Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson's Final Exam: Shockucation's Last Hurrah, the 41st and final in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. After 40 months of sex, drugs, and schlock and roll, we're retiring everyone's favorite educational programming with one final explosion of weird! Teen girls need to watch out for intruders, even when they inexplicably become your instructor of Self-Defense for Girls (1969). In the evangelical Charlie Chaplin rip-off Charlie Churchman and the Clowns (1960s), a proselytizing pastor goes to the carnival in search of new souls and encounters the most terrifying clown in cinema history and crucifies a ventriloquist dummy. Guardiana: Safety Woman saves you from a stove fire and from your dad's gun in Harm Hides at Home (1974). Or learn about poisons with Egbert, one puppet boy with a penchant for poisoning himself over and over again in Watch Out for Poison (1970s). Another disgusting puppet learns all about dental hygiene in Big Mouth Goes to the Dentist (1979). Mike Miller is a good Mormon Boy, but will he be lured by fast cars and wild women in the hilarious Measure of a Man (1962) from Mormon-mental hygiene pioneer Wetzel Whitaker. NFL great and needlepoint enthusiast Rosey Grier sings "It's Alright to Cry" from Free to Be...You and Me (1974) for all those boys questioning the masculinity of emotions. Three pubescent girls lament about their underdeveloped bodies in an uncomfortable musical number "The Itty Bitty Titty Committee" from Junior High School (1978). With door prizes, other surprises and more shockucation for the early birds, it's your last chance to learn your lesson!
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Featuring:
Charlie Churchman and the Clowns (B+W, 1960, Mel White)A pathetic attempt to make evangelism funny and hip for the kids; Charlie Churchman was a proselytizing ripoff of Charlie Chaplin. The star of several films, in this installment the circus is in town and Charlie has been tasked with getting a bunch of clowns and carnies to come to church. Co-starring the most disturbing clown you have ever seen (pictured above and soon to appear in your nightmares). The finale of the film includes a reenactment of the life and death of Jesus demonstrated with a ventriloquist dummy and left the audience screaming!
Measure of a Man (Color, 1962)
Nobody does a drinking and driving scare film quite like the Mormons! Mike Miller is a good boy with a thoughtful and anxious mother who is none too pleased that he's going out driving with bad boys Hal and Blaine. They love "wild" girls, fast cars and drinking beer; and everywhere they go, crazy New Orleans jazz underscores their every move. Will Mike be able to hold his own with their wild ways, even turn them around to his square way of thinking or will he be pressured into drinking and necking the night away? The interior monologues will leave you speechless with gems like "I wonder how come mothers know so much" and "I don't know much about wild girls... might be educational, though." Directed by Mormon-educational film pioneer Wetzel Whitaker, who worked as an animator for Di$ney for 20 years before becoming the director of the BYU Motion Picture Studio.
One puppet family has a penchant for poisoning their young puppet son, Egbert. Poor Egbert has to be poisoned four times before his clueless parents finally decide to poison-proof their home.
Finding a dirth of positive, modern-thinking children’s literature and programming, Marlo Thomas (That Girl) set out to gather some of the biggest names at the time to teach the new generation of children about race and gender equality, caring, sharing, overcoming stereotypes, self-sufficiency, the validity of boys owning dolls, and the brotherhood of man. First a record, then a book, and in 1974, Free To Be You And Me became an Emmy-Winning television broadcast. With singing, dancing, cartoons and puppets! The magic of Free To Be You and Me was its effortless way of making heavy ideas of feminism, consumerism and understanding palatable and entertaining for children and adult-children alike.
And Then It Happened (Color, 1972)
Produced and directed by Gene Starbecker, the “father of the school bus safety film” this classic cult film features lots of noisy, wisecracking kids and a catastrophe that has permanently scarred (!) anyone who has seen it in school over 30 years ago. Starbecker produced over 970 documentaries and 300 television programs (including the gritty Broderick Crawford cop show “Highway Patrol”). The story concerns two horrific bus accidents and the rowdy behavior of the kids aboard that led to the deadly outcomes. There are knife-fights and dogs, smoking, pill-popping and even mice on the loose! The bus drivers are played by veteran actors Josh Mostel (son of Zero Mostel) and Peggy Pope (9 to 5), still early in their careers.