A Vision of Yesterday's Tomorrow
Part two of our look at the 1964 World's Fair is a more critical look, through the eyes of NBC Newsman Edwin Newman.

A World's Fair Diary, NBC News special narrated by Edwin Newman
OB: July 30, 1964, 10 p.m. EST, NBC
I was six months old when this special was first broadcast.

Edwin Newman probably first crossed into my vision when he did daily NBC News updates during the network's game show-laden lineup in the 1970s, just five minutes or so of news briefs with a sponsor I.D. for Johnson's Wax at the tail end of The Hollywood Squares. I also remember him being the newsreader for David Letterman's ill-fated daytime show in 1980. To most of America he had become known as a man who narrated documentaries, anchored political conventions and even two presidential debates, and hosted a weekly interview series featuring noted authors and politicians and even heads of state. And perhaps most notably, he wrote a book about the English language and how it's often badly misused, for which this entire blog would likely fail miserably to pass muster.
So when I, an aspiring broadcast news student, got to meet Newman in the 1980s, I was, quite frankly, intimidated. He was at the University of Alabama in Birmingham to deliver a lecture on the English language. I had a vision of a cranky, curmudgeonly, perhaps somewhat elite newsman who had no time to suffer nonsense, perhaps harshly correcting the grammar of the attendees who asked questions at the end of his talk.

It turns out, he couldn't have been farther from that. That night at UAB, he was actually a very nice, agreeable man, peeking his uncharacteristically smiling face from behind a curtain just before his introduction (and getting applause even for that). He did, indeed, give a talk about the English language and how often it's misused on television and in commercials, by people like longtime ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell who should know better. (His verbatim quote of one of Cosell's verbose remarks drew a large laugh from the crowd.)  When he took questions, he did often rephrase them in correct grammar, but he did so diplomatically, under the guise of repeating them into the microphone so the entire room could hear them. And afterwards, he graciously chatted and signed autographs for those of us who simply felt like sticking around. He was actually very accessible, and acted he like had no deadlines that night and all the time in the world for us.
I should've known he wasn't completely humorless; he did guest host Saturday Night Live a couple of times after his retirement and once delivered a hilarious rant during a walk-on cameo on Newhart. Still, it was only then I realized all the times I heard him and that voice speak so crankily on NBC, he wasn't being cranky, he was being honest. Sure, I've heard that used to justify some wildly rude people like Simon Cowell and that nasty, scary chef on that reality show, but in Newman's case, it fit perfectly. And as we see in the summer 1964 NBC special, A World's Fair Diary, he doesn't hate everything. He just has an honest eye and an eye for the unusual and absurd. And the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York was a perfect place for that.
Billed as both a tribute to the idea of worldwide cooperation and a vision of tomorrow, the New York World's Fair may actually be best remembered as tribute to capitalism and corporate excess. It was perhaps a harbinger of our post-millennial global economy where we could travel to remote parts of Asia, including deep in red China, and see Pizza Hut and KFC logos all over the place. It also presaged many of the attractions at theme parks like Six Flags and Kings Mountain and (as I said in my last World's Fair post) Walt Disney World.
But the 1939-40 World's Fair on that same New York spot was obviously the reference point for many at the fair, including the writers and producers of this NBC News special. That's why it kicks off with a hand putting a coin into a calliope, whose music then serves to unite a montage of quirky images from the fair, including a walking pair of men's feet. After a commercial break, we see the feet belong to veteran NBC News correspondent and great champion of the Queen's English, Edwin Newman.

All of this unreels to us via a six-part Youtube video, which, in stark contrast to the Walt Disney presentation from last time, has badly faded color from a bad print that obviously wasn't a network master.
As Newman sits in front of the big fountains near the iconic Unisphere, he begins his opening.

"A World's Fair is, to use a favorite word of W. C. Fields, a melange," he tells us. "It's a mixture, a conglomeration, a cluster of things. In fact, if this fair had failed, we might've called it 'Cluster's Last Stand.'" (This line makes me laugh out loud as I suspect the writer was thinking of another phrase that included the word "cluster.") "Happily, it is succeeding," Newman continues, to entertain, to divert, to instruct, to inform..."to arouse the desire to travel and to arouse the desire to buy," and also to "give some notion of the future."
One of most brutally punishing parts of the fair, apparently, was the long line to most everything, so according to Newman, word has gotten out: "Come early." We get a closeup of the man who blows the opening whistle for the gates to open for the day. Newman tells us the fair sees some 185 thousand admissions a day, "somewhat below expectations but hardly a failure." The record day up to that point: a quarter million. Adult admission was $2 a day (that's roughly $15.04 in 2014 dollars), but only $1 on Mondays throughout the months of July and August. All children were admitted for 25¢ (today, that would be $3.75). Saturday was usually the busiest day; Sunday was usually the lightest day, and based on what he just said about the cheaper Monday admission, a Sunday-Monday trip would likely have seen the shortest lines and therefore the most attractions.
I can't help but notice two things about the crowd shots: many of the men are wearing dress shirts and even neckties--yes, it was that era--and a vast majority of the crowd is white.

Newman and his videographers (apparently taking separate cars) get a quick overview of the fair via the Swiss Sky Ride, with an admission of 75¢ (ouch, that's $5.04 today). Newman quips that it "probably has its own numbered bank account in Zurich." The sky buckets were common sights at the Six Flags parks, including the one in Atlanta, beginning in 1965, and I'm wondering how much of that was influenced by their use at this World's Fair and the (real) one two years earlier in Seattle.
Despite the fair's emphasis as a vision of the future, Newman doesn't find it futuristic, or at least not a future city he would find congenial. "The fair is temporary and commercial," he says. "Great art rarely blossoms under those circumstances. What the fair really is, is a giant display of pop art." (Ouch.)
The fair, as I indicated earlier, got a lot of complaints about long lines, but also about attractions that turned out to be rather expensive. So apparently, one of the goals of this documentary is to point out some attractions that are both entertaining and free. One of those, the Flying Men of Papantla, is an acrobatic show put on at the Mexico pavilion by a group of Mexican Indians. It cost every bit of free and Newman said was very thrilling.

You would, however, have to pay to see the lumberjack pavilion that was part of the Oregon state exhibit. The admission was $1 for adults, 75¢ for children but Newman says it's worth it. The pavilion features ax throwing, log rolling and the hit of the show, pole climbing.
With Oregon an apparent exception, "many of the state exhibits, we're unhappy to report, are on the dull and unimaginative side," Newman says  "...afterthoughts and the obvious, the work of governors' relatives." His candor is more than refreshing, it's cathartic.

The Florida pavilion "makes no pretense of being architecture," and we see that has a beach with actual sand and women who were called in those days "bathing beauties" (but obviously no ocean or gulf).

It also had an impressive amount of serious art inside, by Halz, Reubens, Cezanne and other classic artists. (Florida is home to a number of major art museums.) The gallery of paintings was free, but a porpoise show charged admission. Overall, Newman says the Florida show was not successful.

Newman mentions acrobats that appear intended to lure visitors into what was turning out to be the surprisingly unsuccessful amusements area. We get a look around that area via a monorail.
We get a glimpse of a carousel, and a one ring circus that isn't seeing capacity crowds. Newman tells us (and some research I did vehemently backs it up) that the amusements area was tucked away in a far corner of the park, geographically disconnected with no midway to lead people there. Plus the rides were rather expensive and had to compete with more accessible free attractions in the state and international pavilions.
Newman says the performers booked for the area were rather uninspired; there was no one of the caliber of the legendary singer/dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson who wowed crowds at the '39 Fair. He also mentioned the fair's president vetoing any act that he thought was too sexy.
We see Newman taking, and in fact enjoying, the log ride, coat, tie and all. It's another World's Fair attraction that would become a staple at 1960s era theme parks. He said it was doing "quite nicely," and while you'd think you'd be soaked at the end, he says it sends you away "slightly moist and hardly needing a pressing." (Funny, I seem to recall the one I remember from Six Flags Over Georgia being a different story.)
One of Newman's favorite corporate attractions was the IBM computer exhibit at the IBM pavilion, which he says left him "delighted." They found a rather novel way of explaining computer language (specifically, Boolean two-sided logic) to fair goers: an animatronic Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson explain it as they chase clues to a mystery.
World's Fairs, like the one I missed in Knoxville in 1982, are known to introduce the world to new inventions and ideas. Had I gone to Knoxville, I might've seen the first touch-screen technology of my life and tasted Cherry Coke for the first time. Other World's Fairs debuted the ferris wheel and, arguably, hamburgers. The 1964 World's Fair was no different; also at the IBM pavilion, there's an attraction in which you can write a date on a card, and a computer will give you the New York Times headline for that day. It's perhaps a crude, early form of what we would now call a search engine.
As Newman starts winding through the corporate exhibits, we stop by the NCR exhibit to see all of their cash registers. A special room for children appears to educate children on business (and hard sell them on capitalism and the free market, perhaps the most obvious, unstated theme of the whole fair).
In a sequence told mostly in what we call "nat sound," we visit the Clairol pavilion. Now seemingly outdated today, the fact that it's presented without comment seems to imply that the producers thought it seemed rather odd even then. Basically, it pushes the idea of having women imagine themselves with a new hair color.
As women see themselves while they're seated on a moving device of some sort, singer Johnny Desmond sings a howler of a song about a world with no color, "What could be duller?" "I like to think I can choose my dreams, but from now on I'll refuse my dreams unless they're in color..." There were still a lot of folks with black and white television sets watching that night, I'm sure they weren't thrilled to hear that.
Then we see...no, it can't be, well I guess it is...a smiling Edwin Newman lying back in one of the ride's seats. "I was the first man ever allowed to ride the Clairol Carousel," he dryly boasts, "a journalistic feat that will likely rank with John Chancellor covering his own arrest at the Republican Convention" (an incident that happened very shortly before this special aired).
Newman then ranks the top four pavilions. Number one, interestingly enough, is the General Motors Futurama pavilion, an updated version of their futuristic exhibit from 1939. It averaged 90,000 visitors a day.
The second most popular exhibit was a really big deal. It was the Vatican pavilion, and the big draw was the Michelangelo sculpture, Pietà, depicting the crucified body of Christ in the arms of Mother Mary. It was the only work the great Renaissance artist ever signed, and while it was usually on permanent display at the Vatican, it made an ultra-rare U.S. appearance at the 1964 fair.
The third most popular exhibit might surprise you, but certainly didn't surprise me. You may remember my geeking out about it in my last World's Fair post, about Disney. It's the colorful, memorable GE Carousel of Progress, the animatronic show that recounted the history of GE's appliances making life easier for America from 1898 or so to present day.
We only see the tiniest snippet of it here, but we do hear the father telling about Mr. Edison coming up with "snap-on electric lights," and we hear him say hilarious phrase, "It's hard to imagine how life could be any easier," during the part that takes place in 1898.
He also tells us the animatronic dog is becoming the most beloved animal at the fair.
Newman tells us the fourth most popular exhibit is the Ford exhibit; look very closely behind the crowd and you can see the Ford Mustang that made its world premiere when the fair opened in April. Newman doesn't mention the Mustang, but he does tell us we would ride a Ford car through several million years of ancient prehistory.
Newman points out Skyway, like the GE Carousel of Progress, was designed by Disney and is "good fun."

Newman talks about entertainment for people waiting in line--like a folk trio entertaining the lines at the GM exhibit, and the kids' funhouse and free shoeshines from the Johnson's Wax pavilion. Then we see a very brief shot that speaks volumes upon volumes.
Newman simply mentions Goofy entertaining children in line at the Pepsi-Cola pavilion, but there's more to it than that. The Pepsi-Cola pavilion, as I indicated last time, is the Disney "It's a Small World" ride. But look at the children. The crowds we see throughout the hour are not very diverse, but here is an entire group of black children having a very good time in 1964 America. Remember, this is the same year the Supreme Court made two anti-discrimination rulings and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, so the idea of black people being welcomed almost anywhere was still a very new idea. (There were even civil rights related protests at the fair itself when it opened in April.) So, it warms my heart to see these children having a good time and Goofy there to see to it.

Newman discusses the many ways people keep busy or entertained while waiting in lines. Some of them eat lunch on the run; some use the occasion to take pictures and home movies; some check their maps and some even bring books to read. "One man told me he finished the entire works of Sigmund Freud while waiting in line at the Ford exhibit," Newman bemuses.

Something remarkable happens to Newman and his crew, which happened to me and my family just about any time we ever went anywhere like Six Flags or Busch Gardens: it suddenly started raining. The remarkable part is everyone just seemed to go with it. "I noticed a remarkable carnival atmosphere, as if the rain were part of the show," he says. No one loses place in line or uses foul language, and everyone remains friendly.

Newman discusses all the food at the fair, recommending the hot dogs at the Missouri pavilion and the chicken dinner at the Oklahoma pavilion ("...and you can enjoy it on their nice lawn"). One dish that makes my mouth water is from the Maryland pavilion: tasty soft-shell crab burger for 60¢.
Of special note is the Belgian waffle, seen here with strawberries. The 1964 World's Fair is pretty much where America met the Belgian waffle for the first time; it's now a favorite at theme parks and even TCBY yogurt shops everywhere.

The most expensive restaurant: the Toledo in Spain, where a meal could cost $15 in 1964 (that's $112.78 today). Newman blamed it on union wages paid to pavilion employees, calling the expensive check "perhaps a rude justice." (Newman doesn't say why none of the other eateries didn't have the same union problem.) He called the "Festival of Gas" restaurant a winner of the "Newman Award for the most bravely named restaurant," but says the food is expensive and highly digestible.

At a Lowenbrau beer garden, the waitresses serving a rather happy looking Newman are said to be often titled and included baronesses, and often returned tips out of embarrassment. The kids got root beer. Newman also said you could bring your own picnic, but the picnic space was very limited. Newman also said the fair lacked water fountains and there weren't enough maps or directional signs to help people get around.

Critics trash the fair's architecture and Newman once again takes his own digs. He says many of the pavilions were designed simply to attract visitors and house exhibits, and "they do that well enough." He says many of them seems to be almost humorously designed, "as if the engineers were having a joke at everyone's expense." Of course, the vast majority of them would meet the business end of a wrecking ball after the fair closed in October 1965.

 We're told the New York pavilion will remain standing after the fair "and deserves to," according to Newman, because it's "uninhibited, attractive and modern without being sterile." We see a kid walking around on Texaco's "World's Largest Roadmap." (And the pavilion is still standing, but sadly it sits abandoned, neglected and dilapidated today, the colorful transparent tiles removed for safety reasons and the large road map damaged by the elements.)
Newman has brief chat with "Tick Tock the Robot," who wanders around the Japanese exhibit, mainly plugging Seiko watches. Newman then does a standup describing how the fair isn't "officially" a world's fair because it wasn't sanctioned by the international board that does so (because Seattle held one in 1962), and many countries including Great Britain chose not to participate for that reason.
Newman tells us the most successful international pavilions were the Mexican, Japanese, and especially the Spanish. What's interesting is, the art of Pablo Picasso art is displayed, after being brought over by the Spanish government. Newman says this is intriguing because Picasso leaned to the left and was never on good terms with the still-in-power fascist Franco government, yet they wanted his art on full display, suggesting art transcends politics. By the way, Goya's portraits of the Duchess of Alba includes one showing her in the nude, and they show it on the air uncensored to NBC's credit. But there are no busts or portraits of Francisco Franco.

The finally troubled and incomplete Belgian village is finally open; the Belgian waffle stand was originally supposed to operate here but when the pavilion failed its deadline, the stand moved elsewhere to resounding success.

In a darkly funny move that seems like it would come out of one of the Chevy Chase "Vacation" movies, people actually run afoul of Pinkerton security guards for just trying to rest. They get run out of fountains for soaking their feet, and run off lawns when they try to lay down, apparently because "If you're lying down, you can't spend money."  Oddly enough, you can actually spend a buck to sleep half an hour in the Simmons Beautyrest pavilion.

In what's easily the most cringe-worthy moment of the entire documentary, Newman says the fair is a good place for, to use a classically 1960s term, "girl-watching," as we see a montage of pretty women. "There are a lot of pretty girls at the fair...a few minutes of ogling should put you in a better state of mind," Newman says to his discredit, in a rather jaw-dropping piece of dialogue. "Oh come on, Ed!" I actually yelled at my computer.

The special begins to wind down with a few leftover sights and sounds from the fair. They include crowd-drawing drummers and dancers at African pavilion, one of the most popular such attractions. Other sounds include fountains, a cart horn, a closeup of a crying kid (the second most cringeworthy moment from the special, as that kid probably caught living hell at school a couple of months later), and a very loud noise from Colonel Keds and his flying jet pack.

Newman's advice to fairgoers: they should also see it at night to get the neon ambiance of New York; consult a map, make an itenenary, and be ready to stand in line. He says the fair is excessively commercial--but he says that's in line with American life. He also says the absence of a rowdy amusement area makes it seem rather sedate.
His final words: "I think of the fair as a pleasant place, clean and good natured. It has its flops, but in some particulars it is exciting and even brilliant. And that's saying a good deal. Edwin Newman, NBC News, at the New York World's Fair." Then the special ends the same way as the Wonderful World of Color presentation I reviewed last time: with a quick look at the fireworks show that went off every night at 11.

Had this been done today, there would be a lot of differences in presentation. There would clearly be more graphics, but I love how there's next to no original music, everything is ambient. To its credit, perhaps to show the independence on which network news divisions prided themselves in those days, not once did they show the RCA Pavilion, despite RCA being NBC's parent company. (There's no way that would happen now.) Newman's commentary is cathartic, even refreshing in its honesty.

Today, there's very little of the 1964 World's Fair visible to visitors. The Unisphere is still at the park in Flushing Meadows, New York, along with the sad remnants of the New York Pavilion. (This past April, that closed, rusting pavilion was named a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.) Many of the attractions have found new homes; I mentioned the Disney attractions finding new life in Disney theme parks, for instance, and Disney's EPCOT center being inspired by the whole idea of world's fairs. And while the future doesn't look exactly like the fair predicted it would (thank goodness, the architecture has a lot more class), our every day life is loaded to the brim with brand names and paeans to corporate life. The big fight scene among all the corporate logos in that "Fantastic Four" movie I saw a few years ago, could very well have taken place at a fair. (Heck, there was a World's Fair/Expo type event in one of the "Iron Man" movies.)

And we don't see documentaries quite like this anymore, not with a wry sense of humor and such honesty, so unafraid of hurting a corporate sponsor's feelings or presenting the fair in a bad light. "A World's Fair Diary" does present it in a fair light, giving us the good and bad of the fair and even some of the consumer tips that would be so much of network and local news beginning in the 1970s. ("Coming up, things you need to know to make your trip to the fair more enjoyable...") And while NBC News is very much still in business...there's not an Edwin Newman around these days. I can't find anyone even close. At least we still have his books, maybe a few Youtube videos of his work, and my memory of a friendly smile, a warm handshake and a nice chat, for those of us inclined to use this forgotten man as a worthy role model.

Availability: As of this writing, it's available in multiple parts on Youtube.

Next time on this channel: Petticoat Junction, part of the Summer of MeTV Classic TV Blogathon.