I was working in the TV trade from 1968 to 1990 and I wish I had a pound for every time I stopped work to watch one of these films, especially the science and TV based ones. I wish they would release them on DVD or Bluray.
A friend and used to watch all the Trade test colour films in the early seventies including Evoluon and in 1987 we went to Holland on holiday and we took a train journey down to south of the country and we passed through Eindhoven and saw the Evoluon building after all these years finally seeing that building
I ALLWAYS ENJOYED WATCHING TRADE TEST FILMS LIKE THIS ONE IN ENGLAND IN THE 1960s-1970s AND WHEN IN HOLLAND WENT TO SEE EVOLUON.EJOYED IT VERY MUCH.WISH THOSE DAYS WERE BACK
KRAFTWERK uses images of Evoluon in their 3D videos in Konzert. For each city they visit, they show edited footage of the space ship flying over familiar local landmarks and landing at the venue. San Francisco > golden Gate. Seattle > Space Needle. etc.
Thanks for putting this up! I remember visiting Evoluon as a schoolboy in the early 70s when I persuaded my dad to bring me over from the UK. I'll never forget how wonderful it was. I'm sure I still have a poster hiding away somewhere!
I remember this, I would only be 8 years old or so when it was broadcast. it was one of my favourites, along with the speedboats, the trout farm, the Kariba Dam and the home made car. Seen them all now on youtube except for one about the Australian truck drivers with their huge road trains. Anyone seen that one around? Thanks for posting this up.
YT won't let me answer to earlier comments so I'll just add a new one: What you think is "Toshi" is actually "Koffie" -- the Dutch word for coffee. It was an early example of speech synthesis; the machine could only say the one word, but I remember it sounding much better than this recording. The machine was a roughly 1 square meter circuit board filled with electronics, that had four lights that would light up as it was playing each of the phonemes (K O F I), and visitors could vary the intonation with a couple of controls. Very primitive compared to current standards of course, but this film was made in 1967 if I'm not mistaken. That's also why you see so many people: they made the mistake of making the exhibit permanent (i.e. unchanging) so everyone who had seen it once, wasn't going to come back; visitor levels eventually dwindled to zero and they had to close it. The last time I was there was in 1986 I think, and the museum looked pretty much the same as in this film, except there were no people there at all. After it was closed in (I think) 1989, Philips started using it as a conference center. The building is still there but I don't know what they use it for nowadays; I'm pretty sure it doesn't even belong to Philips anymore.
Cheers matey (a little late) In my mind the "man" at 06:57 is called Toshi, I've been playing with a Korg Radias for the last few days and the "speech" type patches really are amazing and it's over 10yrs old! I can only guess what they have now... I bet Kraftwerk watched this :o) *I just wikied Evoluon after I had written the paragraph above to see if it was still standing before I posted this and Kraftwerk did four concerts there in 2013.... spooky
loved this film when it was on in the day. then was so excited to find a college trip to holland in 1977 had a visit to evoluon shceduled. I do remember it being a little underwhelming though.
@camcome1: The film with the man answering the phone after coming out of the bath was a cartoon called Pan-Tele-Tron; one of 21 TTCFs I've managed to collect on DVD.
Thanks for that. It was one of the reasons I did so badly when revising for my exams! There was also one about building Liverpool Cathedral and another one about trout farms. I've waited nearly 40 years to realize that even now I don't know what the electronically synthesised voice is saying. "Washi"? I can now speak Dutch and German and have no idea what it means :-)
Geweldig, ik ben er als kind vaak geweest (ik kom namelijk uit Eindhoven). :) Wel jammer dat er aan het einde Eindhoven - Holland staat... Eindhoven ligt nog steeds in Brabant! :)
@moleman1961 Do you remember an I.C.I. promotional film about polution called "The Choice"? I've been looking for this for ages but no one seems to know about it. It was transmitted along with the rest of the trade test transmissions from 1967 onward.
Does anybody remember a TTT where the narrator says "Unless you've got eyes in the back of your head" and the video cuts to a guy that indeed has plastic eyes stuck on the back of his head? It's the only bit I remember of that particular one.
There’s another Philips production- LIGHT which is great, a celebration of Philips’ world famous lighting products. Unable to locate a web copy on YT or elsewhere
