In the Future, All Toast Will Take 15 Minutes to Depress

There's no reason whatsoever to recommend this "Morphy Richards 2 Perfection Toaster"—it's upwards of $60, for one—but the space-age bread insertion mechanism, as seen in the video, is quite futuristic. Pretend you're loading the photon torpedo tubes.

Catalog Page [ElectricShopping.com via Serious Eats via Oh Gizmo]

[#1 posted by OllieA , February 15, 2008 3:29 PM]

I've got that toaster. The ladies love it.

[#2 posted by strider_mt2k , February 15, 2008 4:13 PM]

When we were growing up we mom had a toaster that would detect when a piece of bread was dropped in and would lower it in and raise it slowly when it was done.

It was an extremely cool toaster and we all cried a little inside when it couldn't be repaired any more.

Good toast.
Good times!

[#3 posted by adamrice , February 15, 2008 4:28 PM]

I think it's fair to say that toasting has never been accompanied by such drama.

[#4 posted by artbot , February 15, 2008 4:38 PM]

How do you know the toast depressed? Does the toaster evaluate its emotional state as well as toast it?

[#5 posted by Anonymous , February 15, 2008 5:23 PM]

so fancy, yet you still put nasty wonderbread in it. really?

[#6 posted by Tensegrity , February 15, 2008 5:31 PM]

I want to use that thing to shoot Spock's body into space.

[#7 posted by temp , February 15, 2008 7:08 PM]

Meet the T-20, the toaster of tomorrow. So you want some toast. Insert your bread and it automatically lowers it into the toasting chamber, without human intervention. Once the toast is toasted, it majestically ascends.

Wow. What kind of future are we living in where we finally have autonomous toasters? Try 1949 -- 60 years ago.

The bottom line here is that the "Perfection" doesn't live up to its arrogant name. I mean you actually have to touch it before it knows what you want. And it's a TOASTER! I mean isn't it obvious I want toast??

[#8 posted by certron , February 15, 2008 7:14 PM]

I think this is required if you are a Bond villain. Just don't expect tiny ninjas to try to storm it.

[#9 posted by Mycroft , February 15, 2008 7:22 PM]

All that engineering and they couldn't make it toast bread evenly?

[#10 posted by David Carroll , February 15, 2008 7:24 PM]

Could be worse. Microsoft could decide to forget about Yahoo and get into the toaster game. Step one of course would be to buy all the toaster companies. Step two would be to use Windows as the toaster OS.

15 Min? That would be just for formatting your bread prior to toasting.

[#11 posted by Bryan Price , February 15, 2008 9:26 PM]

#2, my family had one too. It was a Sunbeam toaster, it was bought before I was born and continued to work after I turned 20, no repairs had been made. My parents then split and divorced, so I have no clue as to where it finally went.

My best friend couldn't understand how I couldn't start toast (I would just throw the bread in, never realizing that I needed to depress the lever), and he couldn't get over the fact that our toaster didn't have a lever, and started toasting as soon as you threw in the bread.

I'd probably own one now, except I haven't seen any in the stores, and every time it was time to buy one, it was buy one NOW. Dang, a quick Google search shows that there are more ads for the toaster than there are toasters out there. Wild!

[#12 posted by temp , February 16, 2008 8:25 AM]

#2 and #11 -- that glorious toaster was the Sunbeam T-20 (see comment #7 for a link)

[#13 posted by Tim , February 16, 2008 10:10 AM]

So... it closes a little door when the toast is inside. Maybe that makes it more energy efficient, and thus "green?"

[#14 posted by se7a7n7 , February 16, 2008 10:31 AM]

but how well does it do a Cinnamon Brown Sugar Pop-Tart?

[#15 posted by Scuba SM , February 16, 2008 7:38 PM]

There's a pair of Sunbeam T-20s for sale on ebay, but they're non-functional at the moment. I'm wondering how hard it'd be to resurrect them.

[#16 posted by Anonymous , February 16, 2008 8:32 PM]

I was watching the video and only thought the closing bay door was at all innovative - I've got one of those fantastic Sunbeam toasters on my counter right now and had completely forgotten that other toasters don't automatically load and toast on their own.

Plus, the Sunbeam is just such a lovely thing - all chrome and art deco-ey.

[#17 posted by Halloween Jack , February 18, 2008 10:54 AM]

If photon torpedoes took 15 minutes to load, then the Enterprise would have been a cloud of glittering space dust well before Pike turned it over to Kirk.