A number of shows across the Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe fictionalize the past (FREEDOM CLUB, Sanctuary) and speculate on the future (FREEDOM CLUB, Sanctuary). This ain’t necessarily new (but don’t miss Sanctuary—only three more shows!), so we dispatched intrepid marketing intern Logan Tiberi-Warner into the internet to dig up a history of representations of the future.

Today: learn about 1980 through the lens of 1930: we all had numbers instead of names, the government married us off, but we had personal airplanes. I want to set my plan on hover while I flirt with pretty girls. It’s the only way to have been. Peep Just Imagine‘s opening sequence, from 1930.

Whoa. Is there anything comparable from our Great Recession? If so, please send it our way.

–Logan Tiberi-Warner and Nicholas Gilewicz