Oddball Films presents Schoolhouse Schlock!, a ridiculous night of campy, trashy, antiquated, bizarre, and hilarious 16mm educational films from the archive. From the 1940s-1980s, with creepy puppets, evangelical batmobiles, children dancing like toasters, outdated science, and musical numbers galore, it's the best (and worst) educational film has to offer! School kids are forced to act out household appliances in a sad attempt at physical education in Perc! Pop! Sprinkle! (1969). Encyclopedia Britannica teaches you to wash your hair once a week and give yourself a good rubdown with a towel in Keeping Neat and Clean (1956). Science has come a long way since the 1940s, see just how far in two antiquated science shorts: Blind as a Bat (1955) from the evangelical Christian science organization The Moody Institute of Science and Magnetism (1947) as Dick and Jane explore magnets. A disgusting puppet named Trezlar tags along with an artist and learns all about rainbows, prisms, and Light (1980). Schoolhouse Rock brings us the much sampled musical favorite 3 Is The Magic Number (1973). Crash, Bang, Boom (1970), an early seventies oddity, proved that “school” plus “band” could add up to "far out". Learn about basic nutrition with a gaggle of creepy singing children in the campy classroom primer The Eating, Feel Good Movie (1974). More angry little monsters sing about their anger issues in another mini educational musical I'm Mad at Me (1974) from the Feelings series. Woody Allen and the Hot Dog gang weigh in on that age old question: How Do They Make Playing Cards? (1970). Plus, a strange trip to the school nurse: How Awful (1972) and more terrible surprises for the early arrivals. Everything screened on 16mm film from and in our massive stock footage archive.
Perc! Pop! Sprinkle! (Color, 1969)
Keeping Clean and Neat (B+W, 1956)
An Encyclopedia Britannica cheese buffet reminding us all the importance of good health and habits. Don and Mildred are two dirty little kids hoping to get chosen for the 8th grade assembly, but will their lack of hygiene keep them from being picked for the coveted spots? Thankfully, with a helpful narrator and magically appearing shoe shine kits and sped up cleaning sequences, these kids won't ever not keep neat and clean again! Learn valuable tips like washing your hair once a week and "give yourself a good rubdown with a towel".
Light (Color, 1980s)
What better way to learn about light and rainbows than with a disgusting puppet creature than crawls out of the ground and has never experienced light but somehow speaks perfect English? Meet Sandy and her new friend Trezlar as they discover light, colors, rainbows, prisms and waterfalls in this bizarro educational short.
The Eating, Feel Good Movie (Color, 1974)
A musical laugh riot. Children dressed in their Sunday best have a sepia-toned tea party and begin to sing about the food groups over enticing shots of vintage food. One boy sings longily over a meaty montage "I'd like a roast or a chop or a steak or a stew so I'll have big strong muscles and I'll grow right too." A creepy campy masterpiece!
Watch pre-teen Woodstock wannabes get groovy! Music education films were a perfect vehicle for schoolroom pop sensibility of the late 60s and early 70s. This introduction to the world of percussion might have taken far out a bit over the edge, thanks to its artfully annoying, anti-jingle theme tune “narration”, but that’s what makes it an Oddball classic. From our pals at Xerox!
Just Awful (Mark Harris, 1971, Color)
Curator’s Biography
Kat Shuchter is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, artist and esoteric film hoarder. She has helped program shows at the PFA, The Nuart and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater and was crowned “Found Footage Queen” of Los Angeles, 2009. She has programmed over 250 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.
About Oddball Films
Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.