Holy cats, Matt: that was absolutely surreal. I can't believe I watched the whole thing. I mean, no parody of this stuff could come close to that film.

(On another note: Dodsworth is wending its way to the top of our queue, and I've got 12 Angry Men to watch this weekend.)

Basically, this is What happened when "An American in Paris" stayed home instead.

MST3K did run the original short, and then parodied it through the rest of the host segments. I can't recall now what movie it fronted, and the video releases (for some weird reason) cut out the short subjects and put them in separate compilation tapes/DVDs.

Oddest moment (of many) must be when we finally see The Masked Chauvinist's face, and Woman of Tomorrow shrieks "You!" Uh . . . and who would that be? (He's Marc Breaux, a choreographer who did significant work on Broadway and in movies, but that doesn't answer the question.)

12 To The Moon was the MST episode - a classic season finale with Design for Dreaming. See http://mst3k.booyaka.com/episodes/guides/quick-5.shtml

If you liked "Design for Dreaming," please tell me you've seen "American Look," also on the prelinger site--the 1958 wide-screen salute to the best in mid-century modern design...climaxing in, of course, the '59 Impala.

I saw part of this video about 2 years ago. An alum of my film/video program had used it in an exhibit on design history at a local museum. This was also my first introduction to the The Preliger Archives.

My friend Kevin pointed your article out to me. You might enjoy the music video I did for a song by a local SF band, in which I used footage from "Design for Dreaming."

I've got it up on the archive at http://www.archive.org/details/royalty_free_birthday_song_mobfront_mix_video

Enjoy!

www.jasonbentley.org/blog

"For some reason, she's then transported a space-age kitchen to make a cake."

It's mentioned in the song about how she's working with Frigidaire appliances. I remember my grandparents' old refrigerator was a Frigidaire and there was a blue-and-silver logo-plate on the top of one of the handles for...General Motors ("GM"). Apparently, GM had/has owned and manufactured Frigidaire. I suppose in the industrial film it was simply cross promotion.

By the way, thanks for sharing this film. It gave me a great laugh!

This is probably the most-used film from our archives. I've seen it turn up in literally dozens of films & videos, including most recently Adam Curtis's doc "The Power of Nightmares." The dancer was Thelma "Tad" Tadlock, who died a few years ago.

Um....my age is showing...

The "cake" reference is a risque joke: "give a guy a break and you wind up in the kitchen baking a cake" meant "have sex with a guy and you wind up in the kitchen pregnant". I guess those WASP corporate organization-men had a few grins over their martinis.

Very interesting, Sumac!

Rick, a hearty thanks for having this available for us. I wish Tad Tadlock had done more onscreen work; she's quite fetching in that film.

Actually, thinking about it, this is a bit of "wink-wink nudge-nudge" film, by 1950's standards. I remember as a child learning how to bake cookies and cakes, my mom telling me to be careful about saying "I've got a cake in the oven"; housewife gossip about another woman who was pregnant (somehow this was something you weren't supposed to mention) was "She's got a cake in the oven". The scandal!!

I also think the whole masked-man-in-the-bedroom thing is an oblique reference to sex. The fur stole, the fancy gifts, etc, only to be revealed in the end to be "dear hubby, after all" (Is that the meaning??) was a kind of running gag in those days. (Ike and Mamie were in the White House). Also the gratuitous skimpy outfit changes. You had to be squeaky-clean virtuous in those days but there were secret codes... Also there were virtually NO women at the auto corporate level and this is a corporate film. Really very interesting...

Sumac: THANK YOU for explaining the obscure subtleties in this film. Now that you mention them, they are so obvious!

Matt and I watch a lot of old films, and I am a "vintage radio" buff. We often see obscure references to some cultural thing from the 1930s and say to each other "We are probably the last living people who get that joke." Like the "Is that you, Mert?" telephone call, or the sad postman, or the store clerk saying a really long, drawn out "Yyyyyyyyyyeeeees?" It is so cool to know where they come from. I often wonder which other ones we are missing.

Rob and I quote from the MST version of this all the time. Our favorite lines include "pregnant woman and schnauzer optional," "the road to the future is out!" and "future not available in all areas."

Yes, it's cool to find out what some of this "ephemera" meant (and Gael, I don't get the 1930's references you mention!) I can only speculate on what might have been meant by "your apron's showing" or her being "the talk of the town". This stuff is so universal in cultures that allow its expression, and it makes collections like this so valuable...I had heard of this archive, but it took a link via BoingBoing to bring me to it; now I'm gonna do some exploring...

Oops, I mean Christopher...

Sumac:

1: "Is that you, Mert?" is from the radio program "Fibber McGee and Molly" and was a running gag everytime Fibber picked up the telephone to call someone. Mert is the telephone operator. (For those who might not know, there was a time when all telephone calls were placed with an operator. None of this "direct dialing.") Bugs Bunny used this bit a lot.

2: The sad postman, played by Mel Blanc, was a running character on the "Burns and Allen" radio show. This gag shows up a lot in Warner Brothers cartoons.

3: The store clerk saying a really long, drawn out "Yyyyyyyyyyeeeees?" was played by Frank Nelson, and originated on radio's "The Jack Benny Show." This also shows up a lot in cartoons of the period.

Then, of course, there is the "pickle in the middle and the mustard on top" bit which I could go on about for hours. :-)

That Frank Nelson "yyyessss?" character also appeared in a few Simpsons episodes. Talk about longevity!