Piggybacking on Tom’s post about the ridiculous idea of having a “standing section” on airplanes, the magazine scans reminded me of where this idea might have originated. On the left you’ll see the standing chair prototype from the post below and on the right is a couple of grainy screenshots from the 50’s sci-fi classic “This Island Earth”. Do those chairs on the spaceship look familiar?
When this movie got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment a few years back, one of the robots joked “Our chair technology is lightyears ahead of yours.” That may be true, but we’re catching up quickly. Now if we could only find a better way to fend off those pesky mutant attacks.