One Got Fat...

Nick Gillespie | March 10, 2006

and the rest of us just got sick to our stomachs.

Hit & Run reader Rough Ol' Boy bloods the way to the watering hole by linking to this bizarre 1963 bike safety film, One Got Fat, which eerily anticipates Planet of the Apes (really). Putting on his best Robert Osborne, ROB notes

This is a bike safety video from 1963, and it is straight fucked up. It's the sort of thing that if you watched it after taking a ten strip, you'd spend the rest of your life in a mental institute muttering about Phil Floogle and Trigby Fipps. They just don't make safety videos like this anymore.

Check it out here.

Comments

|3.10.06 @ 3:08PM|#

ten strip?

|3.10.06 @ 3:13PM|#

ten strip?


Ten hits of acid.

|3.10.06 @ 3:15PM|#

Narrated by Burgess Merideth to boot.

Remember the one where he woke up the same, but everything else changed? That one sucked.

|3.10.06 @ 3:20PM|#

Wow. That was straight fucked up.

|3.10.06 @ 3:21PM|#

This has totally blown my mind. I distinctly remember watching this movie in class in the early 70s. I recall the images and not the audio (save the smarmy sound of the narrator's voice) because, as usual, the speaker on the ancient projector was shot. Plus the kids were making a racket.

How strange that this memory fragment was to be tucked away for 30 years, and be brought to life by the internet. Cosmic, man. Cosmic.

|3.10.06 @ 3:23PM|#

I don't think I'm old but I really really think I've seen this before.

|3.10.06 @ 3:33PM|#

Ten hits of acid.

Yes, now mute the sound and crank on the first 15 minutes of Pink Floyd, The Wall, and it will make sense!

|3.10.06 @ 3:34PM|#

Wow....just....wow.

|3.10.06 @ 3:37PM|#

Narrated by Edward Everett Horton, the same guy who did "Fractured Fairy Tales" from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

|3.10.06 @ 3:39PM|#

Exit Tinkerbell MacDillingfiddy! Serves that narcissistic bitch right!

R C Dean|3.10.06 @ 3:43PM|#

Cosmic, man. Cosmic.

Sounds like Mr. Nice Guy disregarded ROB's advice to stay away from the acid.

|3.10.06 @ 3:43PM|#

So why is the U.N. and the C.D.C. blaming Cocacola and McDonalds for childhood obecity, when cleary it is bike safety that is the problem?

R C Dean|3.10.06 @ 3:44PM|#

Cosmic, man. Cosmic.

Sounds like Mr. Nice Guy disregarded ROB's advice to stay away from the acid.

|3.10.06 @ 3:59PM|#

There seemed to be a fixation on the buttocks of young boys and girls.

|3.10.06 @ 4:02PM|#

The music's what does it for me.

That...was disturbing. They were really showing this to kids? I was a tyke in the early '70s and I don't remember this one. Whenever our teachers got bored or we had a substitute, they would show us those old "Professor Science" movies or the Hot Dog films.

|3.10.06 @ 4:03PM|#

This has to be a joke. This is allegedly a "bicycle safety" video, but not one child was wearing a helmet.

|3.10.06 @ 4:17PM|#

I remember thinking that Home Alone was kind of creepy when it first came out. It treated live actors as if they were in a cartoon (I mean who would get up from a brick to the forehead?!) And now I see this example predates it by two decades.

|3.10.06 @ 4:54PM|#

What's really gross is that all ten actors had to fuck Edward Everett Horton for the part. And let him put in their tails for them.

Garth|3.10.06 @ 4:57PM|#

Post-Modern Parent has it part right: no helmets is clearly a prob but let's face it: is there really a place left in America where a bunch of kids can/would:

1) ride their bikes 9 whole blocks to a (molester-infested, natch) park
2) Pack their own lunches
3) Be without parental oversight
4) not have their bikes motoerized in some fashion
5) have that many kids brought together on a "play-date" C'mon no way. Most of them would be in some form of supervized learning experience or sumthang
6) not one of them was wiped out playing a game-boy or other such device
7) there we no cell-phones making this entirely unbelievable
8) Not a single one sported a tattoo, jewerly or other sign of prematurematurity
9) where was the warning not to ride bikes under the influence?
10) why was only one fat? Demographically I thought that that was impossible
11) Where was the minority representation?

I would hasten to add that this program, even if you digitally added helmets and other protective gear would not be acceptable bcse it posits that kids should be out riding about town w/out supervision.

|3.10.06 @ 5:07PM|#

Does anybody know if the guys at Mystery Science Theater 3000 ever got around to this one? If not, that's a pity 'cause it would have been a classic.

|3.10.06 @ 5:14PM|#

Okay, I watched it. And I'm sleeping with the lights on tonight.

Somehow this film manages to combine Planet Of The Apes, Carnival Of Souls, those Booji Boy shorts the DEVO guys used to make and the Final Destination series.

When I was in grade school, they showed us The Day The Bicycles Disappeared. If they'd shown us this one, I'd probably be incarcerated today.

|3.10.06 @ 5:18PM|#

FIREWALLED!!!

Darn. I'll have to watch this on somebody else's computer.

Post-Modern Parent has it part right: no helmets is clearly a prob but let's face it: is there really a place left in America where a bunch of kids can/would:

And Garth successfully executes the tricky Triple Nested Colon ... ;)

|3.10.06 @ 5:36PM|#

And Garth successfully executes the tricky Triple Nested Colon ... ;)
Sounds like a wierd sex injury.

|3.10.06 @ 5:37PM|#

The eyes...those eyes...can't get them out of my head...bulging before the accident...(shudder)

And ypu can't just only mention Pink Floyd without mentioning that those monkey faces are waaaaaaaay too similar to the masks in The Wall the movie...

|3.10.06 @ 5:41PM|#

....Wow. That was the most disturbing thing I've seen in quite some time. This might explain a lot about the sixties, actually.

Heck, where was Troy McLure? "Hi, I'm actor Troy McLure. You might remember me from such Drivers' Ed filmstrips such as 'Alice's Adventures through the Windshield' and 'The Decapitation of Larry Leadfoot.'"

I can't see the MiSTies doing this, actually--there's no challenge. It practically MiSTs itself. "Poor Filbert. He just wasn't bright enough." *shudder* Ewww, creepy, creepy, creepy.

Warren|3.10.06 @ 6:10PM|#

Amusing, but not half as fucked up as safety films from the 50's. The people that put this together understood what they were doing. It was intentionally bizarre. An earlier decade produced stuff that was sincere in its surrealism. Bert the Turtle anyone?

|3.10.06 @ 6:31PM|#

SHHHHHFFF!

DUCK AND COVER!

|3.10.06 @ 6:46PM|#

If anyone can find them, get a hold of the MST3K "Shorts" collections. In their 11 season run, they lambasted all those ancient educational films.

You have never known horror until you've seen "Mr. B Natural."

"You gotta inspect your horn, boy!"

|3.10.06 @ 7:14PM|#

The hell with the political discussions, THIS is why I come to "Hit and Run."

I think the last kid set the whole thing up somehow. I want those brakes checked to see if they were tampered with.

|3.10.06 @ 7:21PM|#

Triple Nested Colon? Better than a prolapsed colon, I guess.

TC|3.10.06 @ 7:29PM|#

So any of you other geezers remember the one about the "Breathing Stick"?


I think the teacher was outside taking a smoke break during that one!! :)

|3.10.06 @ 7:57PM|#

It's not right that they pick on Mossby Pomegranate...maybe he was a principled libertarian who didn't consider bike registration a legitimate function of the state.

And seriously, what percentage of registered bikes that are stolen are ever recovered?

dhex|3.10.06 @ 8:10PM|#

"sex education for trainables"

is really hard to sit through.

the past is a deadly place.

|3.10.06 @ 8:10PM|#

Other Ed films at:
http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger

|3.10.06 @ 8:14PM|#

Triple Nested Colon: great name for a band...

Rich Ard|3.10.06 @ 9:22PM|#

I clearly don't need to smoke any more of this.

|3.10.06 @ 10:44PM|#

This is about 10 years before my time; either that or I repressed the memory of seeing it.

|3.10.06 @ 11:09PM|#

I just burned one, had a Fosters and watched the video. I have no concrete evidence of which killed more brain cells...but I do have a guess.

|3.10.06 @ 11:18PM|#

he is not a monkey.

You know that because he doesn't fling his shit, masterbate all the time and is a safe bike rider

brian423|3.10.06 @ 11:25PM|#

It makes me think of the old Twilight Zone where everyone in the world is grotesque, except for a small number of beautiful people who are pariahs.

And yes, it looks a bit Scott Peterson-ish that the normal-faced kid eats his friends' lunches so contentedly.

|3.11.06 @ 12:46AM|#

""sex education for trainables" is really hard to sit through."

"the past is a deadly place."

dhex, I'm not sure what I hate more.

You.

or Google Video.

Some things you just can't unsee.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|3.11.06 @ 1:16AM|#

Sometimes my sack is big and hard to handle, but I'm not asking Orv to take care of it.

|3.11.06 @ 2:03AM|#

God, and it was bad in the hospital when their tails were nestled between their heads and necks...made it look like something out of the X-Files with the tentacles of aliens starting to rip through the burnt flesh of a nuclear blast survivors...it just keeps getting worse
:(

|3.11.06 @ 5:30AM|#

AAIIIIIEEEEEEEE!

OK, I finally saw it. It is everything you all have said, and more.

But dhex's "Sex Education for Trainables" (high-functioning mentally handicapped folks, apparently) is even more disturbing.

First, watching the Cheech Marin guy paw the hair of the girl he picks up during the "hippy version of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'" music at the beginning.

Then, suddenly realizing that the painting hanging on the wall behind the narrator's head is the exact same painting that was hanging on the wall of my aunt's house when I was a kid.

Then, having a room full of people yell, "Penis!" and then all the synonyms like some kind of mad living dirty thesaurus.

I'm watching this as I write, BTW.

Oh God -- now the man/woman diagrams.

Oh, I can't watch any more.

|3.11.06 @ 5:40AM|#

Oh fuck -- the urinal scene!

I'm not going to get any sleep tonight. Might as well just stay awake.

Forever.

Jim Anderson|3.11.06 @ 9:36AM|#

What about Coily the Spring Sprite? "Nooooo spriiiiinnnnngs!" is what they howl in hell.

Warren|3.11.06 @ 10:14AM|#

Sex Ed. For Trainables is way creepy. The fact that it was made for teachers makes it even more pathetic, but somehow less disturbing to my mind.

|3.11.06 @ 11:33AM|#

Wow dhex! I think the touching mother-son masturbation gotcha scene inspired Randy Rhoads. The soundtrack sounds eerily like the chords in "You Can't Kill Rock and Roll."

Warren|3.11.06 @ 11:43AM|#

The narrator in Trainables looks like Jerry Stiller. Hey! It's a Festivus - for the rest of us. [rimshot]

Thank you! I'll be here all week.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.11.06 @ 11:45AM|#

My favorite part was when Tink gets nailed by the Hash Brown Truck.

Dude, that looks like it was filmed in Sunny Hills.

|3.11.06 @ 11:52AM|#

"The narrator in Trainables looks like Jerry Stiller."

I thought he looked like a melted Jack Nicholson.

|3.11.06 @ 2:19PM|#

You all scoff, but you learned something...

right?

RIGHT?!

riiiiight.

|3.11.06 @ 3:34PM|#

I'm going to try to put this delicately. And excuse my ignorance...

But, if retarded people have kids, will the kids have the same mental handicaps as the parents?

|3.11.06 @ 4:44PM|#

Here's what the CDC says: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dd/mr3.htm#causes

What causes mental retardation? Can it be prevented?

Mental retardation can start anytime before a child reaches the age of 18 years. It can be caused by injury, disease, or a brain abnormality. These causes can happen before a child is born or during childhood. For many children, the cause of their mental retardation is not known. Some of the most common known causes of mental retardation are Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, and fragile X syndrome, all of which occur before birth. Other causes that take place before a child is born include genetic conditions (such as Cri-du-chat syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome), infections (such as congenital cytomegalovirus), or birth defects that affect the brain (such as hydrocephalus or cortical atrophy). Other causes of mental retardation (such as asphyxia) happen while a baby is being born or soon after birth. Still other causes of mental retardation do not happen until a child is older. These may include serious head injury, stroke, or certain infections such as meningitis.

.....

Right now, we do not know how to prevent most conditions that cause mental retardation. However, there are some causes that can be prevented. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is one such cause. A woman can prevent FAS by not drinking when she is pregnant. CDC funds several projects to study how common FAS is, how to encourage women not to drink during pregnancy, and how to help people with FAS and their families. [Read more about CDC's FAS program]

Some metabolic conditions, such as phenylketonuria (PKU), galactosemia, and congenital hypothyroidism, can cause mental retardation and other problems if babies with these conditions do not begin treatment soon after birth. Parents and doctors can find out if a child has one of these conditions through a simple blood test or heel prick. Newborns in the United States are tested soon after birth, but different states test for different conditions. Parents can request that their baby be tested for all conditions that have tests. Children that do have these conditions are usually treated with medicine or put on a special diet. If the correct treatment is started soon enough after the child is born and continues as long as needed, the child will not have mental retardation. [Learn more about newborn screening in your state] [Learn more about the conditions screened for in newborn screening programs]

It's also important for women with PKU to follow a special diet when they are pregnant. If they do not follow their diets, their babies are very likely to be affected by mental retardation and other birth defects. [Read the CDC press release about this topic] [Read the complete article]

Another cause of mental retardation that can be prevented is kernicterus, a kind of brain damage that happens when a newborn baby has too much jaundice. In some newborn babies, the liver makes too much yellow pigment called bilirubin. If too much bilirubin builds up in a new baby's body, the skin and whites of the eyes turn yellow. This yellow coloring is called jaundice. A little jaundice is not a problem. It is actually very common in newborn babies and usually goes away by itself. Some babies, however, have too much jaundice. If not treated, these high levels of bilirubin can damage a baby's brain. Kernicterus most often causes cerebral palsy and hearing loss, but in some children it can also cause mental retardation. Kernicterus can be prevented by using special lights (phototherapy) or other therapies to treat babies. [Read more about kernicterus]

...........................................

Here's some information on fertility and Down's syndrome, which theoratically could be applied to any genetic condition that will outright cause mental retardation (as opposed to PKU which is preventable): http://www.downs-syndrome.org.uk/DSA_Faqs.aspx#faq31

Can men & women with Down's syndrome get married and have children?

People with Down's syndrome have the right to have personal and sexual relationships, and to get married. The DSA knows of a number of happily married couples where one or both partners have Down's syndrome. It is important that young people with Down's syndrome receive education in the area of relationships and sexuality. As in other areas of learning, they may need more support with this than some of their peers.



Both women and men with Down's syndrome can be fertile, although both sexes have a reduced fertility rate. They therefore need advice on, and access to, contraception. People with Down's syndrome need careful and sensitive advice about having children, as there are a number of issues to consider. Some people with learning disabilities can successfully parent their children, given the right support. However, many couples with learning disabilities decide for themselves not to have children because of the responsibility and hard work involved, or for financial reasons. Where one parent has Down's syndrome, there is a 35% to 50% chance that the child would inherit the syndrome. This chance is even higher where both parents have Down's syndrome. There is also a high chance that pregnancy would end in miscarriage. Women with Down's syndrome are also more likely than other women to have a premature baby, or to need a caesarian section.

|3.11.06 @ 10:48PM|#

What a great way to teach bike safety AND Darwinian natural selection!!

And the narrator apparently did Jay Ward cartoons, as well.

|3.12.06 @ 4:23PM|#

Hey, do any of you guys (btw, I always use the term "guys" as gender nuetral unless I juxtipose it with "gals") feel like riding bikes?

|3.12.06 @ 4:27PM|#

Is there some evolution sub-text in that the sole survivor is sans monkey mask?