by Bill Russo
Once upon a time, the World's Fair was just about the biggest deal in the world - not so much anymore. There hasn't been one since Italy's Expo in 2015.
Dubai, in United Arab Emirates, was scheduled to be the site of the 2020 version of the World's Fair, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was been postponed.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, had been scheduled to host a smaller version of a World's Fair, called a Specialised Expo, in 2023. But the city announced its withdrawal and apparently the event is definitely off the schedule.
Ah, but in 1939 there was a humungous World's Fair and it was one of the biggest and most famous cities in the world - New York City. That fair was a classic - so much so that my Mom and Dad, Bob and Ginee Russo were still talking about it in the 1990s!
Albbert Einstein gave speeches about cosmic rays. There were hundreds of spectacular exhibitions. General Electric, RCA, and Westinghouse were pushing something called television! It was a little box ranging from five inches all the way up to 12 inches. There were fuzzy black and white images on the screen that were purported to be live representations of programs being broadcast from radio studios! Many people thought the televisions were trick boxes playing movies, so David Sarnoff made one set with a transparent case so that the people could see inside and see that there was no minature projector playing the images.
Most people thought that television could never compete against radio. TV spent the next 80 years proving that theory to be correct! Ouch. Sorry for the jab against TV - but I agree with radio comic Fred Allen of Boston who said, they call TV a medium, because it is never well done!
Okay, okay....on with the show....here's a Color Classic Cartoon about the 1939 New York World's Fair.
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