I don't tell many people this, but Westwood Investigations is heavily based on true events. I don't say anything because I don't want to seem like I'm just snatching from history and contributing nothing of my own.

Take the Montrose family. Valerie, the girl who can fly, is a fictional member of that family. Back in the day that name was huge. Like Bill Gates huge. At least around these parts. The Montroses made everything you can imagine and more. Now the family is too poor to really sue anybody. Hard times hit everyone.  And besides who's going to come after me for saying their granddaughter can fly?

My grandfather, William "Nick" Nicholson tried to be an announcer for the newsreels the company would put out in local cinema for their own PR purposes. He wasn't that good at it. I don't think he had the job long. Though he did go on to have several more jobs as a voice-over guy. I never met him, he died long before I was born, but I still hear his voice to this day in various things around here.

While looking through some of his stuff that my ma found while cleaning recently, I came across one of those old newsreels that focused on the 1939 World's Fair in New York. It focused on the Montrose Corp's exhibit in particular. The Perisphere.

[link]

The place was kind of impossibly amazing. It was fucking huge. It had the world's largest escalator and try to imagine an IMAX theatre projected on something the size of a skyscraper and you have a bit of an idea of the exhibit on the inside of it.

Here's a look at one of those cool cities of tomorrow, Democracity:

[link]

I was able to record the audio from the reel. But I don't really have anything to film it. Besides the image was really muddy to begin with. Not even all of the sound came out alright. Big Z's speech made it nearly impossible to understand what he was saying. I was able to figure it out to the best of my ability though:

   " Yes,  it truly is the dawn of a new day. Inside this titanic structure you will have a first hand look at the future of urban centers. A better tomorrow for every man, woman and child! An era of peace and prosperity is upon us and I hope to help lead the way! By the end of the century everyone will be living in the world I've imagined. I give you the Perisphere!"

This wasn't my grandfather's best work as you can hear. It's probably why he didn't get to keep the job very long. But I do think it's rather cool that some of this shit did exist

I hope you think so too. And not just think I'm just some giant rip off artist!

Here's the audio: [link]