Motorola Finances Your New TV for 65 Weeks

1950s, Computers and Technology 0 2263

Television has been so common for so long its hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. This commercial (for a television) is from the Golden Days when people thought smoking was healthy and people believed that radiation made a great skin cream.

This Motorola TV wasn’t just sold for its gadget appeal with features like “Glare Guard” technology, clear picture and sound or by its celebrity endorsements. The TV is never actually demonstrated, aside from a few place-in videos within a frame and a few static images of Howdy-Doody and the classic TV crew.

These seem small considerations when you see how much they emphasize the furniture surrounding it. The TV seems an afterthought to a sweet mahogony finish for your living room.

In context of the times, it does make sense that this would appeal. TVs were huge, heavy, cumbersome things living inside of huge boxes that in many cases were replacing radios in a time where not everyone yet had their own television set and were used to the boxy.

It makes perfect sense why home demonstrations were good business, some of that logic being: “We’re going to drop a 1,000 pound furniture beast into your living room and convince you to keep it because like hell if we’re going to drag this thing back out of your house again. And if you think you can’t afford it, we’ll finance it for five and a half years. Try to get your auto dealer to do that for you.”

We’re left at the end with possible the worst afterthought of a jingle contrived in the history of jingles: “Motorola TV” sung to the tune of “Happy Birthday”. Why? Why, 1950’s?

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