Short film from 1980s childrens show: automatic breakfast maker

September 18, 2016 3:15 PM

Back in the day when Duoshao was a tyke, namely the late 70s/early 80s, one of the children's shows such as Electric Company or something similar periodically showed a short film of a complex machine that cooked breakfast. Does anyone remember this? I'd love to watch it again.

I think it broke an egg and cooked it sunny side up, cooked sausage, and maybe made toast. In my fuzzy memory it seems like the film was from the point of view of inside the machine, which was somewhat Rube Goldberg-ish. I remember it used visible flames for cooking some of the things.

No luck Googling or searching on Youtube. Does anyone have any leads or can you at least vouch for my sanity/memory?

posted by duoshao to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

Not a TV show but rather a movie, but there's a scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with a breakfast-making machine.
posted by klugarsh at 3:31 PM on September 18, 2016

You're not thinking of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, are you?
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:31 PM on September 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Nope, it wasn't Pee Wee or Chitty, but it was great watching those again :)

I think I was wrong to describe it as Rube Goldberg-ish. It wasn't cobbled together out of other things - it looked purpose built but did things a bit more elaborately than necessary. I'm pretty sure everything happened inside the machine and then the breakfast was output at the end.
posted by duoshao at 3:44 PM on September 18, 2016

Well, if it's any comfort to your sanity/memory... "In the late 1960s and early 70s, educational shows like Sesame Street and The Electric Company routinely showed bits that involved Rube Goldberg devices, including the Rube Goldberg Alphabet Contraption, and the What Happens Next Machine." Neither of which makes breakfast, sadly.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:05 PM on September 18, 2016

Maybe you're looking for a vintage "The Breakfast of Tomorrow!" (...morrow ... morrow... )-type short about the bright, machine-heavy, human-leisure-laden future?
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:25 PM on September 18, 2016

There was this Back to the Future one, which did have visible flames.
posted by dayintoday at 5:32 PM on September 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

This kind of reminds me of one of the machines from Willy Wonka...but that might have been dinner cooked and then made to flavor the gum!
posted by bookworm4125 at 8:00 PM on September 18, 2016

I think it was on Captain Kangaroo, accompanied by a "hot breakfast machine" song. I can't find the video anywhere, but there's a reference in this random forum.
posted by magicbus at 8:46 PM on September 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

I remember a show featuring a guy with fuzzy dark hair and handlebar mustache who had a machine, but I'm blanking on the name...something like Marvin/Marlon.
posted by brujita at 3:50 AM on September 19, 2016

I remember a show featuring a guy with fuzzy dark hair and handlebar mustache who had a machine, but I'm blanking on the name...something like Marvin/Marlon.

That would be Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine, machine in this case being a computer and not a breakfast making machine.
posted by Rob Rockets at 6:02 AM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I remember this, too! Unless I'm grossly Miss remembering, it wasn't part of a feature film. It was a short, self-contained film.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:59 AM on September 19, 2016

And we're definitely not talking about "Red Ball 3," right?
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:36 AM on September 19, 2016