Monday, August 30, 2004

JACO Bash Fallout

Overall I'd say my Saturday mini-panel at the meeting went as I expected for the most part. Most of the people in attendance would rather stay in the hallway than come inside and brave the horror of the near non-stop barrage of 50s educational films I was showing. And to think I didn't even go into the Educational Film Archives DVDs or the Prelinger Archives! Here's what I remember showing:

1967 Busch Advertising
My Japan--suddenly as if by magic, the entire room filled up for this and this alone; later on some people who arrived late asked me "hey, you got My Japan?" I didn't realize it was so highly viewed in the Prelinger Archives.
A Day Called X--this CLEARED THE ROOM. The best part of it all was my insisting to the few people left that it was "only 10-15 minutes long, guys!" I'd repeat that over and over throughout the night, though in every other instance I was indeed telling the truth.
Freedom and Power--General Electric's poorly animated and incredibly boring history of America
Freedom Comes High--Join the Navy and get killed, leaving behind a widow and an infant! This message brought to you by the US Navy!

In fact, I think I showed almost everything that was on the VCDs Dan and Bruce gave me at AWA a few years back. I didn't realize there was more stuff on those discs, so a lot of it I hadn't actually watched until then. Alas, I only ended up showing about two minutes of Tribulation 99. The specific people I wanted to inflict it upon weren't in the room. The time that would have been spent on that was instead spent on showing random CPF shorts (Flexible Metal Hose, Highly Moral Tale, Jar of Screaming Blood, Indiana Jones, Never Throw Up Your Lung, Canadian Mounties vs The Moon Men of Saturn, and Signs of a Gullible-Ass Public), the musical interlude from Thunderbirds 6, that old, OLD footage of Robert Tilton farting (it just never gets old), the Toon Makers Sailor Moon pilot that a couple people still had no idea existed, and some other carryovers.

Next time, I'll be SURE to bring "Duck and Cover" since a lot of people haven't actually seen it. Plus, it's imperative that I get some Sid Davis stuff in there since I didn't show a single thing by him. "The Terrible Truth" is easy enough to find, and hopefully I should be able to find "Boys Beware" and "VD / Damaged Goods" (I really need more educational films about VD since it'd make the Mad TV sketch funnier by comparison), but I can't find the perennial favorite, "Live and Learn," anywhere online. I'll have to get a tape of that one. I'll also try and hunt down The Story of Menstruation (don't think that's on the Educational Archives DVDs), since I hear that one's more infamous than It's Wonderful Being a Girl.

Overall, there was always about 2-4 people in the room at all times, but it was still a good enough metric as to what I could actually show parts of in real panels. Since I don't have the fake Weird Al / MST3K educational films that Dave likes to run at Hell, I think I'll add some of the fake educational films from Look Around You for my AWA repertoire. I don't think any of that stuff's ever been shown at Hell.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like a damn fun time.

Oh yeah, I got a batch of VCDs to hand you at AWA. Including at least 5 disks of nothing but Sid Davis! And I'll throw in Duck and Cover and The Story of Menstration, too. VD shorts? I'll put together a special collection just for you...with all the blueberry cobbler you can handle!

Anonymous said...

sounds awesome. Wish I was there!

I've cleared a room with "Day Called X", too.

Rick (http://www.prelinger.com)

Unknown said...

You were there in spirit, Rick. Thanks for the Prelinger Archives!
-danno!