I don't remember seeing a wired TV remote in a movie before. Here's Jack Lemmon in "The Apartment," which we happened to watch last night.

Phil

I've often wondered if that remote was real or a prop - its function within the movie is to make it possible for Lemmon to change channels without a lot of visually distracting movement, hopping up and down. Do you know if it's real?

BTW, he also has a great late-'50s Fedders air conditioner in his living-room window.

Could be a prop. Seems like it would need to be motorized. I don't remember hearing about that in mid-1950s sets, but there are plenty of things I don't know. Fun to see, anyhow.

Phil

Phil:

A cabled remote was certainly within the realm of possibility by that time; I remember RCA's my dad worked on having ultrasonic remotes that activated servo motors which physically moved controls by means of a chain drive.

And Zenith had Flash-Matic on its upper-series TVs by '55 - a year earlier than the set seen here, so a wired control for lesser models sounds like it could have been real. Flash-Matic was a photo-electric system that was problematic (any light could activate almost any function), so Zenith went to ultrasonic by '56.

I don't know about Zenith sets of that era, but Philco had a wired remote as early as 1951 models. The back of the set had a caddy to hold the remote unit. The cord pulled out from a reel inside the cabinet. It operated like many vacuum cleaner cords. Pull out the length you need and a pawl would catch and stop the reel. Pull additional cord out and the pawl would release. The remote control used a motor and electrically operated clutches to engage the different control functions. The actual remote used spring-centered slide switches to control "Off/On-Volume," "Contrast," "Brightness," "Channel Up/Down" and "Fine Tuning." Pretty advanced for the period.

Bill

Believe it or not, that is also the Sam's for my 'Top Tuning' Zenith console. While many Zenith TVs going back to the porthole days had a channel-changer remote optional, there just wouldn't be any room for one or method of attachment on this model. There certainly isn't any plug-in accommodation for remote speaker or remote control of whatever those smaller knobs might be imagined to do. If it is a TV remote, it's for a different TV.

Could be that famous Zenith "LAZY BONES" wired remote, with the wire carefully hidden.

Yes mine has a wireless remote on it!
47'Plymouth864