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1[[quoteright:256:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/century_21_calling_381.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:256:'''Mike Nelson:''' "''[[XCalledTheyWantTheirYBack They want their little gold jacket back.]]''"]]
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4'''Century 21 Calling''' is a 1962 stealth advertisement for telephone technology (much like ''Film/OnceUponAHoneymoon''). It aired as a short feature with ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode 906, ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S09E06TheSpaceChildren The Space Children]]''.
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6It was directed by Jerry Fairbanks and features ample footage of the 1962 UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}} World's Fair.
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8!!Tropes:
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10* ChewingTheScenery: The two... teenagers mincing about the fair, nearly bowling people over.
11** It's clear a lot of people weren't aware of the filming. A woman shoots them a DeathGlare when they force their way to the front of a crowd.
12* MightyWhitey: Heavily implied by the short, as the two teens treat various ethnic persons at the Fair like dolls.
13** Perhaps justified, as it was the World's Fair, and those people were there as live demonstrations of their cultures, including their clothing and accessories.
14* LandmarkOfLore: The then-new Space Needle, Monorail and what is now the Pacific Science Center.
15* TechMarchesOn: The prototype smart-house technology that turned the heat and lights on for you when you signaled it ahead of your arrival... from a pay phone.
16** Amazingly, as of the mid-2010s (more than fifty years later!) this particular prediction was surprisingly accurate, with the advent of home automation. The only real difference is that it's controlled by a smartphone rather than a payphone, but the concept is otherwise the same.
17** Interestingly, virtually every technology featured in this short has gone from new and exciting to commonplace.
18* TheVoiceless: Nearly so. The two main characters nearly never speak, having only a couple lines each when demonstrating the push button phones.
19* {{Zeerust}}: Zig-zagged; a number of the then-new advances have become ubiquitous. Other uses (such as phoning the house in order to start the oven) have been found too fanciful.
20** On the other hand, these days you can email your home printer and tell it to start churning stuff out, which is the same thing in a different room.

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