The House of Tomorrow (1949 film)

An off-screen narrator introduces The House of Tomorrow, a pre-fabricated luxury residence that impossibly unfolds from a tiny gift box. The house has separate entrances for each member of the family: for Fido, a tiny door surrounded by bones; for Junior, a door covered in muddy handprints; for the mother, a wide and curvy door to accommodate her large form from eating sweets; for the father, a saloon door; and, for the mother-in-law, a heavily barricaded door with a welcome mat that reads "SCRAM!"

Once inside, the narrator offers a tour of the house's modern conveniences, presented as a series of brief vignettes consisting of sight gags. The house contains all of the following:

• Carpeting so lush and deep that a passing butler sinks into it up to his neck
• A climate control system that, at the push of a button, sends a raining thundercloud across the room
• A trophy room where animal heads share space with a liquor bottle that was "killed" one New Year's Eve
• A button to fool tax assessors by transforming the house's appearance into that of a dilapidated hovel
• A machine to handle Junior's nonstop questions by yelling "Ahh, shaddap!" and plugging his mouth with a toilet plunger
• An automatic sandwich maker that shuffles slices of bread and cold cuts like playing cards before "dealing" the sandwiches to diners
• A tanning machine that flips the user with a giant spatula
• A guest chair that can adjust its shape for any visitor, whether tall, short, or the mother-in law (for her, it transforms into an electric chair)
• A three-screen television set the whole family can watch at once: a cooking show for the mother, a western for Junior, and, for the "tired businessman," film of a beautiful woman (Joi Lansing) in a bathing suit
• Individual medicine cabinets for each member of the family; the father's and mother's are filled with various hygiene implements, Junior's contains a single large bottle of castor oil with a spoon, and the mother-in-law's is filled with vials of poison
• An electric shaver that can remove not only stubble, but also almost all of a man's facial features
• A toaster that pops its users up in the air instead of the toast
• A juicer that removes the seeds from oranges by noisily spitting them into a spittoon
• A frying pan that prevents bacon from curling by hitting it with a tiny mallet
• An oven with a window to let one see everything inside (a roasting chicken screams for its modesty and pulls down a blind)
• A device to remove the burps from radishes by making a literal burping sound as each one passes through
• A pressure cooker that can cook an entire meal at once; it's shown that it does so via the heat from a catastrophic explosion which sends all the food airborne, along with the stunned housewife herself
• A refrigerator with a built-in window for those curious about whether the light turns off when the door is closed; it reveals a little gnome-like creature pushing an "off" button each time.

As the narrator signs off, a typewritten letter suddenly appears on the screen:

PATRONS ATTENTION!!

Due to numerous requests of the tired business-men in the audience, we are going to show you the girl again.

The Management

The short then ends with a repeat of the film of Joi Lansing in her swimsuit.

• What's Buzzin' Buzzard - A previous cartoon that also had a "Patrons Attention" at the end of it.

• The House of Tomorrow at IMDb