What Is Money?

How I wish I knew!

Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 15, 2008 - Comments (1)
Category: Money, Documentaries, 1940s

The Adventures of Junior Raindrop

What were they huffing at the Forest Service the day they came up with this?

Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 12, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Cartoons, Documentaries, Weather

Boy With A Knife

Experience the juvie lifestyle!

Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 05, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Family, Children, Juvenile Delinquency, Parents, Movies, Documentaries, 1950s

Going Steady

Any WU readers confused about "going steady" will certainly benefit from watching this video.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 29, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Education, Family, Movies, Documentaries, Sexuality, 1950s

Live and Let Live

Continuing our series of weird auto-safety films, we now examine one told completely through the medium of toys. This looks like it was a lot of fun for the creators to make.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 23, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Death, Education, Toys, Documentaries, 1940s, Cars

Blasting Cap Danger!

This is a little slow to get going, and we are denied seeing the children blown to smithereens. But it's pretty entertaining nonetheless. I thought the kids did some good acting. What about you?

Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 17, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Death, Explosives, Documentaries, 1950s

The Chance to Lose

Every safe-driving video would be improved by the addition of a giant Chuck-a-luck cage such as we find here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 16, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Death, Games, Documentaries, Cars

Land Without Bread

According to Wikipedia, Luis Buñuel is "one of the most important directors in the history of cinema." His most notorious film is the 1929 Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) which includes the infamous scene of a woman's eyeball being sliced with a razor in slow-motion. This is the one film of his that the professor discussed in the film class I took in college.

Much less well-known is his 1932 Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan (Land without bread). The film is a short travelogue about the poverty-stricken Las Hurdes region of Spain. What makes the film unusual is that as one scene of misery after another appears onscreen, the narration proceeds in a "flat and disinterested manner" and Brahms's Symphony No. 4 plays as background music. Some historians argue that the film was actually the very first mockumentary, parodying the documentary form.

The film can be seen in its entirety on YouTube, but not in English. I'm not sure if there is an English-language version of it. The only scene in English I could find was the one below, in which a goat supposedly trips and falls off a cliff. In reality, Buñuel's crew shot the goat and threw its body down the cliff. This was in the days before PETA. YouTube includes a "Warning: Animal Abuse" label with the excerpt. As a student of the weird, I've become pretty much shockproof, but if the sight of a goat plummeting down a cliff will disturb you, you might want to skip the video.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 10, 2008 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Movies, Documentaries

Color It Clean

So long as we've started a toilet thread, let's all watch "Color It Clean," so that we appreciate the men and women who maintain our public lavatories.



This film reminds me of Barney Gumble's autobiographical entry in the Springfield Film Festival. I could find the clip only in Italian, but that adds a certain frisson to the viewing experience, I think.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 03, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Bathrooms, Buildings and Other Structures, Bums, Hobos, Tramps, Beggars, Panhandlers and Other Streetpeople, Hygiene, Body Fluids, Excrement, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Television, Documentaries, 1960s

Preparation of Foods

If our readers plan on cooking animal testicles, they'll need to know all about the history of food prep, including that new discovery--microwaves!

Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 02, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category: Food, Documentaries, 1960s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows