I saw this ad new, when in my teens. I always liked Bell Telephone, felt like crying when it was bought out. My parents always had Bell Central for their phone service.My parents used a rotary dial phone up until 1992.
The Bell System. People using technology to help keep down costs and improve service, keeping your phone system the best in the world. Nice ending tag by Alexander Scourby.
Incredible I remember when you could just run a card through a machine. Now of course in most places you either swipe, wave, or insert your card yourself.
I was 16 then, in 10th grade, and clearly recall this ad. The computer systems shown in the ad just seemed so syfy then, when they were current. I liked those Bell phone ads of the 1970s, I recall them after all these decades. I grew up with a rotary dial phone. My parents had the black kind that felt heavy as cast iron, but voices sounded clear through the receiver. Even from 1980 to 1992, my parents had a wall phone with rotary dial, but it was of a green plastic. I never once thought the rotary dial was an inconvenience, only in a dire emergency would it be. Basically, the device was simply commonly used and we never gave it a thought. Men could always seem to spin the dial really fast with each number used, you can see them doing it that way in old movies too, as opposed to women.
Yep, we used to have the best phone system in the world. Now we tolerate static, breaking voices, and bad connections so we can play games and watch movies on our telephone. How did we get here?
@Energyone The problem is that this WAS the old Bell System, today they no longer exist . The fraud that exists today as AT&T is not the original entity, but a small baby bell company that bought the Bell System out.
Well how else were they to inform us of new technology ? Osmosis maybe. I guess they could have called us. Reminder advertising is still an important PR method. Plus PR was also done to keep the stock price up.
Ma Bell was all about that ill communication. "She" was better than what replaced her. At least Western Electric knew how to build stuff that could possibly survive the apocalypse.
In my 28 years in the Bell System, I had two interviews with the Gestapo - uh, I mean, Corporate Security. They were not jolly, friendly people. I saw co-workers hauled off to jail. They deserved it, but still, it's not something pleasant to watch.
Great snapshot of a time. The presenter is a glib 30s-something in a three piece suit. Nowadays, they'd be a 23-year-old hipster in a casual shirt. And that classical, reassuring voiceover of Alexander Scourby has been replaced by a lilting sunshine girl voice. And spare us the noble company mission statements; nobody believes in the system any more. We just want results.
Well watching these you can clearly see why the Justice Department broke up the Bell System. One dirty little secret about the Bell System was that it was using long distance revenue to subsidize local service. Problem with that is that they kept pushing the costs to carry long distance down to fractions of a cent and could no longer prop up that system. It's why today your mobile phone can call long distance without incurring additional fees.
Hardly a "secret," dirty or otherwise. The Bell System was highly regulated and the division of revenue between local and long-distance )the correct term is the "separations process") had been going on under ORDERS from the F.C.C. since WWII. The main reason why the D.O.J. wanted to break up the Bell System was to get back at them for having lost their prior lawsuit of 1956. That and a little know-nothing, do-nothing company that wanted to simply skim all the cream off a once-great system.
@@Steveos312 Bell Telephone was a great system but by the time it was broken up was a bloated, inefficient mess that was being overtaken by technological advances.. Well over one million people worked for the phone company in its final years, now we have a phone system that is much more efficient, costs a fraction of what we paid for service back then, and does all that with a fraction of the amount of employees.
I'm not so sure that is true. By 1977, AT&T and Bell Labs had constructed a prototype cellular system. Some of the technology that you are using in your cellular phone or "smart phone" may have started at Bell Laboratories.
MissJuneBennett Everything that came after is a direct result of the Bell System and its innovation arm Bell Labs. One of the benefits of a nationwide monopoly is that you had centralized research and development. Bell didnt just do landlines. They did everything from semiconductors to cellular technology to fiber optics and laser etc
The whole concept of fiber optics(they called it Lightwave) and digital switching(#4ESS), and cell networks(AMPS) were all invented by Bell Labs. They also invented the transistor, without it microprocessors would be impossible. They invented Unix, many of it's decedents are used in modern smart phones. Saying that Ma Bell never saw the smart phone coming is just plain wrong. If Bell Labs had the funding and freedom it did under AT&T, we'd be much farther ahead than we are now. Not to mention all the wasted resources that all the telcos did in the '90s trying to get into the long distance market themselves. I Bell were never broke up, we would all likely have fiber internet by now.
@@richardhz-oi8px Yes, at prices most average POTS customers would not be able to afford. Better, smarter behavior at the executive levels would have kept the Bell System intact. Oh well..... 🤷♂️
My left ear really enjoyed these old ads.
When you can remember when 1977 was the future...
I saw this ad new, when in my teens. I always liked Bell Telephone, felt like crying when it was bought out. My parents always had Bell Central for their phone service.My parents used a rotary dial phone up until 1992.
Michelle Post not bought out, but broken up.
Mike Rivest, I was 17 years old when this commercial came out brings back memories Thank You for posting.
I remember these commercials as a 10 something year old. Led to a lifelong interest in the Telecom industry.
@@Janotes , I hear you
I love that the 70s and 80s had the really catchy beats as backing music for their ads!😅😊
Bell System, boo, I miss you.
Alexander Scourby! (Keeping your voice-over narration the best in the world!)
Even while in his mid-40s, his voice prompted an image of a wise wrinkled sage.
The Bell System. People using technology to help keep down costs and improve service, keeping your phone system the best in the world.
Nice ending tag by Alexander Scourby.
Sounded like he actually BELIEVED it! 🤣😉✌️
TRUE INDEED.
3:06 Yes. For the 70's, it is incredible. But guys, may be you could use the live video transmission -_-
Incredible I remember when you could just run a card through a machine. Now of course in most places you either swipe, wave, or insert your card yourself.
1977: Long distance teaching was the future
2020: Now its just depressing (Thanks a lot COVID-19.)
I worked in Burbank 1989-90 on OSPS System..
Remember when you couldn't buy a telephone over the telephone ?
I was 16 then, in 10th grade, and clearly recall this ad. The computer systems shown in the ad just seemed so syfy then, when they were current. I liked those Bell phone ads of the 1970s, I recall them after all these decades. I grew up with a rotary dial phone. My parents had the black kind that felt heavy as cast iron, but voices sounded clear through the receiver. Even from 1980 to 1992, my parents had a wall phone with rotary dial, but it was of a green plastic. I never once thought the rotary dial was an inconvenience, only in a dire emergency would it be. Basically, the device was simply commonly used and we never gave it a thought. Men could always seem to spin the dial really fast with each number used, you can see them doing it that way in old movies too, as opposed to women.
It could be that most women had long nails and that slowed them down. My mother was an operator in 1949, and boy oh boy could she dial fast!
No one getting bags in that second commercial. What a concept.
Amazing all the things the phone company created !!!
the nation and mankind are markedly poorer without bell labs
Reminds me of the new Verizon ads with off camera comments from senior tech officers explaining how awesome their network is
OALM, that’s never changed.
1:47 Oh geez, it's the Target Lady!
Thanks for posting.
Yep, we used to have the best phone system in the world. Now we tolerate static, breaking voices, and bad connections so we can play games and watch movies on our telephone. How did we get here?
1:15 a whole new look to American stores, going out of business signs.
thanks to the infrastructure developed at Bell Labs. I guess they did too good of a job
Tom Servo Tom Servo !!!!!!!
America is going out of business. We'll have to hold another Americathon.
@@QuadMochaMatti no it isn't just alot of bricks and mortar, replaced by Amazon.
Now if only someone would lay fiber to every corner of the USA...
@Energyone
The problem is that this WAS the old Bell System, today they no longer exist . The fraud that exists today as AT&T is not the original entity, but a small baby bell company that bought the Bell System out.
@@watershed44 Yes I know
The Gemini E-blackboard, this was the Zoom of its time.
The birth of AI.
Im guessing using 56k before the internet slowed it down
6:08 Alexander Scourby, what an iconic voice!
0:35 Helen McHatton, a woman with a really thick Boston accent.
That Baaaaaaaahhhhstan accent is sexy as Hell! So is Newww Yaaahhk!
Awesome video!!!!
? Why did Bell System have to market at all, when they were the only game in town?
PR, and at this time there were rumblings of the breakup
Well how else were they to inform us of new technology ? Osmosis maybe. I guess they could have called us. Reminder advertising is still an important PR method. Plus PR was also done to keep the stock price up.
Until Forced regulations & the "break Up"
What the version of this song Feeling?.
Who has singed?
Ma Bell was all about that ill communication. "She" was better than what replaced her. At least Western Electric knew how to build stuff that could possibly survive the apocalypse.
They had their own police department...something very dark about the Bell system....very dark
In my 28 years in the Bell System, I had two interviews with the Gestapo - uh, I mean, Corporate Security. They were not jolly, friendly people. I saw co-workers hauled off to jail. They deserved it, but still, it's not something pleasant to watch.
An ad based on quality of the product? Wh... wh... wh... what?!
Ahh Ma Bell, you'll be setting out to divest in just 5 years. So long monopoly!
Wow so Bell invented the Credit Card machine?
Stephen Mahala Yep. It was called Transaction Services.
Bell basically invented everything! Bill Gates stole his operating system from Bell, and the little bastard got away with it!
07:51 Is that John Beck?
Back when “Silicon Valley” was New Jersey.
Can you hear me now?
Great snapshot of a time. The presenter is a glib 30s-something in a three piece suit. Nowadays, they'd be a 23-year-old hipster in a casual shirt. And that classical, reassuring voiceover of Alexander Scourby has been replaced by a lilting sunshine girl voice. And spare us the noble company mission statements; nobody believes in the system any more. We just want results.
@ 9:55 who added that... sounds terrible, like a mash of echo and cross talk. Certainly not the original.
Planned obsolescence. So Where is all of these old system's ? In a landfill somewhere?
Yes, basically.
Well watching these you can clearly see why the Justice Department broke up the Bell System. One dirty little secret about the Bell System was that it was using long distance revenue to subsidize local service. Problem with that is that they kept pushing the costs to carry long distance down to fractions of a cent and could no longer prop up that system. It's why today your mobile phone can call long distance without incurring additional fees.
Hardly a "secret," dirty or otherwise. The Bell System was highly regulated and the division of revenue between local and long-distance )the correct term is the "separations process") had been going on under ORDERS from the F.C.C. since WWII. The main reason why the D.O.J. wanted to break up the Bell System was to get back at them for having lost their prior lawsuit of 1956. That and a little know-nothing, do-nothing company that wanted to simply skim all the cream off a once-great system.
Bell.. ripping us off for decades renting us phones. GTH ATT
There's a special place in hell for Judge Greene
@@Steveos312 Bell Telephone was a great system but by the time it was broken up was a bloated, inefficient mess that was being overtaken by technological advances.. Well over one million people worked for the phone company in its final years, now we have a phone system that is much more efficient, costs a fraction of what we paid for service back then, and does all that with a fraction of the amount of employees.
if only they knew how annoying it would be!
O
Next year it will be 2017 and the land line will be even closer to being extinct. Ma Bell never saw the Smart Phone coming.
I'm not so sure that is true. By 1977, AT&T and Bell Labs had constructed a prototype cellular system. Some of the technology that you are using in your cellular phone or "smart phone" may have started at Bell Laboratories.
MissJuneBennett Everything that came after is a direct result of the Bell System and its innovation arm Bell Labs. One of the benefits of a nationwide monopoly is that you had centralized research and development. Bell didnt just do landlines. They did everything from semiconductors to cellular technology to fiber optics and laser etc
The whole concept of fiber optics(they called it Lightwave) and digital switching(#4ESS), and cell networks(AMPS) were all invented by Bell Labs. They also invented the transistor, without it microprocessors would be impossible. They invented Unix, many of it's decedents are used in modern smart phones. Saying that Ma Bell never saw the smart phone coming is just plain wrong. If Bell Labs had the funding and freedom it did under AT&T, we'd be much farther ahead than we are now. Not to mention all the wasted resources that all the telcos did in the '90s trying to get into the long distance market themselves. I Bell were never broke up, we would all likely have fiber internet by now.
And yet T had to buy McCaw Cellular to become a player in cellular telecommunications.
@@richardhz-oi8px Yes, at prices most average POTS customers would not be able to afford. Better, smarter behavior at the executive levels would have kept the Bell System intact. Oh well..... 🤷♂️