Radio Valve Revolution: When Lightbulbs Had Feelings

Is this for you?

If you like old-school cel animation or have an weird soft spot for mid-century industrial marketing, you’ll dig this. If you need a movie with a coherent plot or, you know, humans, you should probably skip it. It’s a commercial, after all, but a very pretty one.

The whole thing is basically a rescue mission for hardware. We’ve got these beat-up, exhausted radio tubes that are just struggling to keep the signal alive. Then, in walks the new Philips Miniwatt tubes, looking all crisp and powerful. It’s almost too heroic for a vacuum tube.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Radio Valve Revolution (1934) through its definitive frames.

There’s a rhythm here that reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in

The animation style is just deliciously tactile. You can almost smell the dust and the ozone. It’s not trying to be a deep, philosophical piece like

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Radio Valve Revolution (1934) through its definitive frames.

I found myself wondering if this is what the animators did when they weren't working on more serious projects like

It’s short. It’s punchy. It’s a total time capsule. Sometimes the best things are the ones that don't take themselves too seriously, unlike some of the heavier stuff like