Today's TV remote controls are a hot mess of a kajillion buttons shoved into an equally generic plastic case. In 1961, the RCA Victor was the first TV to get a wireless remote control and it had seven functions. All seven functions provided "hours of pure pleasure" or so this demonstration advertisement had people believe.

While I've given up on figuring out why my TV remote needs two sets of channel and volume buttons, this RCA Victor remote only had seven functions to adjust tint, color, brightness, volume, fine tuning, channel selection and on/off all from your "easy chair."

I'm not going to knock on the RCA Victor for its cheesy "superb cabinetry" or even the fact that its remote control was called a "wireless wizard electronic remote control" (it seems electronics liked to use really long "complicated" name schemes to sound technical) because without this little old clicker-box, we'd all still be walking over to our TV sets (or using this lazy TV poking stick) and changing the channel, volume and god-forbid, turning it on and off manually.

On the downside, the creation of the remote control also brought about the frustration that comes with misplacing it. There's a number of shouting matches I could gladly have lived without.

If anything, this video is a really fun throwback to our pre-sloth days and a nostalgic education on old-school advertising techniques.

Via Cynical C