RETRO CLASSIC TV COMMERCIAL - 1950s - LIVE BETTER ELECTRICALLY (GE THEATER)
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- **used in the May 5,2010 episode of Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" ** ---"Live Better Electrically" was a slogan used in the late 1950's by the General Electric Company and local electric power companies to promote Electrical Living, primarily focused at rural communities and farms that still hadn't been connected to the power grid, as well as new housing developments fitted with all-electric heating and cooling, kitchens, and appliances. These new homes were "Medallion Homes", and displayed a plaque showing that fact.
This presentation features clips from a 1957 "General Electric Theater", hosted by Ronald Reagan, and also includes the then-popular jingle, as well as idyllic print advertising stills from GE, faboulous UPA-inspired 50's animation, and includes a final period ad which, in today's modern society, looks completely outrageous...but it is our history!
My Grandparents bought one of these homes. It's 2020 and IT'S STILL LIKE NEW! WoW! What quality homes
Yep, that's what America prided itself on.
You can really enjoy hi-fi music
Instead of crud that might make you sick
You're as happy as can be
When you Live Better Electrically!!
Great compilation, even with the startling ad at the end!
Was that racial bit really necessary? 🤨
Found and purchased a 1963 Medallion Home in central Illinois not far from GE Road. Someone added gas for dryer, heat and water heater and removed the central vacuum but it still has a lot of original features, outlets everywhere and the medallion at the door!
Why did they reemove the central vacuum those are great
What always gets me about these old 'ads' is that these big brands were such staples they had their own TV theater show. Before all the monopoly breakups.
That's what happened. The America we believed in just died over the decades.
DONT FORGET G E COLLEGE BOWL
thank god for you tube we can relive good television and good wholesome commercials and ads that sold u and entertained u at the same time not like current TV ads and todays crap that litters the channels
I'm not old enough to remember these little songs, but I do remember commercials promoting "Gold Medallion All-Electric Homes" with "no flame, no flue electric heaters". Power companies actively advertised up till the Energy Crisis of 1973-'74 to urge people to use more; this was both electricity and gas
The "Live Better Electrically" campaign was officially introduced by General Electric (on behalf of local power companies) in early 1956 [the portion with Bill Goodwin and the offer for the free booklet aired during G.E.'s CBS Judy Garland special on April 8, 1956].
Not in the rural areas of the USA during the 50's... You just still listened to battery-operated radios ("Farm Radios") and saw electric TV when you visited town.
I just went to a very run-down apartment building on the east side that still had a couple doorbell plaques with the logo on 'em!
Quite the discovery. 🔎
I love this! My home is a Medallion home built in 1972. You can tell by the little whosawhatsit on the doorbell. I don't think they're that bad, but then again, I'm anti-progress.
Does anyone else remember "Mary Medallion, the all-electric girl?" I recall a smiling young woman in a short skirt, wearing a medallion, and telling you to get electric. I believe she was on the show hosted by Ronald Reagan. I have had no luck at all trying to find her with Google.
I've always liked nostalgic commercials like this. I wonder what the dance they're doing at 2:46 is called? ;) But one thing I've wondered about...why is the kid not in the middle of the logo?
Actually, they were trying to convert homes to "total electric" where there are no gas, wood,or other energy sources at the home. I only know of one house with the medallion in Loomis, Nebraska. I trick or treated at that house every year from 1964 into the early 70s.
That ad must have elicited many a derisive chuckle during the energy crisis of the 70's. 😅
@musicom67 Besides, even if you did have electricity, I think this commercial was more about selling GE appliances versus electricity itself. A lot of people back then used other energy sources such as gas for cooking and heating.
How great to see Bill Goidwin at this late date. I am going to be receiving a 16mm kinescope of the 2/8/56 closed circuit Live Better Electricity Campaign introduction, hosted by John Daly and Giselle McKensie.
Did you ever receive it? How is it?
@@HoIyGrail Yes, I have it, but it needs to be transfered. I have not seen it, because I currently do not own a reliable 16 millimeter film projector.
@@jasonbeard4713 Thanks. Very cool. If you could shoot me a reply here when you see it. Would like to hear what you think of it after you watch it.
@@HoIyGrail I will, but please keep reminding me, because I'm also in the process of relocating.
@@jasonbeard4713 Will do. Thanks :)
Notably, no electric-firetrap-blankets were featured in this commercial……yeah, one really lived better with those things! 😨
@jimspy1001 I have a theory about the Chicken & watermellon stereotype referred to in this video @2:58. The majority of black people before WW2 lived in the southern USA and in areas of agriculture and poultry, live stock etc. If you are starving, have no money, it's not that far a stretch to think that poor blacks could easily grab a mellon or a chicken from a neighboring farm......a chicken or a mellon is a hell of a lot more easy to grab and run with than a pig or a cow
yep, it was thought at the time that the cost of generating electricity would continue to decline.. so much so that when the private power company bought the REA in my hometown they locked in rates (thinking they would go lower). Instead, they of course skyrocketed and to this day there are a batch of homes that tout that old rate as a selling point (didn't apply to new homes or ones with major changes)
Darn, I guess I have to give up the gaslights and the wood burning stove.
@musicom67 I grew up in New Hampshire. Our house went up sometime in the 70s and it was originally all-electric, heating and all. Not until the mid-90s did we switch to propane for heating and hot water.
The A maze escape room in Calgary 's game " Tesla's lab". offered a choice of two endings. The Good ending is about this this song set co classical reals of the innovations of the electric industry, but who's ending is it the Tesla or Edison ending?
I think Westinghouse, actually - (using Tesla's AC power concept - so Tesla). Edison was initially DC in his generation efforts. Tesla was also more involved in magnetic/plasma/unearthly stuff.
No I meant this as a non spoiler to the escape room choices.
Nooooo! Get it out of my head!
If you are viewing this commercial, wouldn't you already have electricity?
At that time, electricity was much cheaper. And it was cleaner than burning fossil fuels in your home--- though, they were burned to generate that "clean electricity", unless your local power plant used hydro or nuclear power.
Since electricity was so cheap in 1965, my parents had their home built with electric heat and appliances. In the 1980s, when electricity became expensive, my parents switched to a much cheaper and more efficient natural gas heating & cooling system, but kept the electric appliances because they were safer than gas.
Paul, you should post YOUR commercial of this Jingle as a video response here.
I watched this ad again, and discovered something odd: they show a little boy jumping on his bed in front of his parents, but what's strange is that he has bunkbeds but appears to be an only child! What an weird family. Or maybe they were planning for a "little brother or sister" for the boy? "Don't wake up if you hear moaning, Jimmy. It's just me and Mommy 'putting in a call to the stork' for a little brother for you."
@Sheri451 Well, have you seen Michael Reagan lately (he's a radio host). Considering his boyhood, I guess it all makes sense now.
What? No images of Reddi Kilowatt? For shame Tony . . . for shame . . .
Heheh! So cute and cool! Love it. :)
Interesting. Also, i'm told there were tracts of all-electric homes in OK and TX.
"Yo next range should be a GENERAL ELECTRIC." Now GE makes GAS - even "duel fuel" ranges.
That's "dual." "Duel" is something ... else...
Happy new year 2009
@jimspy1001 That ad at 2:58 appeared in nationwide magazines in the late 1940's. The following quote from Vonnegut makes sense now, doesn't it? "History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again" ... WTF, right? Answer: We really WERE THAT bad back then! ....
No, that was an authentic GE advertisement, and was purely inserted DUE to the shock value it causes TODAY, but wasn't even a consideration back in the 40's! YES, Americans saw 'race' quite differently 60 years ago!
Can anybody identify these singers? The vocal arrangement is quite interesting, as is the key female vocalist. Probably studio folks...?
That jingle was written by Don Voegeli (the composer of the "All Things Considered" theme!) and sung by Don and his wife Jean. (Source: the "Beautiful and Lovely: The Music of Don Voegeli" CD.)
What is the copyright on this song?
Why, you looking for a lawsuit, or you trying to get me into trouble, or are you trying to renew it? Enquiring minds would like to know...
@@musicom67 I always thought this would make a really cool introdution to a album or would be cool in a video game
I'm so grateful you shared this...am I going to track it down on vinyl only to find it for 50$ yes...but who has 50$ for a 7inch
It was written by the late Don Voegeli (rhymes with "vaguely"). The same fella who wrote the "All Things Considered" theme!
Most people from their late 60s into the 70s do, indeed, prefer the electric range, because that’s what they grew up with, but most of those under 60 prefer cooking with gas, Because they want to cook on real fire not on artificial heat produced by electronic induction, or a coil like Electric heating element.
Maybe, but what if you live where there aren't any gas mains and you heat with oil? Don't matter how old you are - unless you MUST cook with gas you switch the whole shebang over to propane... I have gas just talking about it.
I miss electric grills. Gas annoys me.
That's not how it works. Fire just heats up the molecules in the pan. Induction ranges do that much more efficiently than fire. Gas ranges are 40% efficient compared to induction which is 90%. Nor does it burn up the bottom of the pan over time.
Induction > gas.
@@HoIyGrail Nah gas is way more efficent
@@HoIyGrail Induction is EXPENSIVE to operate, and dangerous
This shit is litttttt
@erick103
it wasn't at the end of that ad, no.
@JMMoosey Yes...I love Sarah Palin parody as much as the next person...
Hi! Me again! The Medallion Home is on its way back! Homes will be built “without carbon emissions” - that means all electric. From about 1953 to the early 90s most homes were built with all electric kitchens then in the early 90s (PG&E tried it in the early’70s but without much success) but yeah in the early 90s all new homes were being built with GAS ranges instead of the popular electric ranges in previous builds (1953 to 1989). In the near future homes will be built with no gas meter outside. Not only will the electric range come back, the near future “carbon free” homes will also have electric water heaters, and for heating - all electric furnaces. 7he new “carbon free” homes won’t even come with fireplaces. On the roof not only no more chimneys - no more smokestacks whatsoever!
Just don't tell the Viking Range Company...
Well, thank goodness something from the 50's lives.
Still, those sound like sad, generic homes.
...but if you can afford it Yo' next range should be a VIKING or a WOLF (R).
LMAO! Whats up with that ad at the end of the black kid eating chicken? Was that a real ad?
Yes it’s real
I recommend using electricity ⚡️
My vacuum cleaner, DVD player, TV, and lamps insist on it!
War!....war never changes...
@jimspy1001 Yes, we really were that bad back then, and worst!!
cool that you noticed how awful that was, though. I cannot get that live better electrically song out of my head or that horrible cariture! Thanks 1950's.
Lucky. If you lived on Long Island (NY), your average 'balanced billing' would range minimally $300 a month for normal family electricity use.
Again, if it weren't for electricity, it is doubtful folks would have learned of the Joys of Electricity! Alternative methods would be interesting. Smoke signals? Hee!
@weedermann - Ironically, I hate political correctness. I never say "African-American," I say "black", and I think a lot of people have gone overboard with the "sensitivity" thing (some people call me a racist. So be it.) But that's just WRONG on so many levels.
💸💳💰💷💶💴💵🛰️💻🖱️®️™️©️ FORT KNOX GENERAL AND UNITED STATES CENTRAL AGENCY DIRECTOR LAMONTE M. WARD...🔒
@musicom67 No, "we really WERE THAT bad back then!"--NOT. It was just that mainstream social opinion of anyone non-white could be unabashedly whatever white men said it was.
Did anyone else see the slide at 2:58? WTF? Was that a joke or something? Surely they wouldn't have made a real ad like that? A black kid mawing on some fried chicken, going "mmmm-MMM" and then talking in ebonics? I mean, double WTF? Were we really THAT bad back then?
I grew up in the 50's and stuff like that was commonplace and considered normal. At least by white folks.
@@desertguy395 Jesus, that was 12 years ago. Was I really that naive back then? LOL! Guess I've learned a thing or 2 since!
@jimspy1001 oh yeah, it was really bad back then when it came to black and white race relations
socialism American style