# School movies they probably don't show anymore **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 14, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227 "2009-12-14T16:50:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![D.Fenestrator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aca169/32.png) [@D.Fenestrator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.Fenestrator)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/81 "2009-12-16T02:09:10Z")
Arrgh. I had forgotten about the girls-who-accepted-candy-from-a-stranger-and-got-murdered one. We saw it in 5th or 6th grade, and there were 2 versions; one showed the bodies at the end and one did not. I was in the group that saw the bodies (we had to get our parents’ permission, and apparently mine thought it would be good for me somehow). Stuff of nightmares… I know they were trying to make us think before we accepted candy from strangers or did other such stuff, but man, did they have to traumatize us in the process? We also were shown “Paddle-to-the-Sea” once a year in grade school, and we saw “Hemo the Magnificent” a few times too. There is a series (2 or 3 films?) I remember that hasn’t been mentioned yet. The one film I remember clearly was called “Feet” or something like that, and was all images of people dancing, walking, and running to (I think) a drum-heavy soundtrack. One image that struck me was someone dancing on a sheet of Plexiglas-equivalent (this was the 70’s, after all) and being filmed from underneath, so you could see how their feet moved… Neat, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the educational point of that might have been. Fortunately, I either missed the gory driver’s ed films, or have blotted them out of my memory… :eek: ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/82 "2009-12-16T02:29:45Z")
I watched _Hemo the Magnificent_ repeatedly in elementary school (I loved all the Bell Science series), and there was a great one about triangles and Greek gods (cartoon), as well as some strange hygiene film about menstruation and sex (5th grade). The details elude me now, but I do recall the female teacher saying to us girls (lord knows what the boys were doing; they weren’t present) it took a “great deal” for the man “to get excited enough so that the penis will be firm enough to allow for the ‘planting of the seed’”. This was 1972. It was years before it hit me that it takes almost nothing to get a “man” (think teenage boy) excited enough to make his penis firm. I really thought in 5th grade that that was it–no babies for me. No way, no how could I ever get a boy “excited” enough! I seem to have digressed… Anyway, I also watched _The Red Balloon_ (which mixed with the scenery shots from Willy Wonka, the original, in my head). I never did understand the TRB; perhaps I need to rewatch it. I also loved\* Donald in Mathmagic Land.\* In German class (HS), we watched a great number of Der Spiegel films, all about Germany and its culture, language, history–except the earlier part of the 20th century was never mentioned. Not once. Hmmm… I also saw a number of gory Driver’s Ed films–the cars were all out of the 1950s, the girls had poodle skirts etc. Campy as hell, and not real effective. The one film I truly never got and was made to suffer through repeatedly in junior high was _The Swimmer_–I think it had Burt Lancaster in it. I hated that movie and never did understand its allegory. I found out as an adult that it was based on a short story by John Cheever. I think I would have preferred the story, but then again, maybe not. Since this film was shown to us with no explanation, no background, no homework and no discussion, this dislike is not surprising. Truly, it was filler for a substitute teacher or some such. I must have seen it at least 5 times. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/83 "2009-12-16T02:36:02Z")
Missed the edit window. It’s not that I didn’t like _The Red Balloon_; what bothered me was the size of the string it had attached to it. It was more like a rope, and knowing then what I knew about balloons, I knew the rope was too heavy for the balloon to do what it did. American balloons came with string, dammit! It really bothered me. I don’t recall the gang of boys destroying it, though. I thought it just sailed away at the end. I also recall having a TV in a classroom to watch an Apollo mission (I don’t remember which one). That was cool. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/84 "2009-12-16T03:15:05Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > I don’t think this is quite in the spirit of the OP but, having gone to school in Texas, we were treated to John Wayne’s _[The Alamo](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053580/)_ in history class every year. Likewise, I went to school in rural Louisiana and we got to watch Gone With The Wind in just about every history class starting in junior high. My very small home town was about half white and half black but no one complained. Almost everyone liked the movie and it was a good way to kill the better part of a week for the class because it is so long. We didn’t have any college style discussions or have to write a paper about it afterwards either. We just had to just sit still and not act up or our grade would be affected. Everyone liked that and we got popcorn sometimes. They probably show it in lots of places still but not to everyone and not with such frequency. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/85 "2009-12-16T03:19:50Z")
> [@](#): > > They showed us this movie (circa 1974) whose aim was to show how awful prejudice was. Sadly it was done so comically it had the opposite effect, with the majority of kids laughing out loud at some of the scenarios. > > I seem to recall they singled out Poles, Jews, Asians, and as a topper, they showed a scene from the TV show Amos and Andy. None of us had ever seen A&A before, but the scene had us in hysterics. Sorry I can’t help you with the movie, Bwana Bob, but that reminded me of [Black History:Lost Stolen or Strayed](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFH8rtVkiCU). I remember seeing it in third grade. There was a scene from a stereotypical movie where a fat black women beat up a lazy black man–obviously intending to show us the emasculating treatment of black men in early 20th century films. Instead, the entire room broke out laughing because it was a funny scene. In my entire school of five hundred we only had one black student, so I’m not quite sure in a mostly Hispanic and American Indian school why they showed it to us. Even more curious is the movies’ writer–Andy Rooney! ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/86 "2009-12-16T03:51:08Z")
And of course… PhantomTollbooth. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/87 "2009-12-16T07:58:01Z")
> [@Gesturing\_Mildly](#): > > One I remember that I haven’t been able to find since, is a filmstrip they showed us about the dangers of rabies. I was very young, like kindergarten or 1st grade, and I only remember flashes of it, but the end was a little boy laying in bed, all covered up with bandages as he screamed and thrashed around. He’d been bitten by a rabid dog and there was just nothing they could do . . . the beginnings of my life-long rabies phobia. That sounds suspiciously like this horrifying PIF I saw quite a bit as a kid: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5OLQFL63L0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5OLQFL63L0) Nightmare fuel, kids! ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/88 "2009-12-16T10:26:02Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > We used to watch [Free to be You and Me](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Be%E2%80%A6_You_and_Me) back in grade school. My wife had the record as a kid and played the thing to pieces. We bought the DVD for our daughter a few years ago and watched it a few times since. Wow, yes I saw that. What a piece of drivel. It’s part of the propaganda that men and women are essentially interchangable except for procreation, which I really actually resent. I realize that they probably thought they were just saying that you didn’t need to be constrained to stereotypes, but because of the time it was released, it became part of the larger message of “the only differences are those imposed by society”. And 8-year olds had no idea who these performers were, so we weren’t impressed. I think the adults shot over the heads of most of the kids by being too clever. I was very surprised to find out years later that the large black man who sang the sappy song about crying was some football player. This is part of what I mean by being too clever. They took a football player who retired before I was born and assumed I would be impressed that he was so sensitive. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/89 "2009-12-16T13:15:43Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > I graduated H.S. in 1980 and apparently was in a rare time where they stopped showing the driving safety carnage films. > > . I also graduated in 1980 and saw several of the carnage films in Driver’s Ed. It must have been a regional thing. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/90 "2009-12-16T13:51:12Z")
The sex ed video we watched in te 80’s was probably from the early sixties. It was black and white and told a cautionary tale of what happens to Nice Boys when they ‘date’ Girls From the Wrong Side of the Tracks. (VD) It was so cornball then and I want to find it to emotionally scar my children and their friends. The voiceover guy was the standard Condescending White Male Voice. Any help would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/91 "2009-12-16T13:58:44Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > Wow, yes I saw that. What a piece of drivel. It’s part of the propaganda that men and women are essentially interchangable except for procreation, which I really actually resent. I realize that they probably thought they were just saying that you didn’t need to be constrained to stereotypes, but because of the time it was released, it became part of the larger message of “the only differences are those imposed by society”. I’ve seen parts of it and didn’t think of it that way. Not that men and women were exactly the same but that some men acted in ways that we stereotypically think of as feminine and some women stereotypically think of as masculine and there’s nothing wrong with that. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/92 "2009-12-16T14:36:52Z")
> [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](#): > > … > > Does no one remember Paddle to the Sea? I do! I remember seeing that in second grade! I remember a scene with an old woodcarver who found it and lovingly repainted it before putting it back into the river. ---
**Author:** ![Umbriel2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/4af34b/32.png) [@Umbriel2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Umbriel2)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/93 "2009-12-16T14:41:53Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > In 4th and 7th grades I seem to remember seeing a lot of Revolutionary War movies with kid protagonists. I’m not sure if there’s a whole genre of those, but a pretty typical one for schools to show was [_Johnny Tremaine_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050567/). ---
**Author:** ![Gesturing\_Mildly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@Gesturing\_Mildly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gesturing_Mildly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/94 "2009-12-16T15:56:12Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > That sounds suspiciously like this horrifying PIF I saw quite a bit as a kid: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5OLQFL63L0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5OLQFL63L0) > > Nightmare fuel, kids! Holy Fucking Fuck! Part of me says that can’t be it because it was in the US, and why would they be showing films about flying to a bunch of farm kids in Illinois, but the shots of the kid thrashing about in bed are almost exactly like what I remember. Excuse me while I go cower under my desk. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/95 "2009-12-16T16:08:58Z")
> [@Gesturing\_Mildly](#): > > Holy Fucking Fuck! Part of me says that can’t be it because it was in the US, and why would they be showing films about flying to a bunch of farm kids in Illinois, but the shots of the kid thrashing about in bed are almost exactly like what I remember. > > Excuse me while I go cower under my desk. I remember seeing a youtube video of a kid being restrained in bed and making horrible noises–it wasn’t a PSA but supposedly real footage of someone dying. Could that PSA have used that footage? ---
**Author:** ![Gesturing\_Mildly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@Gesturing\_Mildly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gesturing_Mildly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/96 "2009-12-16T16:34:36Z")
I’ve seen those, too, because I’m obsessed and can’t keep from watching things that I know will freak me the fuck out. It’s similar, but I don’t think it’s the one, just because it looks too new to have been shown to my class when I was a little kid. Equally as scary, though. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/97 "2009-12-16T17:16:54Z")
In fourth through sixth grades, the girls were annually pulled out of class to watch [Growing Up on Broadway](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212977/), which involved the cast of “Annie” discussing menstruation. (Note that every cast member on that imdb age is listed as “menstruating girl.” That paints an interesting picture.) There was a segment in which several poorly-animated line drawings of women would _slowly_ lift their arms, under which hair _slowly_ began to sprout. My friends and I found this so hilarious that we constantly imitated it at recess and recited cheesy lines from the film. I think this was a precursor to our later love of Mystery Science Theater. In driver’s ed in the late 90’s, we watched “Red Asphalt III.” The scenes of carnage were somewhat diminished by the 80’s fashions. Right after I finished driver’s ed, they apparently came out with a more up-to-date “Red Asphalt IV.” [Here’s](http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/highway1/la-hy-125red21jun21,0,216330.story) a hilarious and informative L.A. Times article about the Red Asphalt series. And for all of you who watched “The Red Balloon” a thousand times in grade school, please enjoy: [The Revenge of the Red Balloon."](http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/revenge_red_balloon/) Description: “In this farcical homage to the French classic short film The Red Balloon, the balloon returns to hunt down those nasty little garcons who popped him 40 years ago.” ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/98 "2009-12-16T17:28:53Z")
I remember Paddle to the Sea, The great lakes movie and Hemo the Magnificent. Didn’t Hemo star Henry Fonda? ---
**Author:** ![McGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@McGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McGeek)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/99 "2009-12-16T17:55:12Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > : > > I have a vague memory of a movie and I wonder if this rings anyone else’s bell . . . > > The main character is a young boy and there’s also an old man, possibly his grandfather, and there’s a raccoon that learns to unlock the chicken coop and steal eggs. It seems like the raccoon was his pet and the old man wanted to shoot it (?) Also not controversial but now I keep seeing the image of that raccoon’s paws untwisting the wire or whatever that was on the chicken coop and I’m racking my brain trying to remember the rest of it and what possible reason they had to show it to us (a few times) as I recall. Could you be thinking of the story “Rascal”? My own memory of it is vague, but the raccoon’s name was Rascal, and I believe that was also the title. This whole thread has brought back memories. My 1st thought was those Bell Labs series like “Hemo the Magnificent”, which someone has already provided a link to. My middle school classmates & I loved these. I also saw The Red Balloon a million times, and made my 6-yr-old watch it this year - I think when it was available from FiOS On-Demand. For some of those mentioned I read the book but never saw the flick, like Johnny Tremain and A Girl Named Sooner, both great books. I think my school was set in liberal-elite-ville, because they never showed us cheesy cautionary tales, and nor did they show us any just-for-fun non-educational movies. Except one 9th grade history teacher who showed every class Dr. Strangelove, and another high school teacher who showed his class the trippy animated movie “The Point” with music by Harry Nilsson, narration by one of the Beatles, and the main character voiced by Bobby from the Brady Bunch. I think his educational justification was that the “point” of the movie was about discrimination. The one disurbing movie I do remember was the film version of the short story “The Lottery”, where a seemingly normal, fairly modern-times, town gets together every year to randomly select a citizen to stone to death. Just because it’s tradition. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227/100 "2009-12-16T18:42:58Z")
I remember the 2nd grade when they had us watch “Glen Garry, Glen Ross.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-movies-they-probably-dont-show-anymore/521227.md?page=6)