Breaking news now, from Expo '67! Everything will look cool in the future! No it didn't. The actual future seldom lives up to the giddy optimism of the World's Fair. Ah well. We'll always have these pictures from the April 28th, 1967 issue of LIFE magazine.
The Australian pavilion. Nope. Those picto-trumpets aren't video screens. They're just backlit photos. Expensive and elaborate? Check. Cool looking? Super check. Loud? Not check.
The Cuban pavilion, which came in a flat box and was assembled with a 5mm hex wrench (included) in about three hours.
The Jenga Japan pavilion.
La Ronde, a futuregasmic amusement park just inside the gates of the expo.
It's time for another World's Fair citizens! Today, we bring you this post card from the 1982 World's Fair, in Knoxville, Tennessee. That's right! The Simpsons didn't lie to you.
The theme of the '82 Knoxfair was "Energy Turns the World", which is kiiiind of true, but more realistically, it's just about the only thing in the world that doesn't require energy to turn. But, Kknoxville should get a break, because there wouldn't be much to show at the fair if the theme were "Angular Momentum Started the World Turning and Lack of Friction Keeps it From Stopping."
So, everybody came to Knoxville to talk about energy. In keeping with the theme, the fair created more money then it burned, with a net gain of $57. With that money, The Knoxville World's Fair could buy itself a copy of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 (a big-name release for the '82 holiday season*), a pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars, AND still have enough money for a bus ride home.
This TV commercial for the fair has all the pew-pew neon tube graphics we have come to expect from 1982, a year in The Decade That Coke Built.
But you probably know the '82 fair from it's cameo on The Simpsons, where Bart, Nelson, Martin and Milhouse rent a car and drive down to Knoxville. Depending on your age, you may NOT know that The Simpsons used to be a really funny, clever show that people watched. I swear I am not making this up. The episode "Bart on the Road" is proof of this, first airing during the approximate golden age of Simpsons funniness. For some reason, you can watch this entire episode online through a portal other than FOX or FaceTube. Weird.
Heh heh heh. The kids on The Simpsons were at their best when the jokes revolved around the thought processes of kids, like Lemon of Troy and this story about the Knoxville Fair. The boys find a prochure about the '82 fair and assume the fair is still going on. Arriving at the fair, the place is falling apart. "Wod fir?", and the fabulous Sun Sphere is being used to store thousands of unsold wigs. The crowning glory is their souvenir purchase of a talking Al Gore doll "You - are - hearing - me - talk." Hah. I need to watch this again over lunch. When's lunch?
*In case you've been paying attention to the insane spiral of world events in the last week, you may not have heard that a team consisting of Xbox and a documentary filmmaker have found the mythical burial site of (allegedly) millions of unsellable copies of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, generally regarded as the most-rushed, shovel-ware pile of shit video game ever made. Yes, the E.T. dump site is real and there will be a movie made about it. I will totally be there. I think that the cartridges - or, at least the ones not sold on Ebay at an insane profit - should be re-interred in the fabulous Sun Sphere in Knoxville, like so many unsold wigs. Get on that, would you?
World's Fair Update now, from 1968! Just in time to plan your forty-five year old vacation trip! I think the car's warmed up by now.
The '68 World's Fair was located in San Antonio, Texas. Ticking all the boxes on the World's Fair requirement form, there was a Tall Pointy Thing with a revolving restaurant at the top, and lots of flags all over the place. The theme was "The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas", which is about as strangely egocentric as we can get while still qualifying as an "international event".
So what's there now? Lots of stuff from the fair, actually! Kudos to San Antonio for not bulldozing all the interesting stuff to put up fifty Wal-Marts.
An unfortunate angle on the Tower of the Americas, as it stands today,
in the shadow of The Dumpster of the Parking Lot.
The TOTA is still there, and apparently the restaurant at the top A) is still there and B) is still revolving, although I'm sure they've had to repack the main bearing since '68.
The convention center is also still there, and now houses a theater. There are a few government buildings, the University of Texas, and the Institute of Texan Cultures is there (read: shooting range).
Best of all, the general area is now Hemisfair Park, with fountains and plants and everything. It sounds pretty nice. If you're even down in Texas, look it up.
The real gem of the Garage Sale and Antique Store Assault Squad's recent expedition to Geneva, Illinois was this fold-em-up post card that kind of had a bunch of pictures in it from Expo '67 in Montreal. Nothing gets me cranked like photographs of models of how they hoped the fair would look. Excited? Me neither. Here they are! Woo.
Nice model, but I hope the full-scale trees won't look like they're infested with spiders.
The Air Canada Pavilion, where patrons were repeatedly reminded they could not "take off, eh?"
In the shadow of the Jaques Center bridge, see the most scrum-dilly-icious dolphins frolic in
a pool of soft serve at le Dairy Queen Dôme!
The Automotive Stadium, where cars engaged in bloodsport pour votre amusement.
The British Pavilion, which looked ironically Germanic in design.
The star feature of the Canadian Pavilion was a model of the Canadian Pavilion.
The French Pavilion, later to become the German Pavilion.
La Ronde, the midway of Expo '67 is now LaRonde Six Flags. Pretty cool!
Quebec Pavilion, whose main feature was that visitors were not allowed to speak English.
The Theme Pavilion, which probably featured something.
The U.S.A. Pavilion, and yet another in a long series of domes.
Hey, it's another monoraaaaiiiil! I know what you're thinking. "Was this mono-rail part of the Social Disease Pavilion, and was there a Herpes Simplexrail and a Gonorrhail?" Nope and nope. It was just a way to tour the fair from the air.
Unlike the one from the '64 New York Exposition, the Seattle monorail rode on top of the central rail, and not underneath it. It's less futurey that way, but guess what? It's still frikkin' running! Yep! Seattle uses the monorail to - hold on to your seats - help people get around! Good job, Seattle!
"Mister President, either let go of your penis or we'll have to ask you to leave the Gonnorhail."
Mystery Science Theater was, in my opinion, at their best when they were riffing on shorts. The density of material in a short film means there's a joke every couple of seconds. Please enjoy the MST3K version of Century 21 Calling, a promotional film from Bell Telephone. I know I will. Look for the U.S. Science Pavilion, which we featured in Monday's post.
Today we're at the '64 World's Fair again to see the Pavilion of American Interiors. Ooo! Such a Googie building! What goes on in there? Uuuh, not much, I'm afraid. Mostly, it was a showroom of stuff you could buy to decorate your home. The husbands must have gone to the International Beer Pavilion while the wives swooned about in here.
Well, not everything at the Fair can be exciting. Maybe they had some nutty furniture on display? Maybe? Please?
Well, in '64, they were starting to get over the national obsession with minimalism and space age design. It looks like they were already looking forward to the overall shittiness of The Seventies and its emphasis on clutter and pointless ornamentation.
This looks like my Aunt's living room, and not in a good way.
And now, something for everyone. If you think the Pavilion of American Interiors is simply fab, here's a picture of it under construction. Here's to anticipating a neato expo of kitschy furniture!
And if you think the Pavilion of American Interiors is a pathetic commercial pox on what should be a display of science and technology, here's a picture of the P.A.I. being demolished. Good riddance! Bring on the parking lot of the future!
And then there's whatever the hell this is, which was in that brochure....
Over at NYWF64.com, they have an excerpt from a brochure explaining this photo. Text pasted without permission, for your sanitation:
No? Come to our Moon Room. It is beautiful and strange. A moon dining room floating in cosmic space. (So you can see what a sit-down dinner on the moon would be like!) It is the most heavenly part of the International Silverware Exhibit at the World's Fair.
Here by the light of the moon you will see Vision -- sterling flatware ten light years ahead of its time. Find a silver coffee service you'd fly to the moon for. Water pitchers too ethereal for water. Futuristic design far too advanced to go on the market. (Although our culture is going at such a fast clip -- who knows?)
Another thing about our Moon Room. It lets those scientists know no matter what we'll be eating 20 years from today -- even if it's little blue food pills -- dinner will still be served on gleaming silver platters. By candlelight.
Ugh. A LIGHT YEAR IS NOT A MEASURE OF TIME! IT IS A MEASURE OF DISTANCE YOU WILLFULLY IGNORANT FOPS!! I like the spacey tableware and stuff, but when interior designers try to talk about the future in terms of meal pills and actors on wires, a column of puke slowly rises to the top of my throat. I'm leaving. Look for me in the International Beer Pavilion.
World's Fair Week continues with a quick stop at the '64 World's Fair in New York. The best place to get a good overview of the park was the AMF monorail. Monorails were space-age technology that's bound to really catch on any decade now. Just keep your monofinger crossed!
You may know AMF from their many years making equipment for bowling alleys. Their flexibility in engineering and design shows in this rendering of the monorail station, which looks an awful lot exactly like a giant ball return for humans. Can't get enough of those crazy boomerang shapes and vertical stripes, can you?
So what's there now? Not bloody much. The monorail station was located at A8 on the World's Fair map, which is now a triangle formed by two branches of Meadow Drive and Meadow Lake Trail. Sometimes life just completely fails to be interesting.
Here's the U.S. Science pavilion at night, from the '62 Seattle world's Fair. Pretty!
Want to see the logo they chose for that' year's fair? Nope? Well here it is!
What the.. ? Well, apparently Austin Powers was on the Expo '62 design staff. Despite the distinctly male direction of the logo (and maybe because of it), I'm sure the ladies were more than welcome at the Expo, where they could field questions all day regarding whether or not various men make them horny.
So what's there now? Well what do you know! The U.S. Science Building is there now, but now it's called the Pacific Science Center! How about those particular apples?
It's a nonprofit science museum that's been yanking and cranking pretty much since the Expo closed in '62. It's not every day you find an old Expo facility that hasn't been bulldozed or turned into a parking lot.
Next week will be World's Fair Week here at Phil Are GO!, because the Garage Sale Assault Squad found a cache of super cool postcards, and you need to see them. The World's Fair was a thing that used to be relevant back before we had the internet and FaceTube and everyone could know everything instantly. Nations would get together to show off their technology, industry, architecture and generally pretend they lived in The Future. Now that we're here, we've decided we're a disease on the planet. Whee. Next week we're going to forget that and look at some crazy buildings and wallow in memories of optimism, whatever that was.
As a preview, please enjoy this picture of (I think) Hudson Bay, at Expo '67, in Quebec. Cable cars,pirate ships and Logan's Run's summer home. You want weird? We'll weird you up but good at Expo '67!
What the.. ? Well, apparently Austin Powers was on the Expo '62 design staff. Despite the distinctly male direction of the logo (and maybe because of it), I'm sure the ladies were more than welcome at the Expo, where they could field questions all day regarding whether or not various men make them horny. 
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