The Time Machine (1960) Radio Spots

Happy New Year!

Land sakes! Here we are in January already. It just seems like yesterday when we were opening presents around the Christmas tree and enjoying fun with family and friends.

I was thinking back to 2024 and all the things that had happened to us, good and bad. Good memories were made, and things happened to make us wonder what life is all about. The older I get, the faster time goes…suddenly it’s a new year and the past slowly fades and memories dim.

I was over at the Witchwood Cemetery the other day talking with Uncle Oscar about the new arrivals to the cemetery we had received over the last year, and we both agreed time is moving way too fast. We agreed how memories are important and that we should cherish and hold on to the good ones.

Uncle Oscar said he appreciated my radio spot articles and the memories they brought back to him. I told him I appreciated Ol’ Zombos for giving me the chance to preserve them for posterity. They bring back memories for me, too, I said. I got to thinking which spots I should highlight this time around and the choice became obvious. Suddenly I was back in September, 1960, and was going to see The Time Machine.

Ah, yes: George Pal’s wonderful movie– poignant, sentimental, adventurous and hopeful. It makes one appreciate old friends, wonderful times, and times that can’t be recaptured. Or can they? With a time machine anything is possible.

In fact, you have all the time in the world.

As a young thing back then, I had already been aware of The Time Machine through the pages of Famous Monsters and the Dell comic book and was looking forward to seeing the Morlocks and experiencing time travel. What I wasn’t expecting was to be so overwhelmed by the visual experience of traveling through time. The effects were great! But what really captured my attention was the time machine itself. I wanted that prop! I was fascinated by it…its Victorian look, its colors, and its design. I went to see the movie many times, notebook in hand, trying to sketch the machine in the dark. I never got it right, though I tried to create my own out of modeling clay and popsicle sticks. I hoped and hoped Revell would release a plastic model of it but they never did. And Famous Monsters disappointed me in that it never published a photo of the machine itself, instead concentrating on the Morlocks. The closest I came was the photo of the machine on the back of the Dell comic but it was a medium shot of Rod Taylor in the machine and didn’t show its overall look. It wasn’t until many years later that FM printed a wide shot photo of it but by then I had grown accustomed to it through TV viewings. I later purchased that 8×10 of it for old times’ sake.

Why did I like the movie? Aside from the machine itself, I was amazed by the effects, effects that won the Oscar in 1961 for Best Special Effects. Matte paintings, time lapse photography, animated matte paintings, split screens, blue screen compositing and stop motion animation were well done by Project Unlimited. Names such as Gene Warren, Tim Barr, Wah Chang, Jim Danforth, Bill Brace and others brought the adventure to life. Russell Garcia added a magnificent music score. Today it remains one of my favorite movies and the friendship between George (Rod Taylor) and David Filby (Alan Young) remains a deeply emotional one for me.

MGM’s marketing department went all out on the radio spots creating 16 of various lengths. Surprisingly they are not some of the best as they lack a certain depth of production. More could have been done in terms of music, audio clips and sound effects. They add excitement but do not match the visual magnificence of the movie.

So, go back in time with me to 1960 and hear what we heard on the radio back then.

P.S. For an in-depth look at the movie I encourage you to go check out this website, created by a true fan:   Time Machine Project Home Page