1939 New York World's Fair - Influence On Later Literature and Popular Culture

Influence On Later Literature and Popular Culture

The 1939 World's Fair made a strong impression on attendees and influenced a generation of Americans. In the film, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) a comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Carole Lombard and Gene Raymond visit the fair after a dinner date and find themselves stuck high in the air on the fair's popular parachute ride when it malfunctions. In the Charlie Chan film Murder Over New York, there is a reference to the World's Fair. E.B. White recounts a visit to the fair in his 1939 essay "The World of Tomorrow."

Later generations have attempted to recapture the impression it made in fictional and artistic treatments, sometimes seriously, as in 1939: The Lost World of the Fair, a mixed non-fiction and fictional book by David Gelernter, or World's Fair, by E. L. Doctorow, but often with ironic intent, notably in Matt Groening's show Futurama which was named after the GM exhibit. The first episode has a cryogenicist say, "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!":

• Doc Savage, the most popular character of the Pulp Era and an adventure series based on scientific detection, was seen as a perfect match for the Fair's "world of the future" concept and hence tapped by the World's Fair President Grover Whalen to do a Grand Opening cross promotion with publishing house Street & Smith. The still under-construction Fair appeared in the finale of The Giggling Ghosts (1938), and then was the focus of the entire book The World's Fair Goblin (1939), which was written in the fall of 1938 after the editors and authors were given a private fact-finding/research tour of the Fair. The original draft of The World's Fair Goblin was called The Man of Tomorrow, but it was considered better advertising to include the World's Fair name in the title.
• An episode of Pinky and the Brain takes place in the 1939 World's Fair.
• DC Comics published a 1939 New York World's Fair Comics comic book, followed by a 1940 edition in the next year. It became the precursor of the long-running Superman/Batman team-up book World's Finest Comics. The 1939 and 1940 comics were sometimes referenced in All-Star Squadron. Early Superman was described as a result of natural evolution from the inhabitants of his native world, leading to his alias "Man of Tomorrow", which reminds one of the "World of Tomorrow" theme of the Fair.
• In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, one of the main characters breaks into the abandoned fairgrounds and the Perisphere itself, where he has a significant sexual experience.
• "Fifty Years After the Fair", written and recorded by Aimee Mann describes the Fair from the current vantage point of "tomorrow", with a mixture of nostalgia and remorse.
• The producers of Batman: The Animated Series took their basis for the architecture of the series from the World's Fair. The reference is appropriate as Batman made his debut in comics in 1939. In the animated spin-off film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a young Bruce Wayne and his girlfriend attend the Gotham World's Fair, dubbed "The World of Tomorrow" and full of 1930s' style architecture.
• The fair is featured prominently in the graphic novel "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?" by Brian Fies. In it, a father takes his young son to the fair which inspires him to a lifelong fascination with the promise of a hopeful, wonder-filled future.
• Twilight Zone Season 2 episode titled: Odyssey of Flight 33 follows flight 33 lost in time and briefly in 1939, with a sky view of the World's Fair. However, the pilot incorrectly identifies the location as Lake Success, which actually is in Nassau County.
• In the movie "Captain America: The First Avenger", Steve Rogers attends the fictitious 1943 Stark Expo, which is based on the fair, where he attempts to enlist into the Army again, and is enlisted by the scientist Dr. Abraham Erskine.