Public information films/Public service announcements

[Michelle Garvey]

My example for this post is 1979's "Children and Ponds" narrated by Robert Powell.

I resent having my heartstrings tugged so blatantly by the use of a long blonde haired cutie pie.

Given the manner of her demise, did they cut the part where Frankenstein's Monster encounters her?

And, about the child's toy standing in for the small child's floating body...

 

[LizzieMaine]

The legendary example of this genre in the US is the "Crying Indian," first shown in 1970 and run pretty much continuously on every TV station in the country into the 1980s.

But not all is what it seems. For one thing, the Crying Indian is no such thing. He may be crying, but Iron Eyes Cody was no Indian at all -- he was an Italian-American movie actor who played so many Native American roles in films of the 1930s and 40s that he eventually began living the role offscreen as well. It wasn't until after his death that his true origin was known.

But worse than that is the origin of the spot itself. It was distributed by the Advertising Council, which began in the 1940s as a controlled front for the National Organization of Manufacturers -- a way for that ultra-right-wing big-business oriented lobbying group to issue propaganda without having to use its own letterhead. This particular spot was produced and promoted by "Keep America Beautiful," which sounded nice until you discovered that it was and is a front for a coalition of beverage and packaging manufacturers looking to undermine bottle-deposit and litter control laws then being promoted in various states as a counterreaction to the explosion of "No Deposit No Return" garbage over the landscape. By promoting litter as an "individual" problem rather than one having its origin in proft-driven corporate policies to promote certain types of packaging, the spot carefully sweeps industrial responsibility for the situation away with a dash of buckskin, tom-toms, and sniffles. Not cool, Boys.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
It’s akin to campaigns pushing volunteerism.

Yes, it’s just lovely that folks ranging from grandmas to recent grads have it in their hearts (and schedules) to give of themselves in service to the greater good. Faulting those people is not only taking aim at the wrong target, it’s also a political loser.

However, if their efforts are of real value, if what those volunteers do is something of greater utility than inflating their own sense of themselves, or padding their resumes (those volunteer activities favorably impress grad school admissions officers), then it’s something that ought have a paycheck attached.

It’s fine to be a “point of light,” I suppose. It’s nice to be able to afford it. Too many people aren’t so favorably situated.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wrote a blistering manifesto for our board of directors a few years ago when one of them floated the idea of turning the theatre into an "all volunteer" staff. I made it clear exactly what the result of such a policy would be -- pointing to the example of a theatre in a nearby town that was driven straight into the ground by an incompetent "volunteer staff" -- and made it clear that I would never darken the premises again if such a policy were to be implemented. Unlike the retired bourgeoisie, I have to work, for pay, for a living. After my presentation, the suggestion was emphatically withdrawn, with my final line echoing across the table: "If you don't want to pay the people who make this business possible, you don't have the right to be in business."

Meanwhile, there's a PSA spot from the 1960s that used to really creep me out -- it ran every year, early in the year, to warn non-citizen "aliens," in the voice of a stern narrator, that they were required to register with the "Bureau of Alien Registration." It used stark, black-and-grey drawings of people standing in line at a barred window or looking at an official letter, in the graphic style Americans tend to associate more with East Germany than with the Good Ole USA. This spot -- always the same spot -- ran f years before disappearing sometime in the early 70s, and I've never found a film or video copy of it anywhere, suggesting perhaps that it was recalled and and destroyed by The Authorities. But it made an indelible impression on me, and I always worried about those Aliens, and what would happen to them if they failed to comply.

 

[Michelle Garvey]

Children and Ponds is from 1979. It looks hokey and manipulative now because production techniques have changed and the public expects to see something different.

 

[tonyb]

Children and Ponds is from 1979. It looks hokey and manipulative now because production techniques have changed and the public expects to see something different.

A year or so ago a 6-year-old drowned in a pond in a public park maybe a mile from where I sit at present. Reports are that he somehow got free of adult supervision and walked out onto thin ice and, well, you can guess what happened next.

No one needed to be told it was a terrible thing. I can’t drive past that park without thinking of it.

 

[3fingers]

It was distributed by the Advertising Council

I make no claim to having been a particularly astute child, but even then the Ad Council spots on television, radio and later in print many times seemed offputting and sometimes nearing creepy to me. I didn't realize then that it was because of the slippery manipulation going on. Whether it was corporate or government propaganda doesn't matter, the effect was the same.

 

[EngProf]

I wrote a blistering manifesto for our board of directors a few years ago when one of them floated the idea of turning the theatre into an "all volunteer" staff. I made it clear exactly what the result of such a policy would be -- pointing to the example of a theatre in a nearby town that was driven straight into the ground by an incompetent "volunteer staff" -- and made it clear that I would never darken the premises again if such a policy were to be implemented. Unlike the retired bourgeoisie, I have to work, for pay, for a living. After my presentation, the suggestion was emphatically withdrawn, with my final line echoing across the table: "If you don't want to pay the people who make this business possible, you don't have the right to be in business."

Meanwhile, there's a PSA spot from the 1960s that used to really creep me out -- it ran every year, early in the year, to warn non-citizen "aliens," in the voice of a stern narrator, that they were required to register with the "Bureau of Alien Registration." It used stark, black-and-grey drawings of people standing in line at a barred window or looking at an official letter, in the graphic style Americans tend to associate more with East Germany than with the Good Ole USA. This spot -- always the same spot -- ran f years before disappearing sometime in the early 70s, and I've never found a film or video copy of it anywhere, suggesting perhaps that it was recalled and and destroyed by The Authorities. But it made an indelible impression on me, and I always worried about those Aliens, and what would happen to them if they failed to comply.

I thought I was the only one who remembered that annual "Aliens" announcement.
Saying that it was in a stern voice doesn't do it justice - it was more like: "A-li-ens" in a deep and echo-chamber-sounding voice.
Being somewhat older than LizzieM, I and my friends weren't creeped-out by the voice or commercial. We thought it was hilarious, and joked that it was intended to intimidate the Martians and Venusians who were living among us into filling out the proper Government forms.

I also wish I could see that again!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Here's another one that disturbed and baffled me. Take a tip from baseball hero Willie Mays -- don't play with blasting caps.

We never had blasting caps lying around loose in my town, and I felt sorry for Willie having to live in the kind of town where this was a problem.

 

[tonyb]

The “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” spots were a hoot, and, I’d wager, quite opposite in their effect from the intended one.

I recall presenting my brother with a silk-screened T-shirt bearing a cartoon image of two fried eggs and the caption “This Is Yout Brain on Drugs,” and, beneath that, an image of two fried eggs with bacon and toast and a caption reading “This Is Your Brain with Bacon and Two Slices of Toast.”

 

[3fingers]

Blasting caps were apparently a huge deal someplace in the early '70s. I remember hearing about them and all of the horribly maimed children injured by them regularly, but neither I nor my friends ever saw any. I too wondered where in the world outside of a gravel quarry would this be an issue.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And yet another one that was run to death c. 1968 as part of the mandatory anti-smoking spots required to be run by all TV stations one-for-one with all cigarette ads they carried.

I didn't have any problem with the message -- I hated smoking with a violent passion, and used to soak my father's cigarettes in bleach and put them back in the package, hoping they would explode when he lit one up (like I said, we had no blasting caps to play with) -- but I was peeved that there was no female version. Like Mother -- Like Daughter, as Ma yells on the phone at a collection agent or cusses out a snowplow driver with a Kent 100 sticking out of her face. Ah, nostalgia.

 

[EngProf]

Blasting caps were apparently a huge deal someplace in the early '70s. I remember hearing about them and all of the horribly maimed children injured by them regularly, but neither I nor my friends ever saw any. I too wondered where in the world outside of a gravel quarry would this be an issue.

Blasting caps were a sort of combination of reality and urban legend here in Middle Tennessee. The reality part is that the geology here consists of about six inches of dirt on top of limestone that seems to go to the center of the Earth.
If you wanted to put in a road, a building, a water line, or anything else you had to do some blasting - sometimes a lot of blasting. That, at least in theory, was the source of the illicit blasting caps.

The urban legend part is that we heard that some kid in some school somewhere had either found one (or stole one) and either blew his hand off or at least had it taken away by the school or a cop. And then the kid went to "reform school"...
The truth is that we never actually had any specific knowledge of that mythical kid who found (or stole) the blasting cap(s).
It would have been in the mid-60's when they were theoretically "in vogue" around here.

 

[Michelle Garvey]

Lonely Water from 1973, voiced by Donald Pleasence

 

[Haversack]

Blasting powder and dynamite, along with associated paraphernalia such as fuse and blasting caps were commonly available at hardware and feed stores up until 1968. And only required a $5.00 federal explosives license to purchase from chemical supply businesses up till 2001. Since people could be casual about small things like blasting caps and they were the same size and shape as much less powerful firecrackers, it was not unknown for kids to be able to get their hands on them. (if however briefly). Perhaps not so much in cities and their suburbs but definitely in small towns and rural areas. In an era when heavy construction machinery was much less common, explosives were useful to the farmer and contractor for removing stumps and rocks. My great uncle was one of the last hard rock gold miners in the Sierras and used it as well. Hence the PSAs.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

I remember a number of the blasting cap PSA spots when I was a kid.
The reality of living inside a large city, meant that the odds of us blowing our hands off was fairly low, since there was little blasting inside the city limits.

Good thing we still have the marvel of Zinc

 

[LizzieMaine]

This one always made me very sad. I wanted to be friends with this kid and hang out at the library with him.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Heart Association certainly had a sense of humor.

Some quality talent in this one -- the poor sap with the cigarettes is William Redfield, a very fine Broadway and TV actor who was one of the founders of the Actors' Studio, and the cabbie is none other than Sid Melton, best known as Alf -- of Alf and Ralph -- on "Green Acres."

 

[Michelle Garvey]

This pro-seat belts/child restraints in cars one is really effective - the love between mother and daughter demonstrated by the mother placing the necklace on the wee bairn, the stuffed white bear... then the white flowers in the shape of a bear on the child's coffin.

 

[scotrace]

Well, we've found something that isn't on the internet--or wasn't until this thread. Googling the film Lizzie mentioned, "Bureau of Alien Registration," brings up a SINGLE result, this page. I don't think I've seen a google search with one result in more than ten years.

I remember one well from the Heart Association. Son with graphic, but I can't find it.
"Tooooo get right to the heart of the matter, where there's smoke, where there's smoke,
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE"
VO: Where there's smoke, there's danger of heart disease and cancer. A message from...."

Perhaps the best is the one that said, "Vaccinate your kid, you nincompoop, so we don't have a resurgence of polio, measles..."

Ha ha JK.