Adventure in Telezonia (1950)

You will often see in old movies, scenes set in drugstores with a bank of many pay phones along one wall. By 1949, people were getting phones in their own homes and, gradually, the drug store phone booths shrank in number. Telezonia is a primer for the new phone owners to help them understand how to operate their new possessions. Bil and Cora Baird were popular puppeteers at the time and were hired to make an entertaining instruction video. The title character, a robot of some sort, helps kids understand the difference between a dial tone and a busy signal, how to engage with the operator if the phone has no dial, and how to be polite if you are on a party line. The message of the film may now be unnecessary, but the skill of the Bairds is still entertaining.