When I was a young'un in the '70s, whenever my 6th health teacher didn't want to teach, he'd show a film. (The one on the dangers of alcohol that starred SONNY BONO was groovy, man.) The one that scarred me for life was a safety film about electricity. I was fine with the 'don't fly kites near electrical wires' and the 'don't climb electrical pylons' portion of the film…and then a little girl with her dolly decided to play with the electrical box in her front yard. (I don't know the technical term for the things, but they're kind of rectangular, stand several feet high, and are painted a dull green.)
The lock was broken on the electrical box on that fateful day little Sally decided to explore, and she opened it right up. Inside were two white electrical thingies that Sally thought would make a perfect house for her dolly. So Sally reaches in…ZAP!...cut to a scene of a blackened, burnt up doll. I could only assume little Sally looked the same way.
To this day, if I see any neighborhood children anywhere near those boxes, even those that are safely locked, I want to scream at them to RUN AWAY! DON'T GO NEAR THE BOX! So I guess the film worked…
My name's Tracy V., and I help out at Joe Bob Briggs' website. (Joe Bob being the most famous expert on drive-in cinema ever to come out of Grapevine, Texas.)
Thanks for letting me get that traumafession off my chest,
Tracy V.
AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thank you Tracy V. for bringing an oft unspoken issue to our attention. The importance of electrical safety cannot be stressed enough! While I was unsuccessful in locating the film that traumatized you, I did unearth this chestnut from across the pond which plays out like The Gashlycrumb Tinies set in a electric sub-station. Poor J-I-M-M-M-Y!
1. I bow before Joe Bob Briggs
2. I gotta see that Sony Bono film
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AWESOME! How sick am I that I enjoy watching stupid children get electrocuted?Â
They don't make safety films like this anymore. Thankfully, I'm of age where I was privvy to some in school, but eventually, those were phased out for some cutesy cartoon starring a lightning bug named Louie who'd sing about the dangers of electricity. Never one charred little boy or girl to be seen in those.
That video may be more traumatic that the one I posted about!
Unk, there's one scene from the Sonny Bono film that I distinctly remember: the alcoholic housewife hiding her bottle of booze in the toilet tank so she could fish it out and nip from it during the day…
I Actually saw this when I was in grade school and remember that part vividly. The only other scene I remember has a man in a suit and tie leaving his home where he sees a downed power line lying across his front lawn. He kicks it, gets electrocuted and dies.
This I was never shown. The safety films shown to me as a pre-teen were those "Don't Get in the Car With Strangers" clips. No big trauma there. However, when I moved to a town that had school bus service we got those films that staged accidents where kids either caused the bus to crash or ones where a kid gets run over. The one that stuck out in my mind was the one where a girl was standing on a snowbank on the side of the bus unseen by the driver. She was arguing with a kid when the bus rode off. As it did she slipped down the snowbank and under the bus and proceeded to have her stomach run over! {You saw the bus jump- not the actual running over} It ended with the kid in the ambulence yelling in pain and coughing up blood.
Shoggoth, so glad to know I'm not alone!
I remember one of those "horrors of electricity" when I was in eighth or ninth grade. Two burly firemen showed the said film and then they rolled out a giant transformer thing with electrodes and they made hot-dogs explode. The gym stank for a good two years. Seriously.
Oh I worship Joe Bob Briggs. I emailed him once on Halloween and he wrote back! What a great guy!
I dont remember any of the saftey films they played at my school but ONE. it was fabulous! It was about a bunch of bugs (or insects) at a party and the teen girl bug who is innocent as the day is long gets in with the wrong bug crowd and starts experimenting with drugs. By the end of the film she's a hopeless junkie and she's looking for help. She goes stoned out of her gourd running towards what she THINKS is her friend lightningbug and it ends up being a heat lamp or something and she burns to death! It was wild! I'd love to see it again!
I actually used this as a blueprint for a play I wrote for Health Class a few years later about a HUMAN teen girl who starts doing drugs at a party and has no good from it (My main charactor lives though. She DOES have some scrapes with the law though!)
I WISH they still played these cuz I have an 11 year old who constantly asks me "Why not?"Â
"Dont touch electrical wires when your hands are wet"Â
"Why not?"
"Dont eat the yellow snow"Â
"Why not?"
Its like, geez, dont schools play those safety videos anymore? What the Hell are our tax dollars going toward?????
Sonny Bono also banked the fires of trauma musically with the cautionary tale "Pammie's On A Bummer". Â It's like a PSA against becoming a junkie and spoiling a potentially lucrative career as a prostitute.
The greatest public service film of all is not quite the scariest, but it's traumatic enough: "Hot Stuff", an animated fire-safety short memorable for the final line "The next time…we give the fire to the woman!"