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It
seems young Billy doesn't want to go to
sleep. Is it because he's not tired, or is
there another, more sinister reason for
not wanting to go to bed? (Is
that a Calcinator death-ray your
constructing with your erector-set there
young man?) Despite
all protests, mom puts Billy to bed, turns
out the lights, and closes the door, leaving
him alone in the darkened bedroom. As the shadows start to resemble dark and
evil things, Billy's
imagination quickly gets the better of him.
(Have
you been messing with the Ancient Ones
again young man?)
Springing from his bed he calls for mom.
Mom
comes a running as a friendly narrator (James
Brill) chimes in and laughs at
Billy's behavior, and then reminds us that
fear is natural and nothing to be ashamed
of.
Billy
begs Mom to leave the lights on just for
tonight (to
help keep Yog-Kothag
at bay.)
He denies being afraid of the dark, but Mom
backs up the narrator, saying being scared
is nothing to be ashamed of. (Nothing
to be ashamed of, yes, but will get you
laughed at in most circles.) Mom
comforts the boy by relating a near
disastrous day in the kitchen, where a
grease-fire almost killed them all if not
for the quick actions of pop (who
put down the bourbon long enough to dowse
the flames.)
Mom explains that fear is a warning sign:
it's nature's way of telling you to avoid
danger.
This
leads to another flashback of Billy at
school, playing catch with friends. Billy
air-mails a throw and it lands on top of
the roof. The other kids triple-dog dare
him to get it down, but Billy's too scared
to climb up that high. Mom says Billy's
fear, in that case, to avoid unnecessary
danger, was just good common
sense. She's
also proud of him for not caving in to
peer pressure and looking foolish in front
of his friends (a
whole other kind of fear that really
plagues this country today.)
Mom
then says there's another kind of fear --
being chicken when there's nothing really
to be chicken about. Asking Billy if he
can think of an example of this, he
relates the tale of Kathy Lewis, who has an
irrational fear of dogs. He was playing
with a friendly dog and asked her to join
him, but she panicked and ran away (the
sissy!)
Mom
then relates another story, about Keith
Hogan, who was scared to swim but there
was nothing to really fear (except
for a little thing called drowning -- and
the possibility of being eaten by sharks.)
And then there was the little matter of
Frank Campbell, who hid out in his
basement because his report card stunk so
bad; he was afraid to confront his parents,
fearing they wouldn't love him anymore
since he's not very bright.
Eventually,
Kathy got over her fear of dogs because
her father bought her a puppy (at
least he didn't buy her a pitbull.)
And Keith eventually learned how to swim (after
being constantly thrown in the water and
ordered to sink or swim.)
And Frank's parents worked with him to get
his grades back up. (YOU FORGOT TO
CARRY THE TWO! DO YOU THINK THEY LET YOU
USE REMAINDERS IN THE REAL WORLD, MISTER!
WELL GUESS AGAIN!!!)
Mom
reminds Billy that the best way to get
over your fears is to talk about them with
someone you trust (not
someone who'll spread it around and ruin
the rest of you're natural life.)
She then asks Billy if there is anything
he'd like to talk about. He admits
that it isn't really the dark he's afraid
of, but being left alone (and those
nights when all those bed-spring noises
come for your bedroom. What's that all
about?) Mom promises that they'll
never leave him, and will always be there
when he needs them. (Great, now
he'll never move out.)
With
that assurance, she tucks Billy back in to
bed. She offers to leave the light on, but
he says to just leave the door open a
crack, instead. She shuts the lights off
and leaves. Billy shuts his eyes and goes
to sleep, dreaming of his Calcinator
death-ray (and
we hear something wet and slithery gain
footing under the bed. Was that a
tentacle?)
The
narrator chimes back in and asks the
viewer if Billy will be better off after
his talk with Mom. He checks off five
questions for us, but the answer to each is
a disappointing "probably not."
The
End
Before
the advent of the VCR, when a teacher
wanted to show their class a film, students had to be herded into
a film
room, where a large screen and a film
projector awaited.
That's
the way it was for me back at old Holstein
Public. On film day, we were marched into the
room, single file, and took our seats in the
uniform rows of hard plastic chairs. Firing
up the old projector, the synch-sound
warbled and hissed over the mono-speaker,
the film popped from the heat of the
projector light, and then the scratchy
feature spooled up. The countdown beeped
and blooped and we all gleefully counted off the
numbers until the film proper began.
On
one particular day, we watched a film
concerned with the Parkers -- a happy
family of four: Dad, Mom, Billy and young
Sally (or something like that.)
They were a happy family and had a good
life. Dad made the money, mom kept the
house, and Billy and Sally did what kids do
(whatever
that may be.) Watching
a day in the life of this family, they
interact, laugh, and play, but then the
narrator turned ominous. After the family
tucks itself in for the night, the narrator
says Dad had made one fatal mistake: The
house wasn't equipped with smoke
detectors.
That
night, as the family slept peacefully, a
fire breaks out. The neighbors saw the
flames and called the fire department.
Why
didn't the Parkers call the fire
department?
BECAUSE
THEY WERE ALL DEAD!!!!
The
camera moved slowly, from room to room,
showing each family member -- accented by a loud, dissonant sting
on the soundtrack -- splayed out, dead, from smoke inhalation.
As
we all watched horrified, the narrator
pounded it into our impressionable young
skulls that all of this could have been
prevented with a simple smoke detector. So
after school, a dozen first-graders --
probably scarred for life, went home to
beg and plead with mom and dad to equip
their homes with these all important
doohickeys.
This
was my introduction to the world of
educational shorts. Looking back, I assume
that this film was probably sponsored or
made by a company that made and marketed
smoke detectors. I'm
sure we've all got a similar story. Over
the years, I've run the full gambit of
these educational shorts: from hygiene, to
the horrors of drugs, and road safety, to
sex education (you
know, the ones when the girls had to go
see a film on one day, and then the boys the
next.)
Throughout
this month of August, we'll be viewing and
poking fun at all kinds of educational/exploitational
shorts. Who made them. Where they they came
from. And why.
So
sit back, reminisce, and try to find out,
like me, where we went wrong, and boggle
why you aren't dead.
Yet.
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