Trying to find OLD movie...of the future

[AiboPet]

Friends and I have been trying to figure out just WHAT movie I'm remembering.

I remember a couple walking up to what was effectively a vending machine.....but a BABY came sliding down, in a little basket and everything

I remember the couple standing there...and sort of "ordering" a baby...."blue eyes, brown hair" or somesuch.....and then a baby came down a chute or something from the wall. Am I crazy to JUST remember this dumb thing? It's something I saw on TV as a little kid....and it musta been part of a movie.

I'm assuming this has got to be some movie about stuff that will happen in the future, but from a LONG time ago. Maybe I was like five or six when I saw it. I actually love these sort of "this is gonna happen in the future" movies. Movies like "Things to Come", "Brazil", "Metropolis", etc.

So does anyone remember this dumb "baby vending machine" part of some movie?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by AiboPet

Friends and I have been trying to figure out just WHAT movie I'm remembering.

I remember a couple walking up to what was effectively a vending machine.....but a BABY came sliding down, in a little basket and everything

I remember the couple standing there...and sort of "ordering" a baby...."blue eyes, brown hair" or somesuch.....and then a baby came down a chute or something from the wall. Am I crazy to JUST remember this dumb thing? It's something I saw on TV as a little kid....and it musta been part of a movie.

I'm assuming this has got to be some movie about stuff that will happen in the future, but from a LONG time ago. Maybe I was like five or six when I saw it. I actually love these sort of "this is gonna happen in the future" movies. Movies like "Things to Come", "Brazil", "Metropolis", etc.

So does anyone remember this dumb "baby vending machine" part of some movie?

No, I never saw anything like that, to the best of my knowledge; I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid (in the days when we only got three channels from Cleveland, and my family only had one b&w TV in the living room), but never saw anything quite that outlandish, unless you consider the 1960s Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon series "The Jetsons" on NBC Saturday mornings (remember its automated food machine in the kitchen, wall-mounted TVs that also showed the daily newspaper, flying saucers instead of automobiles, a robot maid, etc., but never a baby vending machine).

However, since anything, however ridiculous, silly, or downright impossible in real life it may be, is possible in movies, stories, etc. (I am presently and have been for the last at least 25 years been writing a story in which some pretty outlandish things happen), a movie such as you mention is entirely possible as someone's vision of the future, say 25, 50 or 100 years from now. There is a TV series, for example, on cable's SyFy channel titled "Continuum", set in the year 2077; it started on the 14th of this month. I'd like to see just what the show's writers and producers came up with as their vision of life (and the world in general) 64 years from now.

There was also a song which was popular on top-40 radio in the mid-1960s (the record may have also been and likely was available in record stores of the time as well) by the group Zager and Evans. The song was titled "In The Year 2525"; it was a futuristic vision of the world in that year and on through the year 10,000 (!). If you have an oldies radio station near you, you might hear the record once in a great while, but it wasn't that big a hit when it was new, so I wouldn't count on hearing it today very often. The "classic hits" (a. k. a. oldies) FM radio station in Cleveland hasn't played this record in some time (perhaps a decade or more), although I don't know for sure as I haven't listened to the station much lately. They may and probably do have it, however, since their music library is huge -- probably the largest of any Cleveland rock station.

[jr_tech]

Zager and Evans tune "In The Year 2525" can be heard on YouTube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic

jr

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by AiboPet

I remember the couple standing there...and sort of "ordering" a baby...."blue eyes, brown hair" or somesuch.....and then a baby came down a chute or something from the wall. Am I crazy to JUST remember this dumb thing? It's something I saw on TV as a little kid....and it musta been part of a movie.

So that would be in the early 1970's, I presume.

BARBARELLA, 1968, was a huge hit and it spawned several copy-cat films of the same genre, but the imitators avoided the trademarked name of "Barbarella". At least a couple of the imitators were soft core porn.

I suspect that it was one of these copy-cat covers.

Since the original film was so popular, it also was spoofed by many TV comedians. You may well be remembering one of the TV spoofs that were part of a variety show.

I know I haven't provided an answer, but hope this jogs someone's memory.

Jas.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by AiboPet

Friends and I have been trying to figure out just WHAT movie I'm remembering.

I remember a couple walking up to what was effectively a vending machine.....but a BABY came sliding down, in a little basket and everything

I remember the couple standing there...and sort of "ordering" a baby...."blue eyes, brown hair" or somesuch.....and then a baby came down a chute or something from the wall. Am I crazy to JUST remember this dumb thing? It's something I saw on TV as a little kid....and it musta been part of a movie.

I'm assuming this has got to be some movie about stuff that will happen in the future, but from a LONG time ago. Maybe I was like five or six when I saw it. I actually love these sort of "this is gonna happen in the future" movies. Movies like "Things to Come", "Brazil", "Metropolis", etc.

So does anyone remember this dumb "baby vending machine" part of some movie?

I know what you're talking about, I remember watching the film several times. It is called "Just Imagine" and it was made in 1930, some say 1929. It was a story about "future life in the Year 1980."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Imagine

I rmemeber they end up launching a space ship to Mars.

[Username1]

I guess "future shock" was kinda like "just imagine" same kinda stuff different decade, different view of the future.

I guess if a movie like that were made today, in 2050 we might expect medical monitoring via implants, and of course implanted computers possibly from birth, preloaded with math, reading and a few language skills... Lets see and of course the computers would report antisocial thoughts back to Big Brother, kinda like a "Pre-Crime" unit I think from the movie Minority Report. Babies from vending machines....... Well I guess its possible, Imagine the Supreme Court hearings on that one.... More Smog, Soylent Green, and Sleep Centers for those who had grown past their useful age..... (daily protests of course) Did we kill off nature by that time.... Maybe just the Oceans, and the Amazon.... No more Wild in Africa either.... SUV's get bigger, 25" steel & rubber tires, MPG drops to new lows.

Edited for politics.

http://youtu.be/LnsH14chtkwHere's a clip of that baby vending machine from "Just Imagine"

and here is the whole movie:http://youtu.be/eldqx1MChyc

It's a very corny movie that shows up on TCM from time to time.

[truetone36]

That was the first movie to be shown at the Fox Theater in my hometown of Bakersfield, CA. when the theater opened in 1930. I saw it there a few years ago during one of their classic movie showings they now have.