Why do we say “What you see is what you get”?

Ads used the line as far back as 1936, selling cameras and kitchens with nothing hidden. Around 1970, Flip Wilson’s sassy TV character Geraldine made it a catchphrase: take me as I am. Computer engineers later borrowed it for screens that show a page just as it will print, and by 1982 Byte magazine was writing about “WYSIWYG.”