Retronaut Today, the future is depicted in pop culture as a dystopian nightmare of zombies, killer robots and reality TV shows where children fight to the death.

It was not always so. In the early 20th century, the future was regarded with optimism and hope.

The Bohn Aluminum & Brass Company produced dozens of futuristic ads in the 1940s, each one promoting the notion that technology would transport us into a society of ease and leisure ... and rockets.

Rockets, and the fact that we'd all be using them to get from A to B, were a big thing for Bohn.

Rockets weren't the only thing that Bohn got wrong. Three-story high milk-trucks, plastic bridges, snowploughs that looked like sea-monsters -- almost nothing of Bohn's vision came to pass.

The company's ads are still beautiful to look at, however.