It's safe to say most viewers turning into reruns of Matt Groening's now-defunct cartoon classic Futurama have no idea the name of the series is borrowed from a wildly-popular ride at the 1939 World's Fair in New York.

That Futurama-the original Futurama-was an unforgettable trip into the brave new world of 1960.  Yes, fabulous 1960.who can forget the thrill of exiting off a highway at 50 miles per hour? Apparently, just about everybody.

Back in 1939, hundreds of thousands were mesmerized by Futurama's elaborate vision. What drew them in? Gleaming skyscrapers, massive superhighways and promises of greater mobility. Spectators were exhilarated by the imaginary presentation staged by General Motors.

Gliding along in comfortable easy chairs wired for sound, they looked down on the spectacular 35,000 square-foot diorama and learned how giant highway intersections would permit those rapid right and left turns. "Strange? Fantastic? Unbelievable?" asked the narrator, "Remember, this is the world of 1960!"

The calming tones of the narrator were filled with assurance. Doubt was not option in Futurama. "The World of Tomorrow" promised only better days ahead. Futurama followed this script to perfection. Visitors were promised that "abundant sunshine, fresh air, fine green parkways" would blend together seamlessly with dazzling skyscrapers and seven-lane highways. Thanks to the monumental scale of the presentation, even the most-outlandish claim seemed believable.

At the end of the ride, when the awestruck visitors were deposited in a GM showroom and left to contemplate the meaning of it all, they were handed a souvenir button that read: "I have seen the future." Few disagreed.

Of course, the real 1960 looked almost nothing like the car-based utopia of Futurama. But it was the "then and now" tha mattered-twenty years later, the ride was sealed in the public's imagination as one of the greatest futuristic visions ever put together. "A modern masterpiece of illusion" writes Joseph P. Corn who authored Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Vision of the American Future, adding "no futuristic film or exhibit (has) ever been so convincing."

Futurama was also a spectacularly-effective piece of propaganda for GM. In staging the event, GM hoped fairgoers (read: potential car buyers) would be lured into an idealized fantasy world--not the world of 1939 with its traffic accidents and stop-and-go congestion but a world free of inconvenience and hassles.

"Speed is the cry of our era," declared the ride's designer Norman Bel Geddes. And Futurama reflected this belief. Everything about Futurama was streamlined-the curved towers of steel and glass, the futuristic teardrop-shaped automobiles, even the "Highways and Horizons" pavilion that housed the ride.

Bel Geddes' brilliantly-executed vision struck a popular chord with audiences. With World War II rumbling ominously in the distance, most Americans were willing to suspend disbelief and buy into exhibit's rosy outlook.

"All eyes to the future," announced the narrator of Futurama. Colossal highways raced by monumental cityscapes, lush green farmlands rolled through the open countryside. Bel Geddes based his seductive vision on the ideas of architect Le Corbusier and other European modernists from the late 1930s.

Not surprisingly, many of the ideas were amusingly off the mark: floating airports which adjusted in water to shift to the changing wind conditions; highways with curved sides which allowed vehicles to travel at different speeds (four lanes at 50 m.p.h, two lanes at 75 m.p.h, and two lanes at 100 m.p.h.).

Despite a few errors in judgment which seem obvious in retrospect (no mention was made of pollution or the consequences of unchecked progress), Futurama's legend continued to grow. Its reputation, in no small measure, is based on the considerable theatrical flair Bel Geddes brought to the project. Bel Geddes sincerely believed that through cooperative efforts and good planning people could lead better lives. 

Forty years after "fabulous 1960" it still seems like a fantastic idea.