Remember the Technicolor lithographs we shared a while back that had acetate overlays? Today we have another. In the top version the model is wearing a cartoon nightie and in the version below that you see her in the altogether. These after-the-fact cover-ups rarely look good, but today they’re collectible, which just goes to show how years and scarcity are a sort of temporal alchemy that turn lead into gold. Speaking of precious metals, the print is titled “Platinum Beauty.” As a bonus, below is a version of the litho with an advertising strip at top (where a business of some sort would insert a logo). The date on that one is 1962, but we aren’t sure about the overlay versions above. The seller claims 1951 but we’re highly doubtful of that. Also, we think acetate versions tended to come later than advertising versions, but we have no evidence to support that theory. It’s just a feeling. In any case, you get three versions of a beautiful platinum haired model, so that makes it a good day, right?
1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program
BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.