About Time Documentary 1962 Bell System Labs and Planet Q

About Time
Documentary 1962
by Bell System Labs

Planet Q has just made a clock, but can't figure out what time is. Lucky for them Peacock Award Winning Professor Dr. Frank Baxter knows a lot about time and leads us into a fantastic discussion about time itself. A great documentary on the mystery and function of time in our lives. It is a cosmic discussion that includes time, space and the whole universe! The documentary ABOUT TIME was produced by Bell Labs in 1962 and was a short in some movie theaters in the USA. With live action and animation.

This film "About Time" was one of the “Bell System Science Series”, which consisted of nine educational television specials made for the AT&T Corporation and originally broadcast on TV from 1956 to 1964. This episode, hosted by Dr. Frank Baxter, focuses on the properties of time and how we track it. The screenplay was written by Richard Hobson, Nancy Pitt, and Leo Salkin. It was directed by Owen Crump. Phil Monroe directed the animations. The film starred Richard Deacon and Les Tremayne and included various consultants including famed physicist Dr. Richard Feynman. The film opens with the King's Assistant, time expert Dr. Frank Baxter, and King talking to each other.

In this one, we take an imaginary visit to the "Planet Q" where the inhabitants are just like we humans and hold court with a king on his throne. The "plot" involves setting the "royal" clock and needing a "time" to start with. Conveniently, Frank Baxter is available with an observatory peeping out to Earth and is able to give a detailed description of what "time" is.

Subjects covered include a history of clocks starting with sticks-in-the-ground, sun dials, calendars, Galileo's first use of the pendulum in 1583, the use of quartz crystals and, in the 20th century, atomic energy for modern clocks. The seasons are briefly studied, along with how plants, snowshoe hares and hamsters use their own "clocks". Uranium properties aid paleontologists in "dating" fossils and studying the earth's age.

The best segments involve Einstein and his relativity principle. Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series in 1979-80 covered similar material in live-action (and considerably more detail), but the cartoon footage gets the point across quite well. Two twin brothers... one an astronaut traveling the speed of light and the other staying on Earth age 60 years differently, because time is different in outer space with different "laws" in effect.

Like all of the programs, there is a great finish. This time, the Big Bang theory is presented with delightful slushy orchestration and the all-too-familiar passage is borrowed from Ecclesiastes (later done by the Byrds in song). It is an appropriate ending to the very last Bell Science special (with Baxter starring), since the Warner-produced specials didn't delve into scripture like the earlier Frank Capra productions (such as OUR MR. SUN and HEMO THE MAGNIFICENT).