The Philco Predicta was quite possibly the ugliest piece of electronic equipment ever made, let alone the ugliest TV set. Yet its "futuristic" design appealed to a lot of people. Instead of being suffocated inside a coffin-like wooden cabinet (and the earliest ones even had DOORS on them, since people were not comfortable having all that exposed glass in their living room), you had this - thing - that swivelled around, with no discernible cabinet to it at all. It just sort of hung there, looking exposed, naked. The base could not have been more utilitarian, minimalism taken to the ugliest extreme. BUT - and this is a big but - the Philco Predicta yielded one of the most gorgeous TV advertisements ever made. It has everything - men and women standing around in awe, all beautifully dressed (and remember how formally people used to dress on TV?), with euphoric choruses exclaiming, "Wow-wow-wow-WOW!" The Philco Predicta was the future, with the thinnest, flattest screen since. . . all right, it looked like a waffle iron, but no one had anything to compare it to, so it was just great, do you hear me? Just great!
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