

1154
00:58:25,700 --> 00:58:28,120
which can be done on any home socket.

1155
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:31,770
Also planned are roadway chargers
similar to parking meters,

1156
00:58:31,770 --> 00:58:34,890
which will give a fast
charge for a quarter.

1157
00:58:34,890 --> 00:58:38,600
So what he described
essentially is an EV1,

1158
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:41,280
which came out in '96.

1159
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:44,120
It was actually designed around 1990,

1160
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:46,120
late '80s, early '90s,

1161
00:58:46,120 --> 00:58:51,120
and the California Air
Resources Board saw the car.

1162
00:58:51,150 --> 00:58:56,150
It was just a one-off at the
time, but it opened their minds

1163
00:58:56,730 --> 00:59:00,057
and they said, "Wow, we have a
serious air pollution problem

1164
00:59:00,057 --> 00:59:02,860
"and this looks like a
viable electric car."

1165
00:59:02,860 --> 00:59:05,330
So they passed a law in 1990

1166
00:59:05,330 --> 00:59:09,270
called the Zero Emission
Vehicle Mandate, ZEV Mandate.

1167
00:59:09,270 --> 00:59:12,900
By 2003, the lobbyists succeeded

1168
00:59:12,900 --> 00:59:15,590
in overturning the ZEV Mandate and then

1169
00:59:15,590 --> 00:59:17,480
all of the automakers had already built

1170
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:18,770
these great electric cars,

1171
00:59:18,770 --> 00:59:21,583
the EV1 being the flagship from GM.

1172
00:59:22,532 --> 00:59:24,670
But they started taking them
back and destroying them.

1173
00:59:24,670 --> 00:59:27,480
And that's why a bunch of us got together

1174
00:59:27,480 --> 00:59:29,220
and started protesting.

1175
00:59:29,220 --> 00:59:32,670
We formed the national organization
called Plug In America.

1176
00:59:32,670 --> 00:59:36,180
We saved about 1,000 of
those cars from the crusher.

1177
00:59:36,180 --> 00:59:39,590
But more importantly, we
helped convince the car makers

1178
00:59:39,590 --> 00:59:41,500
to build electric cars again.

1179
00:59:41,500 --> 00:59:43,490
The initial ones with lead acid batteries

1180
00:59:43,490 --> 00:59:47,093
was around 60 or 70
miles, so he nailed that.

1181
00:59:47,980 --> 00:59:51,300
And the second generation,
they didn't change the body,

1182
00:59:51,300 --> 00:59:54,180
but they ended up putting nickel
metal hydride batteries in

1183
00:59:54,180 --> 00:59:56,360
and that more than doubled the range.

1184
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:59,120
So they were getting 140-150 mile range

1185
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:00,253
with those batteries.

1186
01:00:01,450 --> 01:00:04,920
The charger location in
various cars differs.

1187
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:07,470
On my Nissan Leaf, it was in the front,

1188
01:00:07,470 --> 01:00:09,600
but a lot of the cars
have them in the back.

1189
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:11,453
It does look like a two-seater.

1190
01:00:12,505 --> 01:00:14,440
It does have a lot of slope to it

1191
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:18,200
so the drag coefficient
is probably pretty decent

1192
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:19,940
And the wheels are covered,

1193
01:00:19,940 --> 01:00:22,940
so that's another design feature

1194
01:00:22,940 --> 01:00:25,410
that helps with the drag coefficient.

1195
01:00:25,410 --> 01:00:27,320
So I would say they got some of it right,

1196
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:32,070
and considering it was a
good 30 years before the EV1,

1197
01:00:32,070 --> 01:00:34,270
I'm pretty impressed,
to tell you the truth.

1198
01:00:36,470 --> 01:00:39,080
- The picture that we get
of Radebaugh post-retirement

1199
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,280
is that he probably retires

1200
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:44,360
pretty close to the top of his
game and he has these ideas

1201
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:48,030
about making a nice
cottage on Lake Michigan

1202
01:00:48,030 --> 01:00:50,450
and doing these things that somebody

1203
01:00:50,450 --> 01:00:52,910
who has been an accomplished
professional their whole life

1204
01:00:52,910 --> 01:00:54,530
might want to do in their retirement,

1205
01:00:54,530 --> 01:00:59,400
but apparently, his health
fails, his investments go sour.

1206
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:01,980
One gets a sense that maybe
he had initially felt like

1207
01:01:01,980 --> 01:01:03,120
he was going to be secure,

1208
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:06,150
but then whatever nest
egg he has disappears.

1209
01:01:06,150 --> 01:01:08,030
So he has to go back into working,

1210
01:01:08,030 --> 01:01:12,070
but instead of working as a
top flight commercial artist,

1211
01:01:12,070 --> 01:01:14,090
he's basically doing hack work,

1212
01:01:14,090 --> 01:01:16,880
decorating furniture in Grand Rapids

1213
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:19,940
and probably just trying
to make ends meet.

1214
01:01:19,940 --> 01:01:21,490
I remember in his latter days,

1215
01:01:21,490 --> 01:01:23,680
we looked up his addresses and every year,

1216
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:25,510
he had a different address.

1217
01:01:25,510 --> 01:01:28,330
I think his health gets
progressively worse and worse

1218
01:01:28,330 --> 01:01:31,050
and he just is unable
to take care of himself

1219
01:01:31,050 --> 01:01:33,910
and has neither the means nor the health

1220
01:01:33,910 --> 01:01:35,430
to take care of himself.

1221
01:01:35,430 --> 01:01:38,460
And luckily, one of his later jobs

1222
01:01:38,460 --> 01:01:42,920
is in a furniture factory
owned by Albert Heemstra.

1223
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:45,760
And it seems like Albert
Heemstra was this,

1224
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,680
on the surface, very different
person from Radebaugh,

1225
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:52,030
like very religious and
conservative and proper,

1226
01:01:52,030 --> 01:01:55,290
but it seems like they saw
something in one another.

1227
01:01:55,290 --> 01:01:58,490
It must've been actually a
very significant and deep tie

1228
01:01:58,490 --> 01:02:01,110
because the Heemstra family

1229
01:02:01,110 --> 01:02:03,060
ends up taking care of
Radebaugh in some ways

1230
01:02:03,060 --> 01:02:05,010
and then, apparently,
taking care of his wife

1231
01:02:05,010 --> 01:02:07,990
for what amounts to almost several decades

1232
01:02:07,990 --> 01:02:09,700
after Radebaugh passes away.

1233
01:02:09,700 --> 01:02:12,010
So there was some real devotion

1234
01:02:12,010 --> 01:02:13,770
and probably sense of duty there

1235
01:02:13,770 --> 01:02:16,433
from the Heemstras towards the Radebaughs.

1236
01:02:18,100 --> 01:02:21,547
- Art would say, "Hey, Danny Boy!

1237
01:02:21,547 --> 01:02:24,637
"How you doin'? C'mon
over here, Danny Boy!

1238
01:02:24,637 --> 01:02:26,987
"What are you doing today?
You up to any good?"

1239
01:02:28,950 --> 01:02:33,700
Very much sort of Ralph Kramden, you know?

1240
01:02:33,700 --> 01:02:35,900
Jackie Gleason a little bit.

1241
01:02:35,900 --> 01:02:38,960
'Cause he certainly had
that profile going on.

1242
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:42,950
Best I could tell, I met
Art Radebaugh about 1966

1243
01:02:42,950 --> 01:02:44,650
when he came to work for my father

1244
01:02:44,650 --> 01:02:46,683
out in the country in Cascade, Michigan.

1245
01:02:48,460 --> 01:02:51,780
We lived on an old 100 year old farm.

1246
01:02:51,780 --> 01:02:53,430
We weren't farmers.

1247
01:02:53,430 --> 01:02:58,430
My father ran his sign painting
business out of the barn.

1248
01:02:58,570 --> 01:03:02,233
So instead of cows, we had
signs and paint and lots of it.

1249
01:03:03,670 --> 01:03:07,600
My father got a contract
to decorate these desks,

1250
01:03:07,600 --> 01:03:09,830
black lacquer desks.

1251
01:03:09,830 --> 01:03:12,470
And what Art did was he decorated them

1252
01:03:12,470 --> 01:03:16,610
with this gesso paint, where
you would actually build up

1253
01:03:16,610 --> 01:03:19,930
three-dimensional and
he'd make these little

1254
01:03:19,930 --> 01:03:22,360
Japanese ladies and the little bridges

1255
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:24,980
and little trees and so forth

1256
01:03:24,980 --> 01:03:28,110
and decorate these desks very ornate.

1257
01:03:28,110 --> 01:03:30,730
And Art would just scoot around the desk.

1258
01:03:30,730 --> 01:03:32,460
He had patterns, perforated patterns

1259
01:03:32,460 --> 01:03:36,050
he'd dust chalk through,
make a dotted outline.

1260
01:03:36,050 --> 01:03:39,630
And then he'd just paint
these dancing women.

1261
01:03:39,630 --> 01:03:42,600
- Well, we just painted
these little figures.

1262
01:03:42,600 --> 01:03:44,650
When I met Arthur Radebaugh,

1263
01:03:44,650 --> 01:03:49,650
I was introduced by another
person that worked at the studio

1264
01:03:51,130 --> 01:03:53,770
and it's like, when our eyes met

1265
01:03:57,150 --> 01:03:59,340
I knew he was something special,

1266
01:03:59,340 --> 01:04:02,940
and I knew that him and
I were gonna be friends.

1267
01:04:02,940 --> 01:04:04,930
Arthur and I, after we'd become friends,

1268
01:04:04,930 --> 01:04:08,300
we always had lunch together
down in the parking lot,

1269
01:04:08,300 --> 01:04:10,640
maybe in his van or maybe

1270
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:13,410
just anywhere we could
find a place to sit.

1271
01:04:13,410 --> 01:04:15,300
- Here comes LaVon.

1272
01:04:15,300 --> 01:04:18,910
And I look out the window
and there's this bizarre van,

1273
01:04:18,910 --> 01:04:20,403
pulls up the driveway.

1274
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:23,460
And it's all painted up.

1275
01:04:23,460 --> 01:04:25,490
It was just bizarre, so I went out

1276
01:04:25,490 --> 01:04:27,030
and she had Arthur with her.

1277
01:04:27,030 --> 01:04:28,770
He took her home from work.

1278
01:04:28,770 --> 01:04:29,960
He was very well dressed.

1279
01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:33,170
He had really shiny shoes, pressed pants,

1280
01:04:33,170 --> 01:04:35,370
and he was just so different.

1281
01:04:35,370 --> 01:04:38,650
And when I saw his van, I
was just totally blown away

1282
01:04:38,650 --> 01:04:40,277
'cause I looked in the back of the van

1283
01:04:40,277 --> 01:04:42,500
and he's got a beautiful drawing table

1284
01:04:42,500 --> 01:04:45,670
in the back of the van, airbrush,

1285
01:04:45,670 --> 01:04:48,193
and he started showing me his studio.

1286
01:04:49,100 --> 01:04:51,640
I'd never met anybody like him.

1287
01:04:51,640 --> 01:04:53,940
- Well, it was pretty exciting

1288
01:04:53,940 --> 01:04:58,940
to turn up those photos
of him with his space car.

1289
01:04:59,170 --> 01:05:02,580
- Chrome loop was for
a wireless telephone.

1290
01:05:02,580 --> 01:05:05,680
About almost 16 inches
diameter or whatever,

1291
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:08,420
it stuck straight out and
that was for the phone,

1292
01:05:08,420 --> 01:05:09,290
the telephone.

1293
01:05:09,290 --> 01:05:10,960
- You know, he had to have retrofitted

1294
01:05:10,960 --> 01:05:14,420
and souped up this Ford van
so it looked really futuristic

1295
01:05:14,420 --> 01:05:17,020
and it said Closer Than
We Think on the side.

1296
01:05:17,020 --> 01:05:19,100
And one of the ways that I
think he then promotes it

1297
01:05:19,100 --> 01:05:20,550
is to drive around the country

1298
01:05:20,550 --> 01:05:22,920
in his Closer Than We Think van

1299
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,810
and be doing illustrations while he's just

1300
01:05:25,810 --> 01:05:27,950
out there traveling on
the road being an artist

1301
01:05:27,950 --> 01:05:29,550
and rolling into town

1302
01:05:29,550 --> 01:05:30,921
and probably everybody clamors up

1303
01:05:30,921 --> 01:05:32,847
and they're like, "Wow,
what's that futuristic van?

1304
01:05:32,847 --> 01:05:34,547
"Wow, there's an artist in there!"

1305
01:05:36,790 --> 01:05:39,490
What an interesting, kinda fun,

1306
01:05:39,490 --> 01:05:42,150
kinda enigmatic way to promote yourself.

1307
01:05:42,150 --> 01:05:43,670
- Here's a struggling illustrator

1308
01:05:43,670 --> 01:05:46,730
without any safety net who...

1309
01:05:46,730 --> 01:05:50,210
He put that van together
to go get journeyman work,

1310
01:05:50,210 --> 01:05:51,050
I would imagine.

1311
01:05:51,050 --> 01:05:53,200
I mean, it was, here I am.

1312
01:05:53,200 --> 01:05:54,730
I am this crazy.

1313
01:05:54,730 --> 01:05:56,060
You know my work.

1314
01:05:56,060 --> 01:05:57,980
My work is about the future.

1315
01:05:57,980 --> 01:05:59,250
And I'm here in my van

1316
01:05:59,250 --> 01:06:01,360
and we're gonna do some work, whatever.

1317
01:06:01,360 --> 01:06:04,000
He kept reinventing himself several times.

1318
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:05,930
- My brother wound up buying that van,

1319
01:06:05,930 --> 01:06:06,820
he and the neighbor guy,

1320
01:06:06,820 --> 01:06:08,840
and they turned it into
a field car basically,

1321
01:06:08,840 --> 01:06:10,670
which is sad, but it was tired by then.

1322
01:06:10,670 --> 01:06:12,990
I'm talking the end of the '60s.

1323
01:06:12,990 --> 01:06:16,930
That English Ford van was
something of the '50s.

1324
01:06:16,930 --> 01:06:18,930
But it all started, though,

1325
01:06:18,930 --> 01:06:23,340
with his ability as an illustrator, okay.

1326
01:06:23,340 --> 01:06:27,960
And to be able to take
something from his mind

1327
01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:30,247
or something someone else would say as

1328
01:06:30,247 --> 01:06:32,937
"Hey, make me this thing."

1329
01:06:34,310 --> 01:06:35,510
He could do it.

1330
01:06:35,510 --> 01:06:38,150
And then that ability is what

1331
01:06:38,150 --> 01:06:39,840
gave him the ability
to look at the future.

1332
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:43,610
In other words, if I can put down in paint

1333
01:06:43,610 --> 01:06:48,160
something that somebody can
imagine or I can imagine,

1334
01:06:48,160 --> 01:06:50,083
well, I can imagine a whole lot.

1335
01:06:51,748 --> 01:06:53,260
And then that's where
he just went with it.

1336
01:06:53,260 --> 01:06:55,900
It was because he had the ability

1337
01:06:55,900 --> 01:06:58,270
that he went and did all that stuff.

1338
01:06:58,270 --> 01:07:01,430
- People often said that he was very much

1339
01:07:01,430 --> 01:07:05,360
artistically driven, that his work was not

1340
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:09,470
really product-oriented,
and I think it's true.

1341
01:07:09,470 --> 01:07:11,350
- Somewhere in his young life,

1342
01:07:11,350 --> 01:07:14,020
I would say between
the age of nine and 15,

1343
01:07:14,020 --> 01:07:18,630
Arthur, like the rest of any
dedicated artist will tell you,

1344
01:07:18,630 --> 01:07:23,630
that they see maybe one person
that just sets them on fire

1345
01:07:26,860 --> 01:07:29,140
as far as it clicks.

1346
01:07:29,140 --> 01:07:32,350
Something clicks in your mind about...

1347
01:07:32,350 --> 01:07:37,120
It's a desire, it's a fire,
it's an entire lifetime

1348
01:07:37,120 --> 01:07:41,620
of seeking to do that, what you see

1349
01:07:41,620 --> 01:07:44,950
in this other artist or
whatever, this illustrations,

1350
01:07:44,950 --> 01:07:47,300
and something must've clicked for Arthur

1351
01:07:47,300 --> 01:07:48,620
in his younger years.

1352
01:07:48,620 --> 01:07:52,310
I would really like to
see his school work.

1353
01:07:52,310 --> 01:07:56,263
I'm betting it would
possibly be included in that.

1354
01:07:57,650 --> 01:08:00,720
- His non-technical skill
is already really good

1355
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:05,720
and he's drawing images of
dragons and conquistador ships

1356
01:08:08,850 --> 01:08:11,173
and sort of vaguely fantastical stuff.

1357
01:08:11,173 --> 01:08:13,200
There's some cars in there and stuff too.

1358
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:18,192
So you can sort of see the imaginings

1359
01:08:18,192 --> 01:08:20,370
of an unusual young man

1360
01:08:20,370 --> 01:08:23,350
who has a sense for the
fantasy world already.

1361
01:08:23,350 --> 01:08:27,823
- When we talked to different
artists who worked with him

1362
01:08:27,823 --> 01:08:30,040
as well as some of the people who knew him

1363
01:08:30,040 --> 01:08:31,110
towards the end of his life,

1364
01:08:31,110 --> 01:08:34,343
no one was really certain
what influenced him.

1365
01:08:37,700 --> 01:08:41,563
People had emphasized that it
seemed to come from within,

1366
01:08:43,410 --> 01:08:47,877
that it was just his own creations.

1367
01:08:52,540 --> 01:08:54,793
So we really don't know.

1368
01:08:54,793 --> 01:08:56,780
- When he would go through,
walk through the studio,

1369
01:08:56,780 --> 01:08:58,930
he seemed to be thinking.

1370
01:08:58,930 --> 01:09:00,560
He was like a thinker, I think.

1371
01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:02,670
He would just quietly go through.

1372
01:09:02,670 --> 01:09:05,520
He wouldn't stop and congregate.

1373
01:09:05,520 --> 01:09:08,710
He was a very serious
illustrator, in my opinion.

1374
01:09:08,710 --> 01:09:09,893
Always focused.

1375
01:09:11,270 --> 01:09:12,810
- I'm sure he isolated.

1376
01:09:12,810 --> 01:09:17,810
He was in his own world all the time.

1377
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:22,063
- He was married, but
never discussed children.

1378
01:09:24,810 --> 01:09:25,743
Quite private.

1379
01:09:27,740 --> 01:09:31,900
- And he never really
did talk about his past.

1380
01:09:31,900 --> 01:09:33,223
I had no idea.

1381
01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:43,060
- Radebaugh marries
Nancy Harrington in 1934.

1382
01:09:43,060 --> 01:09:44,960
She also went to Sturgis High School.

1383
01:09:44,960 --> 01:09:47,090
She's in the yearbook
a couple years later.

1384
01:09:47,090 --> 01:09:49,863
And they remained married
until Radebaugh's death.

1385
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:54,610
Nancy, his wife, dies about

1386
01:09:54,610 --> 01:09:57,530
I think 18 years later in California.

1387
01:09:57,530 --> 01:10:00,500
- My dad had made Art a promise

1388
01:10:00,500 --> 01:10:03,090
that he would always take care of Nancy.

1389
01:10:03,090 --> 01:10:07,080
And so about six months after
Art died, or maybe less,

1390
01:10:07,080 --> 01:10:12,080
my folks got her into a place
called the Wissahickon Inn,

1391
01:10:12,970 --> 01:10:15,490
which was a retirement home in Redlands.

1392
01:10:15,490 --> 01:10:18,680
And she had a little studio there

1393
01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:20,580
and then that's where
she lived out her days

1394
01:10:20,580 --> 01:10:21,883
in Redlands, California.

1395
01:10:24,180 --> 01:10:28,810
Nancy was very mousy, very quiet.

1396
01:10:28,810 --> 01:10:32,035
Certainly not unheard of for a wife

1397
01:10:32,035 --> 01:10:36,470
in the '40s, '50s, and '60s to be the wife

1398
01:10:36,470 --> 01:10:38,200
and take care of the house

1399
01:10:38,200 --> 01:10:41,590
and let the man do all the
doing and thinking and stuff,

1400
01:10:41,590 --> 01:10:43,700
and it was that kind of relationship.

1401
01:10:43,700 --> 01:10:45,960
- I never met Nancy.

1402
01:10:45,960 --> 01:10:47,613
And that's just something I did.

1403
01:10:49,810 --> 01:10:53,173
She never came to the studio.

1404
01:10:54,510 --> 01:10:57,093
He never talked about her much.

1405
01:11:01,610 --> 01:11:03,170
When he did tell me the story

1406
01:11:03,170 --> 01:11:06,963
about Nancy burning his artwork,

1407
01:11:08,530 --> 01:11:13,240
you could tell he felt really deeply hurt,

1408
01:11:13,240 --> 01:11:14,903
very deeply hurt by it.

1409
01:11:18,980 --> 01:11:21,453
I don't think she
understood him very well.

1410
01:11:24,100 --> 01:11:27,490
- It's not uncommon,
actually, to find so many gaps

1411
01:11:27,490 --> 01:11:30,250
in histories of artists like Radebaugh,

1412
01:11:30,250 --> 01:11:32,833
and especially folks that came before him.

1413
01:11:35,960 --> 01:11:38,180
Comics throughout history

1414
01:11:38,180 --> 01:11:40,090
have been considered a lower art form

1415
01:11:40,090 --> 01:11:42,730
because people think they
were just made for kids

1416
01:11:42,730 --> 01:11:45,330
or made for the masses or really,

1417
01:11:45,330 --> 01:11:48,480
when they first emerged in the newspapers,

1418
01:11:48,480 --> 01:11:51,270
made to just sell more papers,
for commercial purposes.

1419
01:11:51,270 --> 01:11:55,120
So with those ideas in mind,
this stuff was never saved.

1420
01:11:55,120 --> 01:11:59,280
I mean, really, up until the
1940s and sometimes even later,

1421
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:02,320
it's rare that original art was saved

1422
01:12:02,320 --> 01:12:06,100
because the idea was to get it
into print and then move on.

1423
01:12:06,100 --> 01:12:10,560
It was a real business and it
was not looked at as fine art

1424
01:12:10,560 --> 01:12:11,980
because it's so mass produced,

1425
01:12:11,980 --> 01:12:13,640
I think, is one of the reasons.

1426
01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:16,840
A lot of the things that
have survived, luckily,

1427
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:19,923
are newspaper tear sheets and clippings,

1428
01:12:20,980 --> 01:12:23,930
and many of those things were
even thrown out by libraries

1429
01:12:23,930 --> 01:12:26,760
when they transferred their
collections to microfilm.

1430
01:12:26,760 --> 01:12:29,550
And microfilm, of course,
is really not great

1431
01:12:29,550 --> 01:12:31,040
because it's only in black and white

1432
01:12:31,040 --> 01:12:35,160
so all the beautiful color
from Sunday comics pages

1433
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:38,460
is completely lost and it's
not durable 'cause it's film,

1434
01:12:38,460 --> 01:12:40,470
so the more it's used,
the more it's scratched up

1435
01:12:40,470 --> 01:12:41,870
and covered in fingerprints.

1436
01:12:41,870 --> 01:12:45,600
So the actual clippings

1437
01:12:45,600 --> 01:12:48,340
that happened to be saved
by certain collectors,

1438
01:12:48,340 --> 01:12:50,810
in many cases, they are
literally the only evidence

1439
01:12:50,810 --> 01:12:52,660
that a lot of this stuff has existed.

1440
01:12:54,910 --> 01:12:58,200
- Commercially, once the
job's over, nobody cares.

1441
01:12:58,200 --> 01:12:59,490
They're on to the next job.

1442
01:12:59,490 --> 01:13:03,140
All the U.S. Steel art
was going to be destroyed

1443
01:13:03,140 --> 01:13:04,700
by the agency in Pittsburgh.

1444
01:13:04,700 --> 01:13:08,100
It's a merchandising, advertising effort.

1445
01:13:08,100 --> 01:13:10,170
Had nothing to do with keeping it

1446
01:13:10,170 --> 01:13:11,850
or treasuring it or any of that.

1447
01:13:11,850 --> 01:13:13,090
It was momentary.

1448
01:13:13,090 --> 01:13:15,690
The books were printed.
They were given out to the auto industry

1449
01:13:15,690 --> 01:13:18,320
and vehicle designers all over the world.

1450
01:13:18,320 --> 01:13:21,950
And once the job is over,
then they don't care.

1451
01:13:21,950 --> 01:13:24,480
So it's a whole thing of

1452
01:13:24,480 --> 01:13:26,150
how important is this and why,

1453
01:13:26,150 --> 01:13:27,800
socially or technologically

1454
01:13:27,800 --> 01:13:31,450
or as a media museum review,

1455
01:13:31,450 --> 01:13:33,840
and that's sort of a rare thing.

1456
01:13:33,840 --> 01:13:38,080
The honorific keeping of what's been done

1457
01:13:38,080 --> 01:13:40,373
is not that common.

1458
01:13:44,230 --> 01:13:45,960
- I've gotta believe that there are

1459
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:48,110
things that are in the world now

1460
01:13:48,110 --> 01:13:52,220
that only exist because
Radebaugh dreamed them up,

1461
01:13:52,220 --> 01:13:54,750
put them in a drawing, and
then let the rest of us

1462
01:13:54,750 --> 01:13:58,820
imagine with him what the
world with that in it could be.

1463
01:13:58,820 --> 01:14:02,460
I think futurists and people
making guesses about the future

1464
01:14:02,460 --> 01:14:07,293
is part of what drives
technological change.

1465
01:14:09,070 --> 01:14:11,340
- We're within striking
distance of truly curing

1466
01:14:11,340 --> 01:14:13,630
these massively important diseases.

1467
01:14:13,630 --> 01:14:16,200
That's not tissue engineering,
it's not replacing parts,

1468
01:14:16,200 --> 01:14:17,970
but it achieves the same objective.

1469
01:14:17,970 --> 01:14:19,950
It makes the body biologically younger.

1470
01:14:19,950 --> 01:14:22,920
I believe that by 40 or 50 years from now,

1471
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:24,210
we have a very good chance,

1472
01:14:24,210 --> 01:14:27,820
I would say at least 70 or 80
percent, of reaching a point

1473
01:14:27,820 --> 01:14:30,210
that I've called
longevity escape velocity.

1474
01:14:30,210 --> 01:14:32,520
Essentially, what that means is that,

1475
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:35,050
even though our therapies for

1476
01:14:35,050 --> 01:14:36,390
repairing damage in the body,

1477
01:14:36,390 --> 01:14:37,640
whether at the organ level

1478
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:39,790
or at the molecular or cellular level,

1479
01:14:39,790 --> 01:14:42,020
will not be perfect by that point,

1480
01:14:42,020 --> 01:14:43,610
they will be very good,

1481
01:14:43,610 --> 01:14:45,380
hey will be very comprehensive.

1482
01:14:45,380 --> 01:14:48,330
So comprehensive that the residual damage

1483
01:14:48,330 --> 01:14:51,590
that we can't yet repair
will accumulate really slowly

1484
01:14:51,590 --> 01:14:52,620
and we'll have time

1485
01:14:52,620 --> 01:14:54,920
to incrementally improve
the therapies further

1486
01:14:54,920 --> 01:14:56,300
as time goes by.

1487
01:14:56,300 --> 01:14:57,815
So it will be equivalent,
from the point of view

1488
01:14:57,815 --> 01:15:00,920
of the individual who
receives these therapies,

1489
01:15:00,920 --> 01:15:03,530
to the situation in which the
therapies really were perfect.

1490
01:15:03,530 --> 01:15:04,630
The total amount of damage

1491
01:15:04,630 --> 01:15:06,430
that the person is carrying around

1492
01:15:06,430 --> 01:15:08,670
will be nowhere near the
level that's bad for you

1493
01:15:08,670 --> 01:15:11,050
that causes pathologies of any kind.

1494
01:15:11,050 --> 01:15:14,473
I believe that, yes,
we've got a very good chance
of getting there by that time.

1495
01:15:17,140 --> 01:15:19,990
- His two designs with the electric car

1496
01:15:19,990 --> 01:15:21,650
and the autonomous car,

1497
01:15:21,650 --> 01:15:25,680
he probably didn't see
that quite being the same,

1498
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:27,500
but I'm sure, had he thought it through,

1499
01:15:27,500 --> 01:15:28,990
he would have seen it.

1500
01:15:28,990 --> 01:15:33,270
He just didn't know how far
advanced the technology would go

1501
01:15:33,270 --> 01:15:35,330
once we really got serious about it.

1502
01:15:35,330 --> 01:15:37,970
Other than the car manufacturers

1503
01:15:37,970 --> 01:15:41,290
and oil companies fighting
us 10-15 years ago,

1504
01:15:41,290 --> 01:15:43,600
that delayed us a good decade,

1505
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:47,280
but once Elon Musk and
Tesla started going,

1506
01:15:47,280 --> 01:15:49,500
it was very clear to
everybody paying attention

1507
01:15:49,500 --> 01:15:50,800
what the end game was,

1508
01:15:50,800 --> 01:15:53,480
and the only question was
how fast we would get there.

1509
01:15:53,480 --> 01:15:57,170
But that all autonomous
vehicles would be fully electric

1510
01:15:57,170 --> 01:16:01,123
is pretty much agreed upon
by everybody in this space.

1511
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:08,697
- Somebody said, "Arthur's
in the hospital. He's sick."

1512
01:16:09,960 --> 01:16:11,443
And I went to the hospital.

1513
01:16:13,130 --> 01:16:18,130
The nurse, she said, "Are you family?"

1514
01:16:20,540 --> 01:16:21,820
I said, "Yes."

1515
01:16:21,820 --> 01:16:24,100
I felt like they didn't really want him

1516
01:16:24,100 --> 01:16:25,840
to have visitors or something.

1517
01:16:25,840 --> 01:16:27,063
That's the way I felt.

1518
01:16:28,070 --> 01:16:29,510
That's all I can tell you

1519
01:16:29,510 --> 01:16:33,090
is he was very, very weak and ill.

1520
01:16:33,090 --> 01:16:34,320
We talked.

1521
01:16:34,320 --> 01:16:35,760
We just talked and...

1522
01:16:37,670 --> 01:16:40,823
We just accepted each
other as human beings.

1523
01:16:42,270 --> 01:16:45,210
I was the only person to
visit Arthur in the hospital

1524
01:16:45,210 --> 01:16:46,520
as far as I know.

1525
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:50,193
I was there all but five
hours until he passed away.

1526
01:16:51,650 --> 01:16:52,800
He had no children.

1527
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:55,093
Arthur was real quiet.

1528
01:16:56,403 --> 01:16:59,823
He was at peace with
himself when he went there.

1529
01:17:01,090 --> 01:17:04,390
He knew he was gonna, probably
knew he was gonna pass away.

1530
01:17:12,320 --> 01:17:14,470
- Well, I know from his death certificate,

1531
01:17:14,470 --> 01:17:15,430
he had heart problems.

1532
01:17:15,430 --> 01:17:18,400
I know that Radebaugh had
a problem with alcohol

1533
01:17:18,400 --> 01:17:20,590
and that that had damaged his career.

1534
01:17:20,590 --> 01:17:23,450
From finding out how he
spent the end of his life,

1535
01:17:23,450 --> 01:17:26,380
painting furniture, and not artistically,

1536
01:17:26,380 --> 01:17:30,220
just decorating and just
painting finishes basically,

1537
01:17:30,220 --> 01:17:33,040
that clearly must have been a blow to him

1538
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:35,090
to be spending his last years

1539
01:17:35,090 --> 01:17:37,530
putting finishes, varnish
and what have you,

1540
01:17:37,530 --> 01:17:40,190
or painting flowers or something
on a piece of furniture,

1541
01:17:40,190 --> 01:17:43,940
it must have been very
humbling, I would think,

1542
01:17:43,940 --> 01:17:45,193
for somebody like him.

1543
01:17:50,320 --> 01:17:52,130
When I think of Radebaugh's last years,

1544
01:17:52,130 --> 01:17:55,210
I think it was a very
depressing, very sad end

1545
01:17:55,210 --> 01:17:59,760
to somebody who had really
given so many so much

1546
01:17:59,760 --> 01:18:03,010
with his artwork and
really was so influential,

1547
01:18:03,010 --> 01:18:06,303
to see him to have fallen to so low.

1548
01:18:09,000 --> 01:18:12,863
To me, that's a very sad
position that he ended up in.

1549
01:18:15,010 --> 01:18:17,420
- Uncertainty is a characteristic

1550
01:18:17,420 --> 01:18:20,120
that human beings just don't like.

1551
01:18:20,120 --> 01:18:23,490
And if you can synthesize
a future that's interesting

1552
01:18:23,490 --> 01:18:27,070
or exciting or even a cathartic effect,

1553
01:18:27,070 --> 01:18:30,020
it's just part of the human psyche.

1554
01:18:30,020 --> 01:18:32,673
You're responding to how
humans like to think.

1555
01:18:34,480 --> 01:18:37,300
What we do is we like a
response to the question,

1556
01:18:37,300 --> 01:18:39,870
what's gonna happen,
what's gonna happen to me?

1557
01:18:39,870 --> 01:18:42,150
Where are we all going? Why?

1558
01:18:42,150 --> 01:18:47,150
And it's a very, very human thing.

1559
01:18:47,500 --> 01:18:50,900
From time immemorial that the early man

1560
01:18:50,900 --> 01:18:52,290
kept track of the stars

1561
01:18:52,290 --> 01:18:55,080
and the rotation of the
earth relative to the sun

1562
01:18:55,080 --> 01:18:57,330
and the equinox and all that

1563
01:18:57,330 --> 01:18:59,750
because they wanted predictability.

1564
01:18:59,750 --> 01:19:01,720
And once you got to that stage,

1565
01:19:01,720 --> 01:19:06,430
then you started to build
things like the observatories

1566
01:19:06,430 --> 01:19:08,410
in the Middle East at that time.

1567
01:19:08,410 --> 01:19:12,640
You had Stonehenge and the
Egyptians and at equinox,

1568
01:19:12,640 --> 01:19:14,650
there's a light that would
come down the shaft, bing,

1569
01:19:14,650 --> 01:19:17,450
and then light up the
god's face or whatever,

1570
01:19:17,450 --> 01:19:21,607
and that meant that, "Oh, wow,
we got through that again.

1571
01:19:21,607 --> 01:19:23,860
"And now we're ready to
start another cycle."

1572
01:19:23,860 --> 01:19:28,340
Predictability is intrinsic
to the way we think

1573
01:19:28,340 --> 01:19:29,710
'cause we're intelligent

1574
01:19:29,710 --> 01:19:33,790
and we have the ability
to synthesize experience,

1575
01:19:33,790 --> 01:19:35,190
and animals don't have that.

1576
01:19:36,650 --> 01:19:38,110
- When I was young,

1577
01:19:38,110 --> 01:19:41,590
probably one of the most
inspiring pieces of art

1578
01:19:41,590 --> 01:19:43,200
that I'd always see in the magazine

1579
01:19:43,200 --> 01:19:46,210
were the car illustrations.

1580
01:19:46,210 --> 01:19:49,220
There was some beautiful work being done.

1581
01:19:49,220 --> 01:19:52,100
Full color reproduced in a post

1582
01:19:52,100 --> 01:19:56,120
and glamor magazines of the period

1583
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:58,430
were very inspirational to a young artist.

1584
01:19:58,430 --> 01:20:01,950
And everybody wanted to be back in Detroit

1585
01:20:01,950 --> 01:20:04,643
and doing these kind of assignments.

1586
01:20:05,650 --> 01:20:07,650
He was very lucky to be able to do that.

1587
01:20:08,660 --> 01:20:11,673
- The legacy of Radebaugh
is sort of multifaceted.

1588
01:20:13,440 --> 01:20:18,380
The future killed him while
he was creating the future.

1589
01:20:18,380 --> 01:20:21,320
The future arrived, and
he was talking about

1590
01:20:21,320 --> 01:20:22,540
what would the future look like.

1591
01:20:22,540 --> 01:20:26,833
But when the future got
here, it made him redundant.

1592
01:20:27,780 --> 01:20:32,200
He helped create the future
by imagining the future,

1593
01:20:32,200 --> 01:20:35,510
by being part of how we talked about

1594
01:20:35,510 --> 01:20:36,707
what we wanted from the future,

1595
01:20:36,707 --> 01:20:38,850
and what the future might be bringing us,

1596
01:20:38,850 --> 01:20:42,533
and are these ideas worth
chasing and some of them were.

1597
01:20:43,660 --> 01:20:47,200
But the future also destroyed
him a couple of times.

1598
01:20:47,200 --> 01:20:52,030
It destroyed him when
illustration went out of fashion

1599
01:20:52,030 --> 01:20:53,630
and photography came into fashion

1600
01:20:53,630 --> 01:20:54,960
in the world of illustration

1601
01:20:54,960 --> 01:20:58,930
for magazine covers and for advertising.

1602
01:20:58,930 --> 01:21:02,967
He reinvented himself as
a futurist illustrator

1603
01:21:02,967 --> 01:21:04,643
and a Sunday funnies guy.

1604
01:21:06,120 --> 01:21:07,100
And had to.

1605
01:21:07,100 --> 01:21:09,190
You know, it's like, wow, I'm middle aged

1606
01:21:09,190 --> 01:21:12,270
and don't have a job and
the illustration house

1607
01:21:12,270 --> 01:21:16,020
that was this king of illustration,

1608
01:21:16,020 --> 01:21:21,020
this little empire of illustration,
and I was one of their,

1609
01:21:21,460 --> 01:21:23,573
certainly their most fanciful prints,

1610
01:21:25,150 --> 01:21:26,490
doesn't exist anymore.

1611
01:21:26,490 --> 01:21:29,260
It's been swallowed up and folded and sold

1612
01:21:29,260 --> 01:21:32,223
and the people aren't in demand.

1613
01:21:33,080 --> 01:21:35,050
That's pretty frightening, you know,

1614
01:21:35,050 --> 01:21:36,313
'cause he was no kid.

1615
01:21:39,000 --> 01:21:42,830
I respect that he was
able to reinvent himself

1616
01:21:42,830 --> 01:21:44,633
within what he did already.

1617
01:21:47,050 --> 01:21:49,900
- We met two women.

1618
01:21:49,900 --> 01:21:51,990
- Kat and LaVon, the two sisters,

1619
01:21:51,990 --> 01:21:54,145
and LaVon had worked with Radebaugh.

1620
01:21:54,145 --> 01:21:57,830
LaVon had been a young woman at the time

1621
01:21:57,830 --> 01:22:00,370
that she and Radebaugh
sort of were teamed up

1622
01:22:00,370 --> 01:22:04,050
in this high end furniture
decorating factory.

1623
01:22:04,050 --> 01:22:06,483
And they were mischievous.

1624
01:22:07,476 --> 01:22:08,720
I don't think LaVon was really aware

1625
01:22:08,720 --> 01:22:12,293
that Radebaugh had been
the nationally famous,

1626
01:22:13,160 --> 01:22:15,300
futuristic imagineer.

1627
01:22:15,300 --> 01:22:17,680
She maybe saw glimmers of that.

1628
01:22:17,680 --> 01:22:20,170
She really had gathered this impression

1629
01:22:20,170 --> 01:22:23,410
that Radebaugh really wasn't
from the planet Earth.

1630
01:22:23,410 --> 01:22:27,010
And then we go out to the
Veterans Memorial Facility

1631
01:22:27,010 --> 01:22:29,493
where supposedly Radebaugh's interred,

1632
01:22:30,600 --> 01:22:35,600
and we get there and we make our inquiry,

1633
01:22:35,920 --> 01:22:38,370
and even though it says
on his death certificate

1634
01:22:38,370 --> 01:22:39,250
that he's interred there,

1635
01:22:39,250 --> 01:22:41,997
they're like, "Nope, we
have no evidence of that."

1636
01:22:41,997 --> 01:22:44,250
And basically, Kat and
LaVon just look at us

1637
01:22:44,250 --> 01:22:47,990
and were like, "We told you so."

1638
01:22:47,990 --> 01:22:50,053
Like, "We told you that Radebaugh
wasn't really from Earth

1639
01:22:50,053 --> 01:22:51,580
"and that he's not really dead."

1640
01:22:51,580 --> 01:22:54,530
And there's just sort of
this mystique around him.

1641
01:22:54,530 --> 01:22:56,240
Finally, the end of the story

1642
01:22:56,240 --> 01:22:59,370
that we had traveled partway
across the country to unravel,

1643
01:22:59,370 --> 01:23:01,970
and finally we get to the
place where Radebaugh is...

1644
01:23:03,930 --> 01:23:08,393
He ends his career at sort
of a low point, right,

1645
01:23:10,051 --> 01:23:12,890
and he passes away like
somewhat anonymously

1646
01:23:12,890 --> 01:23:16,763
in a veterans facility,
but he's not really there.

1647
01:23:17,628 --> 01:23:20,710
And it was a very
fitting, mysterious ending

1648
01:23:20,710 --> 01:23:22,310
for the enigmatic Mr. Radebaugh.

1649
01:23:25,060 --> 01:23:26,200
- I think what's interesting

1650
01:23:26,200 --> 01:23:29,120
about studying past visions of the future

1651
01:23:29,120 --> 01:23:33,690
is that they rarely say something
about the actual future.

1652
01:23:33,690 --> 01:23:34,840
We've become obsessed,

1653
01:23:34,840 --> 01:23:36,930
when it comes to past
visions of the future,

1654
01:23:36,930 --> 01:23:39,073
what they got right, what they got wrong.

1655
01:23:39,920 --> 01:23:41,690
To me, the most interesting question

1656
01:23:41,690 --> 01:23:44,520
about these past visions of the future

1657
01:23:44,520 --> 01:23:47,600
is what they say about
the people that made them.

1658
01:23:47,600 --> 01:23:50,270
A prediction of the future says much more

1659
01:23:50,270 --> 01:23:52,490
about the people making that prediction

1660
01:23:52,490 --> 01:23:54,980
and the time in which
that prediction was made

1661
01:23:54,980 --> 01:23:57,267
than it does about the actual future.

1662
01:24:00,128 --> 01:24:03,045
(futuristic music)