It’s amazing to look back at events or items that were supposed to change the world and see how different things turned out. Take the now defunct VCR. Just about everybody had at least one of them. (I had three if memory serves and still have a few unopened VHS tapes lying around somewhere.)
 
But this article from Oct. 1969 shows what those newfangled videotape recorders might have been like if the early plans had come to fruition. (Imagine a laser beam and a TV camera inside one of them.) I’m fascinated to see they were actually talking about this before the 70s even began. But they didn’t get them into homes until sometime around 1977.
 

 
They finally got it right, as this early ad from 1977 illustrates.
 

 
According to this blurb from 1955, Ed Sullivan – then the king of variety programs hosting a show called “Toast Of The Town” on CBS – was going to be bringing his show to Toronto and produce an hour from the C.N.E. using Canadian talent. I’d be curious to know if this ever really happened.
 

 
 
These days, skyping or facetiming is old hat. But if Bell had its way, we might have gotten there a lot sooner. Check out this ad from August 1970.
 

 
Apollo 13 is now a synonym for both failure and ingenuity and the Ron Howard film of the same name is a classic of its kind. But what if the mission had gone right instead of horribly wrong? Here’s the schedule that was supposed to happen if unlucky 13 hadn’t gone off course and nearly killed its passengers. (The irony in the words “if it’s a textbook flight” in the description below isn’t lost on anyone.)
 

 
The CBC Building on Front St. W. opened in 1992 and occupies a huge swath of land downtown. But did you know a new CBC H.Q. was the subject of a major controversy as far back as the mid-70s? Here’s an editorial arguing against doling out what was then thought of as an astronomical amount of money - $150 million – instead of spending it on programming. In the end the thing cost $350 million making that first estimate seem almost like a bargain.
 

 
We all remember those great beer ads of the past (“Mabel, Black Label” was the one that comes to mind most for me.) But who was the first to air a spot for hard liquor? Turns out in the U.S. it was probably the one station you’d least expect – the old WQXR New York, a classical music station owned by no less an entity than the New York Times. Needless to say, it engendered the usual outrage about the world going to hell in a hand-basket. But last I checked, the commercials aired - and the world is still here. And so is WQXR.
 

 
Remember when TV tuners came with only VHF stations on a rotary dial? Yet when Channel 17 in Buffalo first signed on in 1953, it eventually became an NBC-owned station, part of an effort to get its programming into Buffalo - and by extension, Toronto – fulltime. So how to get it if your set didn’t have that band? Turns out, there was an entire industry that was prepared to help you pull it in, even if your TV couldn’t. 
       

 
And finally, how times have changed. Can you imagine a telethon like this using the now verboten "R" word airing in these politically correct times? This one, fronted by no less than “Al-Capone’s-vault-is-empty” newsman Geraldo Rivera, went on the air back in 1975.