Me too. That cure for alcoholism plus the flying car would solve pretty much all of my problems, provided they happen concurrently. Otherwise I'd just be drunk and flying or bored and sober.

how to make a show look like some prophetic hope for tomorrow out of a scrap-paper collection of kids' responses to the question "wouldn't it be cool if...?"

The kid who came up with "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a pill you could take to cure alcoholism" has a very sad story.

Yeah, that saucer model (and others like it) dates to at least the mid-70s. I remember seeing it in Moller's flying car ads and other promo photos as a kid:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8OEDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA73&dq=popu lar%20mechanics%20moller&pg=PA73#v=onepage&q&f=false

By the late 80s the ads usually featured a much more streamlined model, but I suspect it never made it past the mockup stage so even those ads still show the tethered saucer as proof that CARS WILL FLY:

http://books.google.com/books?id=e-MDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA157&dq=pop ular%20mechanics%20moller&pg=PA157#v=onepage&q=popular%20mechanics %20moller&f=false