There is a scene in the movie where Andy and Jude Hardy discuss the fact that Cars and Airplanes didn't exist when Judge Hardy was young. He even states that Man didn't fly until he was an adult.
I think his was the generation that experienced the most change from progress. If you take a yardstick of 50 years 1888-1938 the change in day-to-day life is dramatic. But for the current older generation: 1968-2018 doesn't seem as dramatic.
I'm watching this right now, and there were a few scenes in the movie where Judge Hardy marvels over all the newfangled technology (although they wouldn't use that word!). I guess it was supposed to tie in with the background theme of mortality (Mrs. Hardy's mother, the Judge lamenting all of his deceased schoolmates).
The ham/short-wave radio scene was notable, and there are still a lot of these types of radio enthusiasts out there using the technology, despite there being more up-to-date ways to communicate. The funniest scene to me, though, was when Mrs. Hardy got the telegram, and was freaking out a bit. The Judge says "Mother, telegrams are here to stay, so you better get used to it"! It made me wonder when the last telegram was ever sent!
The one modern marvel that didn't happen was having a cook in every household. Microwaves and McDonald's for us instead.
shareYou can actually still order something described as a "telegram" online from a couple companies including itelegram, who acquired Western Union's old telex network some time back: https://www.itelegram.com/
An article in The Atlantic points out that this is not a true telegram in the original sense, though: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/telegrams-stop-found-stop-kinda/460161/
The last telegram was sent July 2013.
Actually, that was shown to be inaccurate. The Christian Science Monitor, the news outlet that originally reported that, added a correction to the top of the article: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0614/India-to-end-state-run-telegram-service.-Stop
shareWell true going from cars and planes from 1968, to cars and planes in 2018 isn't as dramatic. The biggest advancent of course have been home computers and the internet in that time frame.
Here is Andy Hardy in 2009 a few years before his death, discussing Twitter with a relative....I think it's his grandson....😉
https://youtu.be/wtKk5Cx4VKU
Curious indeed that we're discussing a film that came out EIGHTY-ONE years ago!!