Now is time for Cake!

So! Thing have started to really move forward and we’re starting to see a whole lot of things in entertainment, a whole lot of really new things. Anything from the cinema, to the television and things that are becoming more and more commonplace and more accessible by the general public. They’re beginning to change how we view things, how we have opinions about who was a better debater or if that movie was really good or really not, living rooms are now changing to accommodate a television so that the family would come closer together.

So not only are these new technologies making new sets of mind or even changing the way we live but they’re also making for a way for our world to become smaller and we’re able to absorb information from almost anywhere, at least when it becomes available. See, while most things that had now became accessible to more and more people, there was still the issue of getting information from place to place with a quick sort of way, and while some of this new technology did that, there was still the idea of a way for information to stream faster and faster. And this idea was eventually realized, with the introduction of…THE COMPUTER

 

I am so sorry…

Well, rather the Personal Computer, but first comes the question as to what IS a computer?

 Well, in the broadest terms, a computer does what the name implies, compute. Which means it is a device that is able to compute any certain command you give it and complete it’s task. And that goes all the way back to when abacuses were a thing, you input a number and another number to calculate and then it would give you the answer of them being put together.

 

Now this went for a long while, doing normal sort of calculations that you could give and and immediately give you a number you’d be able to receive a different number. These devices would be doing these sort of task until about world war II, now this was when we had an idea of actually electronically computing information, and that was of which the code that the axis powers were sending back and forth from each other. And with methods of breaking said code being well slow and sometimes inaccurate, even then the codes were sometimes thought to be unbreakable, so there came the question, “How can we even break these codes?” So someone thought, what if we did the same thing we do to break codes, really fast and dozens of times?

Thus enter the COLOSUSS COMPUTER!

 

This monster is actually the first electronic digital computer, and was actually programmable! What’s that mean you may ask? Well, it means that you can now tell it do do a specific task or even a set of tasks and it will be able to complete them. Which is great! If not for the massive size of it, which was a recurring thing for the early computers, because you had so much computing power you’d be able to get, but in the early times this was easier said than done. Like seriously, here’s a photo of a 5 megabyte hard drive.

 

Soon the attention went to not how it does something, but how can we make it smaller, enter the miniaturization of computers! Making a Personal Computer!

Yeap, that’s it, the first personal computer! Well, you have to look at it like this, computers such as the colossus of even the ENIAC were programmable and able to do what was commanded of them, though they were only for government use or for any sort of official use, so the use of them outside of the military sector was seen as unpractical. Though suddenly you make circuits and processing boards smaller, you now have a way to make something programmable for personal use, and still even government use. Which meant you could have several computers doing separate tasks for one job. So suddenly you have more opportunities for more and more different programmable computers that became more and more accessible, and with technology becoming more and more accessible you have more and more competition to become the most technologically advanced than the other. Enter the IBM, the Commodore, and the Apple computers!

These were the first wave of commercial personal computers, each with it’s own specific circuit boards and computing techniques, and each with it’s own special features and ways of programming. Which would then lead to something really big, you ready for it? Cause I’m going to-VIDEO GAMES.

 

I am absolutely sorry…

VIDEO GAMES, the basic programing something to do another thing deh-GAMES, like seriously games.

With the use of computers that allowed vast amounts of programing, someone had the thought of inputting commands that would allow you to do various thing if you did a certain thing, so what if you made a game. And you know what the first of such was? Pong.

 

While this may look less than, exciting, it’s actually quite intricate. Imagine it like so:

If I move to this direction and move the ball, then the ball will move at a certain angle and once it reaches a certain place it will go in another direction at an angle and continue until it gets another command from the second pong prong.  And this becomes really really huge, like groundbreaking huge, the fact that you now have a moving thing in front of you changes the idea of the video game. Though people thought it would never catch on, in just under 20 years we go from this:

 

To this:

(Cyberpunk 2077 is the game btw)

(Speaking of, stepro I recommend this game)

So, you may ask, how in the world does this affect my-YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING THIS ON A DEVICE THAT 70 YEARS AGO WAS CONSIDERED SCIENCE FICTION FROM AN IMAGINARY LINE THAT IS BEAMING FROM SPACE AND BACK. 

I’m sorry, that was a bit much.

But goodness gracious! This is one of the most influential devices to have ever swept the 21st century! This is literally shaping a new way of life for each and every person with this technology! The fact that you’re viewing this alone is bounds of technology that is still a marvel! Imagine peeling back the screen for a moment, at that level you’d see a rough skeleton of how this device is sending messages to parts of the programing to send information to the screen to display one certain image when you command it to open up a program. Peel back more, you see a series numbers that cross the screen in a series of yes and no, until you go back even more and see a whole circuit board that tells certain parts of the computer to carry out certain functions at the certain time, all done within microseconds of each other.

Technology as we know it and entertainment as we know it has now changed the world as we know it, from the earliest parts of where it began, to where it has now become. From the theater down in vaudeville, to the screen you’re watching from, things are just becoming faster and faster and have become more than just a mere fantasy. And to make these many leaps and bounds in just a relatively short amount of time, I can only imagine what the next step will be and how ready we will be for it.

And with that, I leave you with a solemn song:

Broadcasting Live!

 

So last time around, we’ve talked about some major key points when it comes to the ever changing plane that is entertainment. From vaudeville, to cinema, all great things all in their own, but you yet again ask the question, “Where do we go now?” And that comes in the form of people in their new suburban life. Since the end of world war II, a lot of GI’s are entering back into the homefront and are beginning to get settled into new suburban areas. And with that comes a lot of inventions that would help suburban life, so now comes the question whether you can bring the entertainment to the masses, but how can you bring this into the home?

For the longest time, most people have been used to very few sorts of entertainment at the home, whether it be the occasional book or other activity there was one that sort of stood out, and that was that of the radio.

The radio for the most part had been the predominant form of not only entertainment, but for relaying information that simple mediums were not able to bring into the home, and most houses were shown to have that in the sort of staring role for the whole family to enjoy. So now, with all of the advances of technology coming forward, you can only wonder where things are bound to head next.

And that begins with the simple idea of transmitting images from one place to another and being able to view said image. And this is where things started to begin….

Beginning all the way from the 1800s, the idea of transmitting images from one place to another has been a long sought out concept. What with the major advances with photography and the idea of moving images, though somewhat primitive, were going from place to place as we had shown earlier with the early instances of film.

It didn’t really become a breakthrough for a while, mostly due to the limited idea at the time. See, at the time what was normally done to send an image or rather to view an image was to put it on a literal disk for you to view.

I’m not kidding it was a really really old precursor to the Compact Disk, where you have indents in the disk that could be translated into actual images, the only difference is that these images were actually sent through wire to be transmitted. Confused? Here’s a diagram explaining it:

In all reality, what you’re seeing here is the first idea of sending one signal to a device which would bounce it back to the set in order for you to see the image from one location. A modern way of looking at it is sort of faxing images to one spot to be shown to you at a certain speed.

Which is great!

Though not exactly what we would think of as television. The first real use of broadcasted television was done by a scottish inventor by the name of John Logie Baird had actually dabbled in the whole use of television, at one point even successfully broadcasting from London to Glasglow. Nonetheless he is one of the first to actually broadcast images at a distance to another location.

It wasn’t until about 1908 that we began to have a new way of sending images as well a receiving certain images through the television sets although again limited.

Though still at most televison was again limited to very few sets and only a few set channels. IT wasn’t until the 1940s into the 50s that you began to see televisions start to make the market, and let me tell you that people loved the damn things. A whole lot.

 From the programs they would watch to the food they ate, television suddenly became a central part of the family living room.

Though, now you may be asking, why in the world is this at all important in my own current life, and to that I have to say, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

First of all, try and think of the current world without television as the medium that we know it. There would be a real lack of sudden pop culture without any access for it, and I’m not just talking about certain celebrities that would pop up here and there, I’m talking about how you suddenly view politics, view world news, new ideas, television opens up a whole new medium for that. Take the 1950s for example, when it came to the presidential debates there was a real turning point for public opinion. For the longest time they had these debates that would be shown over radio and or in public, so when it came to choosing a president it was a very word centric thing. When then, we have this debate between Nixon and Kennedy and a new factor enters in, looks.

  

When we look at this here, we see Kennedy, a smiling sort of pretty movie star who looks right into the camera smiles and generally looks pretty great. While Nixon is really sort of melting, he did not look good at all and was sort of in a very long side of the debate. So we have a new way of seeing a candidate to lead a country, their person. You now have to look at a politician and say, ‘Can I trust this person?’ or ‘Does this guy look good?’ and the tables suddenly TURN.

And not only that, in the 1960s, we have a whole new view on warfare! So, we all know about the vietnam conflict, it was years of just loss and terrible terrible warfare, we sing protests, we hate each other and the whole world begins to change. But where does that begin to happen? The home. Suddenly, instead of hearing about great battles and heavy casualties that would splash across the newsprint, we’re suddenly seeing it on late night TV!

We’re suddenly actually seeing the aftermath of war, we’re seeing our soldiers out in the middle of no mans land, and we’re bringing the war home. Opinions change, people start seeing things differently, and there are suddenly spit divides on issues and policies and how things work. We are now seeing what we only would have heard about, is now being brought to the television at home. Even with earlier examples, media can now be used massively as a tool to sway opinions, people now want to know who to believe. There is a sudden hunger for information as we see politicians and how the act in situations, how people react to tragedies, suddenly moments in time can now be seen as they happen. I think most people can remember turning on the television and having their eyes glued to CNN as the 9/11 attacks were going on. We can now see things that are happening as the happen in our own home.

Things take a HUUUGE CHANGE from there. And what’s even weirder, is that the world is now becoming smaller and smaller as we have now seen. And even, is about to get smaller with another HUGE invention…

From the fuuutuure….

A new way of seeing things!

So last time, we took a gander into the elegant beginnings of the mainstream media that swept across our nation, and we began to see a whole new hunger for the extraordinary and the fantastic. Though, thinking about it in that sort of mindset, you ask, “Well, where do we go from there?”  And to answer that, we’d have to introduce something so amazing, so astounding that it had begun to send shockwaves on the way we saw entertainment, it was so astounding, so mind boggling that most were never read for it, and that is one thing we never saw coming…we would see the birth of…FILM

As said here “It been claimed that there is only one standard of measurement which is common to all nations of the earth. That measurement is the width of a piece of standard theatrical size motion picture film.”

But before we get to all that, let’s talk about how it began. As talked about earlier, one sort of entertainment that was pretty popular was that of the shadow puppet theaters. And it sort of grew from there, it turns out you can make all sorts of images from just clever blocking of the light, which is where we began to see the most primitive idea of film. One invention most widely know is that of the magic lantern.

This little device was used mostly for schools, but the idea is the same. You take a clear image with blacked out spots, you put it through the light and you see said image projected wherever you wish!

So back to film:

Film actually goes back as far as the early 1870s, and began by a man by the name of Eeadweard Muybridge, who was known for his practices with the idea of a series of images showing movement. In 1872 he came up with what was called a, Zoopraxiscope, a device which printed several images on one big film disk that was spun in from of a light to simulate movement. So, using several cameras that would be activated by a trip wire, he was able to capture the horse moving frame by frame with each snap of the photo. And transferring this to the Zoopraxiscope was able to show a horse in fast motion in actual movement. And now ladies and gentlemen, the first motion picture EVER.

Now, this may seem incredible anticlimactic, but what you have to realize is that this was the first time people could see actual movement from a still image that could be projected onto a screen! IT WAS A MOVING PICTURE, hence the title of motion picture. And this for people was honestly MINDBLOWING.

And due to the rising success of the Zoopraxiscope most audiences became generally fascinated upon the idea of viewing said images, and thus began the development of the  ‘Theater Optique’. Which using what was called a Praxinoscope, a device which basically improved on the methods of the Zoopraxiscope, allowed the general public to view the motion pictures in a theater setting. Though these were again, limited to a point to where the real only things that worked were early ideas of what we had called cartoons. Though it did prove to be pretty popular.

It wasn’t until 1885 that two men, George Eastman and William H. Walker, had actually invented the first film strip. Which was sensitized paper coated with gelatin emulsion. Which basically meant this:
With the combination of chemicals the film strip was actually light sensitive, so when you put light through the paper it would burn onto the paper. With clever use of mirrors and several other devices it ultimately meant that an image could then be burned onto the sensitive paper. Which meant that you could capture several images in one film, that could either be projected or made bigger, and the idea of motion began in well the ye olde penny arcade.

What’s that? You’ve no idea what a penny arcade is? Well, granted, there are only some few and far between that currently exist, but back then, oh boy were they hot! A penny arcade is as the name implies, a venue full of machines that could be operated if you paid one penny. And this was anywhere from a simple slot machines!

Fortune tellers!

Even a peep show!

And that’s the one I’m talking about, you put a penny in and you see a set of pictures that show a scene and story. The device, invented by thomas edison, was called the Kinetograph. As said here “It was a machine that could capture a sequence of images which was similar to a camera only it automatically took a picture of the moving image every half second. The images were then placed in his other invention, the kintescope. This device had a motor and shutter mechanism that ran a loop of film past an electric light source. The spectator would then peer through a small window to see the moving image.”

Though the film was then replaced by celluloid, which used the chemical compound cellulose nitrate. This was the first time that we now saw small scenes in motion, and it only exploded even more from there.

It was until two brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere had invented the Cinematograph, a device which not only worked like edison’s Kinetegraph though it was able to actually project onto a large screen for audiences to view. And from then on, the film business had begun to boom.

Countries from all over the world had begun to invest into making motion pictures, though these were limited to one scene sets that had little to no movement involved and even some vaudeville acts could now be seen to entertain audiences worldwide.

It wasn’t until about 1910 where D. W. Griffith in some of his early short films, had begun to use such things as multiple camera angles, jump cuts, and from there the rest is pretty well known. What from silent film stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Sarah Berndhart. And seeing such spectacles such as films such as The Phantom of the Opera

Metropolis,

and Nosferatu.

Cinema was an established art that would take audiences by storm, though as the name of the era implies, these films were silent. The action was mostly that of the actors and the facial expressions they convey. Talking, if there was any, was usually shown in that of tile cards that would show whatever the actor was saying. Though it wasn’t until about 1920 that audiences were dazzled in one huge moment in The Jazz Singer hearing Jack Robin saying ‘You ain’t heard nothin yet’. It was then that a whole new era of film had begun.

So now, you may be wondering, ‘How in the world does this effect me?’ and to that I say, ‘YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS MEANT’
Photography in it’s early stages were indeed a marvel as they became more and more available, they were able to capture a moment in time and have it available to the local customer for what they please. Though mind you, at first this was a sort of light and mirror burning image after a few minutes. So, with this not only did you have people creating an easier way of taking pictures, but you also had a new way of capturing many images on the same reel.

 

Not only did it become easier to capture more that one image, but you now had the means of showing moving images on one screen that could be recorded and reproduced and shown where ever you please. The film industry began to boom, and you now saw motion pictures at your local theater, they would even go from anywhere to newsreels, revues, big ticket films, and things that we often still see today. We would see in 1920 a new type of media that would make us laugh, cry, scream and be entertained. It was a whole new chapter in the mainstream media, and it would also give you a way to show more and more people different events and things that most wouldn’t have the chance to see. Things that would come from all over the world could now be seen everywhere. You would eventually start to see mass media cameras and ways of showing films, even to a point to where you had to figure out how to show it to a much wider audience. So the question came that, how do you introduce this to more and more people?

(Also, on the topic of movies, I highly recommend Sunset Boulevard, good noir about an aging silent film star, kinda fits in perfect with this topic.)

VAUDEVILLE!

American media throughout history!

There’s a common string of thoughts that pop up when discussing history, regardless of what part it may be. There’s always that thought and question of, “What did those people do to entertain themselves?” or, “What was entertainment like in the olden times?” and for them that usually brings up the idea of a kid chasing a rolling wheel with a stick, and the realization of how boring that was.

Though truthfully that isn’t the case, entertainment had a very huge variety and catered to almost any sort of audience. And we’re not talking about people sitting around reading books and doing nothing, we’re talking about people actually going out and seeing something. Which in this day and age is remarkably amazing to think about, going out to some place and watching actual people do stuff, which now can be viewed in your living room though we’ll get back to that later.

Now, when it came to the entertainment of the time,various methods and various games were often used for children to pass the time, One such way was through the use of light, which was now on it’s way to light every home, and shadows. Which is what they called a “Shadow Pantomime, and consisted of “A sheet was hung with a candle behind it.  The “performer” would then manipulate the hands to produce shadows in the shape of various animals for the delight of the children who would guess the animal being portrayed.”

Riveting..

Now, you might be saying, even then that could have gotten old quite quickly, and in retrospect that may be true, though that wasn’t all. So, you may be wondering, what sort of things did people go see? And that can be summed up into one word, THEATER!

That’s right, most kids now a days dread the idea of going to a theater and seeing some sort of performance, and only go because they’ve got some sort of extra credit english assignment attached to it and really need to not show their boredom while in the theater behind me, seriously kid, get your feet away from my head, there is seriously someone sitting next to me, kid-GET YOUR NASTY ADIDAS AWAY FROM MY HEAD-

-wait what? Anyway!

THEATER!  The stepping stone to what we know today, tomorrow and everyday since.

And what sort of things did these people see in these venues? Well to start, something we called, Vaudeville!

 

Vaudeville, by definition is, “A type of entertainment popular chiefly in the Us in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque, comedy, and song and dance”

So, exactly what the name entails, vaudeville was a mix musicals, skits, acts and anything far and few between. This gave rise to not only things that we’d call popular culture, but it gave rise to a whole audience of new and sometimes naughty acts. This would range from the absolutely incredible, to the absolutely sultry. And that would give rise to some amazing and downright strange acts. Such as family singing all the way to things like a horse dance. Which is actually recorded in a performance bill, “ Burk and Andrus and Their Trained Mule”
Though that doesn’t mean it didn’t have it’s fair share of amazing acts, one of which is a very familiar name centred around a man by the name of Harry Houdini.

Yes, the man who’s famed escapes and illusions are still studied and are still trying to figure out, whether it came to clever sleight of hand to amazing feats of endurance houdini was one such figure to come out of these circuits. Some of the most famous illusions include that of;

The Chinese Water Torture Cell!

The Milk can escape!

And the famous disappearing elephant!

Houdini was actually one of the biggest headlining act in vaudeville, and was actually one of the most well paid, though we sort of know about his later life and death..
Though Houdini still ranks high up with some of the most well known acts of vaudeville.

And on the same circuit, there was a more revealing, more naughty, and more downright eye catching acts…
Which surprisingly was not burlesque. When it came to vaudeville, like said before, every actor had some sort of an act attached to them to bring the masses, which would be oddities and some sort of gimmick that would be attached to it. Burlesque, originally did not emphasize the scantily clad women with all of the cliques that we like to tag burlesque with. Burlesque actually was the equivalent of a very lewd parody of the day.More of the equivalent that our modern day prime time shows.

So you might be asking, why does this make such a big deal? Why do I need to learn about this? How did this shape my entertainment?

Well, you have to look at it in a different light.

Vaudeville was a large platform for entertainment that became a sort of mainstream for america. Anywhere from outlandish acts, strange new musicals and contemporary ideas that are still being carried on. They focused on sketches that went anywhere from something new to reviews of contemporary events. These were comedy acts that we’re still using by the name of stand up.

This brought many of the the mainstream pop culture to the masses, and in a way this was america’s very first version of variety television.  With special guests, musical acts, which may sound somewhat familiar now a days. And it even transcended that!  As said here, “It was symbolic of the cultural diversity of early twentieth century America. Vaudeville was a fusion of centuries-old cultural traditions, including the English Music Hall, minstrel shows of antebellum America, and Yiddish theater.”

So one way you have to look at these are like that of your weekend entertainment, that sort of thing you look forward to, or what I as a kid referred to as a ‘Saturday Morning Cartoon’.

And a lot of time in these cartoons you’d hear jokes that are sort of in the popular culture or jokes that teach, and all of that sort. So what you get is a kind of a good idea of what the mentality of the time is. And you also have to consider who exactly vaudeville produced, people like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Bob Hope, all followed the Vaudevillian formula and had that lead to their success.  So, in a way, you really have to thank vaudeville for just about most the modern stage dramas, comedies, and most things on television that you see.

The thing is, that this became part of a problem, most people didn’t exactly have access to all of these major theaters or major events, and while most had local events, it still was difficult to bring these spectacles to the masses. And that was one thing that papers were able to do, but that would eventually see a change soon to come…

The Beginning

I’m Augusto Calderon, I am an all around Disney/Disneyland fan, movie buff, and a lover of early American history. I draw, and write,  and I enjoy dumb things.