# Movies/Shows you watched in school. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2015, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046 "2015-12-10T04:26:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Brodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cc9497/32.png) [@Brodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brodi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/1 "2015-12-10T04:26:04Z")
So, what movies or TV shows (in any format) did you watch in school? School being anything from elementary all the way to college. These are what I can remember, so probably missing some. The one’s I can’t remember the title of I wrote a description of what I remember about it. Elementary School (K-5) Ichabod and Mr Toad The Magic School Bus Reading Rainbow Something were a boy falls down a hill and dies. Bill Nye the Science Guy Alvin and the Chipmunks meet Frankenstein A weird CGI thing that was like a screen saver on acid (not the Minds Eye series). A safety PSA about electricity. Mid/Jr High (6-8th grade) Remember the Titans Romeo and Juliet Several docudramas about the lives of various artists and composers. Of Mice and Men Something about a girl that plays basketball and gets injured. The Diary of Anne Frank High School (9th-12th grade) Radio Hamlet The Lion King Cars The Odyssey Some movie about British kids and money. Documentary about Edgar Allan Poe. Frankenstein (the '90s version) Pay it Forward Schindler’s List Amazing Grace Two of the School House Rock shorts. Donald in Math land (?) ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/2 "2015-12-10T07:49:30Z")
The only “entertainment” ones I remember from school (as opposed to “educational” ones) would be 1940s Superman cartoons that we studied in World Politics class in high school. They might not seem applicable to world politics, but we were studying the geopolitics of WWII, and one of the cartoons was “Superman vs. the Japoteurs.” There were no entertainment films in my undergraduate years, except for my course in Cinema Studies: _Citizen Kane, Intolerance, In Which We Serve, Triumph of the Will, Battleship Potemkin,_ and so on. In law school, however, I can remember a number: _– The Castle – To Kill a Mockingbird – Inherit the Wind – The Verdict – My Cousin Vinny_ There were also excerpts from (IIRC) _Body Heat_ (regarding the rule against perpetuities), and a “Judge Judy” show involving the law of fixtures. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/3 "2015-12-10T12:56:04Z")
At the moment I can’t recall watching anything in school after maybe 7th grade, but the ones I remember are: The Red Balloon The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Some Disney movie with Jiminy Cricket (may be the same one as TLOSH?) Some Disney(?) movie about a boy and a raccoon that kept stealing eggs from his grandfather’s hen house Murder by Death I know there’s got to be many more and I can’t seem to bring them to mind. Maybe others’ recollections will jog my own since I think some films were shown in all the schools. I mean, who \*hasn’t \*seen **The Red Balloon**? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/4 "2015-12-10T14:36:21Z")
It was an annual occurrence in grade school for a while to have a school-wide showing of _Paddle to the Sea_. In what was likely 1972, we all got bussed to Oshkosh to see 1776 in a theater. I guess the administration thought it was educational. I learned something that day - I never knew our founding fathers could sing so well! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/5 "2015-12-10T16:27:45Z")
In K-12, I can’t remember anything on TV in a classroom context other than an occasional TV show from the brand new PBS station (new because you needed cable to get it). They did put the 1969 World Series on in the auditorium so students could watch in the study hall (this was before World Series night games). In college, I took a course in Ingmar Bergman’s films and saw 19 of them. Other than that, I can’t recall anything. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/6 "2015-12-10T17:07:13Z")
Grade school: several of Disney’s educational shorts to which I don’t recall the title. My middle school had an annual end-of-year thing where everybody (students and staff) gathered in the auditorium for a movie. One year was _The World’s Greatest Athlete_ and another was _The Black Hole_. Don’t recall the third. High school, Freshman English: _To Build a Fire_ and probably one or two other things I can’t recall. Retaking a semester of Junior English in summer school: _Tron_. I think the teacher didn’t feel like doing anything that day. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/7 "2015-12-10T17:38:50Z")
I’m sure we watched some in my grade school (1979-87), but I’m not recalling them at the moment. In high school, one of my classes went to the theater to watch the Mel Gibson version of _Hamlet_. In my senior year, our English teacher showed _Deliverance_ since we were reading the novel. Same year, our History teacher showed _Glory_, but I was out sick those days. Then there was Father Moellering (whose name I’m probably misspelling), senior year religion. He showed a movie literally every day. He was approximately 700 years old. He might lecture for a few minutes, usually to criticize non-Catholic religions, but otherwise he just hit Play and sat behind his desk. I remember none of the movies except for the one where a group of kids were in a car wreck or something and went to hell because they hadn’t told their friends about Jesus. It was pretty scary. The kids were all tossed in dark cells by some kind of demons IIRC, and you just heard them screaming as the movie went to its final fade out. Oh, and I watched a movie about the Milgram experiment in one class. That might have been Fr. Moellering’s class, come to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/8 "2015-12-10T17:58:46Z")
[The Bell Laboratory Science Series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Laboratory_Science_Series) (“Our Mister Sun”, “Hemo the Magnificent”, etc.) Several [Readers Digest](http://www.imdb.com/company/co0046092/) films. (“I am Joe’s Heart”, “I am Joe’s Lung”, etc.) When studying _Romeo and Juliet_, we watched the Franco Zefferelli film. When studying Edgar Allen Poe, we watched a film version of _The Fall of the House of Usher._ The screenplay had been done by Isaac Asimov. In addition to the film itself, there was a “documentary” in which Asimov discussed how he adapted Poe’s story from print to cinema. When studying _Moby Dick_, we watched the John Huston film. (Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab.) About once a semester, my high school Spanish teacher would show an old movie to the class. I saw Charlie Chaplin’s _The Gold Rush_ and Buster Keaton’s _The General._ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/9 "2015-12-10T18:21:13Z")
We watched mainly educational films, although I don’t know if they were part of a series. More often,m we had filmstrips (a series of projected stills from a coil of film, shown to the accompaniment of a recording that told you when to change the picture (BING!)) Pepper Mill is a substitute teacher, and I’m amazed at how often they shows DVD movies in class. To the best of my recollection, I only saw three commercial films at school during school hours: **The Buccaneer** (1958)-- historical biopic of Andrew Jackson (Charlton Heston) and Jean laFitte (Yull Brynner, with hair). I have no idea why the Nuns of St. Mary’s broke with their usual traditions and shepherded everyone into the auditorium to watch this. Maybe someone loaned them the film for free. It was hard to watch, because the shades they pulled over the windows didn’t stop the light from coming in, and the screen was pretty washed out. Then the film broke, and we never did see the end. the nuns berated us over this, saying that all we really wanted to do was watch things like _The Three Stooges_. **Lonely are the Brave** (1962) – Again, I don’t know why they showed us this oner. One fine day they convened all my high school in the auditorium to watch this. At least the high school auditorium had no windows, so you could see the film. The film didn’t break, so we got to see the whole thing. I still think I’d have been happier watching the Three Stooges. **On the Waterfront** (1954) – We watched this in one of my high school English classes, and this time I know the reason – we were analyzing it. Good film, but not one of my favorites. We got to heat Marlon Brando make his famous “I Coulda been a contendah” speech. One time we saw a film during my elementary school years during school hours, but not in the school building. They marched us to the local theater a couple of blocks away to watch **the Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima** (1952). Hey, it was a Catholic school. At least the screen wasn’t washjed out by sunlight. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/10 "2015-12-10T18:26:21Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Grade school: several of Disney’s educational shorts to which I don’t recall the title. I remember Johnny Appleseed ([https://youtu.be/484AJlOnOnc?list=PLbCID99Eoh8T6cxzrTdDDAj8GqoF7jKZn](https://youtu.be/484AJlOnOnc?list=PLbCID99Eoh8T6cxzrTdDDAj8GqoF7jKZn)) and Headless Horseman. I remember another one that had American tall tales including Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CNtcDjywBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CNtcDjywBA)). I also remember Free To Be You and Me being a favorite when I was in 1st through maybe 3rd or 4th grade. We saw a lot of Mulligan Stew ([https://youtu.be/634-QuYgfMI](https://youtu.be/634-QuYgfMI)) also. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/11 "2015-12-10T18:35:37Z")
Too late to add: In high school I remember seeing Romeo and Juliet (with the nude scene), Great Expectations, Grapes of Wrath, Who am I this Time ([Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon in "Who am I this Time", 1982 - YouTube](https://youtu.be/GZMurRu4qSY)), and that movie where Jason Bateman and his sister spend all day watching a wall. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/12 "2015-12-10T18:41:31Z")
In third grade Spanish we watched La Puerta Abierta (the open door) which I assume was a show. Mostly we had educational filmstrips, which doesn’t count, I think. In college though I didn’t have any movies a film class showed theirs in a big lecture hall, open to the public, and on Sunday nights. I saw “Don’t Look Back” there. My kids saw way too many movies in school, the only useful ones being Disney movies in German in German class. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/13 "2015-12-10T18:44:13Z")
I graduated from high school in 1981. In the early days of VCRs, we watched a TV movie called “A Shining Season” in psychology class, and in journalism class, “we have to watch this dumb movie called ‘Citizen Kane’” which we all loved. [A Shining Season (TV Movie 1979) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079905/) (A Shining Season) It’s about this man. > **[John Baker (runner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baker_(runner))** > > John Willard Baker (June 29, 1944—November 26, 1970) while a runner for the University of New Mexico (1967) he won the WAC Cross-Country Championship twice and was the WAC Champion in the mile. He received his degree in physical education from University of New Mexico. After he graduated he became the first physical education teacher at Aspen Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico when it opened. John Baker also started a running team called the Duke City Dashers. > Baker was later diagnosed with c... ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/14 "2015-12-10T19:35:50Z")
Being from an earlier generation, I saw precious little compared to the OP. There was **Romeo and Juliet** with Olivia Hussey. We all took school busses to the theater for that probably around 9th grade. And then in 12th in a crowded, darkened classroom we watched **Little Big Man** , still one of my favorites of all time. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Lonely are the Brave** (1962) – Again, I don’t know why they showed us this oner. One fine day they convened all my high school in the auditorium to watch this. At least the high school auditorium had no windows, so you could see the film. The film didn’t break, so we got to see the whole thing. I still think I’d have been happier watching the Three Stooges. Heresy! Crafted from an Edward Abbey novel, Kirk Douglas says it was his favorite. A cowboy that should have lived in an earlier time trying to hold on to what’s left of the real West. An awesome film. Try it again sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/15 "2015-12-10T19:48:26Z")
[ul] **Paddle To The Sea** [li] **The Red Balloon** [/li][li]Some movie about how beaches were made[/li][li]Some movie with some rugged dude who would show how pollution ruined nature. Example: he’d start to drink some clear stream water but suddenly the future had made it brown and gross[/li][li] **16 In Webster Groves** (because our Driver’s Ed teacher was in it, and Webster Groves was one or two towns over)[/li][li]Some movie about a woman who could drive a car with her feet[/li][li]Lots of Driver’s Ed car crash death movies[/li] **Romeo And Juliet** , the Zeffirelli one with actual nudity, which we absolutely did not handle like adults[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/16 "2015-12-10T19:59:42Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > [li]Some movie with some rugged dude who would show how pollution ruined nature. Example: he’d start to drink some clear stream water but suddenly the future had made it brown and gross[/li] I remember this one too. Dude almost got smashed by a big cargo ship while on his canoe. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/17 "2015-12-10T20:36:57Z")
> [@Brodi](#): > > Ichabod and Mr Toad I saw that as well. > [@](#): > > A safety PSA about electricity. Did it feature [Reddy Kilowatt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_kW2KZ04wk)? > [@](#): > > Romeo and Juliet Not sure if I saw that one, but my high school Brit Lit teacher showed the Roman Polanski version of [_Macbeth_.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_(1971_film)) > [@](#): > > Donald in Math land (?) Close on the title – it’s [_Donald in Mathmagic Land._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nav0kVa66xk) > [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Some Disney(?) movie about a boy and a raccoon that kept stealing eggs from his grandfather’s hen house Sounds like [_Rascal_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064875/), which is indeed a Disney flick. I saw it at the drive-in, though, not in school. > [@](#): > > I mean, who \*hasn’t \*seen **The Red Balloon**? I saw it in kindergarten. _Hemo the Magnificent_ (mentioned by **mbh** ) was the classic in my school system – I saw it at least three times over a six-year span. Anyone else remember [_Cover to Cover_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_to_Cover_(PBS_program)), a PBS program in which the narrator drew scenes from the book as he reviewed _Island of the Blue Dolphins_ or _…And Now Miguel_? ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/18 "2015-12-10T20:48:05Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > It was an annual occurrence in grade school for a while to have a school-wide showing of _Paddle to the Sea_. Oh yeah we watched that one too. The only series I really remember watching was a TVO program called “All About You”. It was a lady teaching you how the human body works. We also watched “Read All About It” but I don’t remember much about that one and also one about some kid in WW1. I wish I could remember the name of that show because I really enjoyed it. In high school we watched “A Tale of Two Cities” after reading the book in Grade 10. We also read “To Kill A Mockingbird” in Grade 9 or 10, but I don’t remember if I watched the movie in class or on my own. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/19 "2015-12-11T01:16:39Z")
In grade school in the mid-seventies the only thing I can remember watching on TV was PBS’ _The Electric Company_. Whenever I see Morgan Freeman I still think of him from this. We watched it live, on a B&W TV, no VCRs. Classroom stuff was still on projectors. In my first year of middle school they were still trying to push the metric system, so in Math class we watched this PBS kid’s show about it. It was a trippy mix of live action/animation (like Clutch Cargo) and featured superhero ‘Metric Man’ vs ‘Inchworm’. I’ve looked but can’t find any clips for it. > [@Morbo](#): > > Romeo And Juliet, the Zeffirelli one with actual nudity, which we absolutely did not handle like adults I was in the smart kid’s English class in high school so our class got to see this on a big screen. Smart kids or not, Olivia Hussey was some cutey so we did not handle it like adults either\*!\* Although us boys only [got a glimpse of her titties, the girls got a long, awkward look at Romeo’s ass.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unP_4j2NQRA) ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046/20 "2015-12-11T03:18:25Z")
In junior high in the 70s we explicably saw a movie called Marooned, which was about a stranded spaceflight. All I can think is the teachers were burned out and ready for the school year to end. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shows-you-watched-in-school/740046.md?page=2)