Top 5 Predictions About the Future (From the Past) That Were WAY Off

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New technologies can scare people. Take a look at this news report from 1991 about parents afraid of the evils of—gasp—Nintendo. Whether it's the automobile or the iPod, every time something new and amazing gets invented, there will always be people predicting it will never last. In that spirit, here is evidence of the 5 worst predictions about the future that we have been able to find:

Television Won't Last

"[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." -- Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946.

The House of the Future

The house of the future, as imagined in 1957: dishwashers powered by ultrasonic waves—"plastic dishes, of course." "Cold zones... for irradiated foods." And a video phone in the bathroom!

The Internet Is Over

According to Prince, in 2010: "The Internet is dead." We suppose he wanted to party like it was 1899. Tune to minute 3:05 in the video to hear Prince's wrongity-wrong-wrong prediction.

Air Conditioned Clothing

Clothing in the year 2000: By now, we are supposed to have built-in climate control in our dungarees!  And electric headlights!

The Automobile is a Novelty

And, finally, from the president of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company in 1903: "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad."

But here's a prediction all the way from 1981 that was actually almost right! A fascinating news report on computers, predicting that one day, we'll read our newspapers and magazines on a home computers—"but that's a few years off."

What predictions do you think we'll be making fun of fifty years from now?