The T.V of Tomorrow is a 1953 Tex Avery MGM Cartoon. It is the third of Tex Avery's four cartoon series satirizing feature ads promoting futuristic technology.
Overnight, television mania took over America, causing antennas to sprout out of rooftops. Unfortunately, television was not without its problems: eye strain, image distortion, and picture jumping. To rectify these problems, televisions have become equipped with new features for every walk of life. Unfortunately, despite the claims of "a tremendous variety of programs", one man seems to find nothing but westerns, including at the movie theater and on Mars.
Not to be confused with the Garfield and Friends cartoon of the same name and basic premise.
Tropes showing on your T.V of Tomorrow:
- Anti-Air: One of the TV sets has a built-in set of anti-aircraft guns that deploy automatically and blow any airplanes flying over the house (disrupting the TV signal) right out of the sky. The short also shows how Awesome, but Impractical this device is when the camera moves to a side and shows the multiple crashed airplanes littering the house's living room.
- Bait-and-Switch: After the narrator talks about the variety of programming on television, a man finds nothing but westerns on every channel. He gives up and goes to a movie theater, and the title card promises a romance movie... but no, it's the same old western chase scene. At the very end, as scientists make contact via television with the planet Mars, the image on the screen reveals... the same old western chase scene.
- Billions of Buttons: The cartoon first shows a television set with dozens of dials and knobs. The set of the future is then shown with only one knob; but a closeup shows that knob covered with dozens of tinier knobs.
- Brick Joke: The final scene is a live broadcast from the planet Mars. It turns out to be the same western scene from earlier.
- Deliberately Monochrome: All the TV images shown are in black and white, as they were back when the cartoon was made. There is one scene featuring a color TV, but since it's only half paid for, only half the screen is in color.
- Elongating Arm Gag: A man has to be dragged from his TV set to eat dinner, but his head stays put while his neck stretches out. He only retracts his head to take a bite, then stretches it back out to continue watching.
- Eye Pop: How eye strain is demonstrated in this short.
- Medium Blending: Live-action footage is used for the television screens.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: One set has a screen with a plunging neckline, so you can see everything.
- The Peeping Tom: There's a TV set built just for them, with a screen shaped like a keyhole.
- Screens Are Cameras: A TV set designed for the ladies' bath suggests this is the case, as it features a turnabout knob that spins a show's host around to where he's not looking toward the viewer.
- Shoot the Television: After finding nothing but Westerns on every channel, a man punches the screen and breaks it.
- Television Portal: A few of the gags involve this. A set for bridge players has a woman onscreen who deals the cards to the players, a man in an office fishes from his TV in the office (and gets dragged inside it), and so on.
- Thrifty Scot: There's a "thrifty Scotchman's model" gag in which the TV is just a flashlight.
- Washy Watchy: One gag is a combination TV and washing machine. The image on the screen rolls around as it washes.
