Juke Box design came on from the crude plain wood boxes in the early 1930s to bright lit displays with plastic and color animation in the Rudolf Wurlitzer 850 Peacock juke box of the early 40's. Unfortunately once the United States government went into the 2nd world war, metal ore as well as plastic were required for the war effort.



Music juke box production was restricted. The 1943 Wurlitzer 950 juke box featured wooden coin slides to conserve on alloy. It had better also be noted that although the juke box mechanisms were made of metal, they weren't built during this period, instead, an new console was developed and the interior portions of the juke box were positioned inside it. Since most of the mechanisms were assembled handmade, many of these juke boxes contained parts which never fit the right way and required refitting.

The 1943 Wurlitzer Victory console had glass illuminated panels rather than plastic. After the war, materials were available once again and there was a great boom in juke box manufacturing. The Bubbler juke box typifies the appearance and is likely the hottest juke box design of all time. Many of of these continued in popularity on into the 1950's in active use and are alternatively associated with the fifties in pop music culture despite their 40s origin, because of their unique visual prominence and production volume.

After the '40s, the juke box trends in general went more three-dimensional and "hi-tech" in their look, distancing themselves from "standard" juke box looks such as ancient Grecian, renaissance, and Gothic architecture themes observed in the 'forties model juke boxes.

Music juke boxes from the forties came to be known as Golden Age because of the yellow catalin plastic. Music juke boxes from the fifties are called Silver Age because of the predominant chromium-plate design. With the rise of fast food diners in the sixties, restaurants wanted to get customers in and out quickly.

Today, the restaurant juke box has been replaced by other sorts of amusemententertainment media, yet when you go to a place that still has a juke box, young and old are still attracted to their almost garish styling. The juke box as a mass media device may be dying yet the nostalgia is something that may never leave us.