My question to pose to the faithful: Which shorts, despite being excellent MST3K material, are actually informative or educational? I’ve got two choices. First, “Chicken of Tomorrow”–I didn’t know eggs were so complicated. And second, “Appreciating Your Parents”–it’s got a good message and a likable protagonist. (Actually decent short runner-up nominee: “Hired! Part 2.” A good lesson about developing employees that could still be made today without the elves flying around.)
I remember in the ACEG, Paul (I think) remarked on “Keeping Clean and Neat” (I think; can you tell I’ve mislaid my ACEG?) that he liked the advice about clipping your toenails after a shower, when they’re soft and easy to clip, something that had never occurred to him.
As for me, I gotta go with “Out of this World.” I never knew there was so much to being a bread delivery man!
What short(s) would you pick?
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Snow Thrills.
I learned that skiing is actually pronounced “she-ing”. I can’t tell you how many times that bit of info has saved me from embarrassment. :roll:
“What? She-whoring?”
I actually think that The Home Economics Story could be very informative, but, since I am a man, I didn’t get anything out of it.
I’m gonna second many others and say “Ready for Marriage”. EVERY couple should have religious guidance on marriage.
And ALL guys can benefit from “What To Do On a Date.” Just think of what the girl would like to do, and you’re on your way to some sweet lovin’.
heres my top 8
1.A Date with your Family: the woody allen story teaches us to lay on our life less asses and talk about stupid stuff, not to hog the phone (even if it’s the president), let dad unwind on his hard day at work, and to always make dinner peaceful. NOT!
2.Mr.B Natural: the music fairy taught young johhny that not only would other boys like him, but that he has music talent, great!
3.What to do on a Date: hey mary lets go to the hot dog roast or read lifeless magazines instead of seeing an action packed film for our date.
4.Last Clear Chance: thanks retards, now I’m dead because you didn’t see this short on how to drive
5.Cheating: didn’t help to make it work for us at home or on the job, but sure funny as hell.
6.Poster Pals: if you dont stay straight for the rest of your life you’ll end up like dad on friday night!
7.Keeping Clean and Neat: then take six hours to brush your hair…. you get the point
8.Assighnment Venezuela: this short taught me 2 things. 1. that down there in south america were know as white devils, 2. oil is a loving and caring god!
Geez Paul, it seriously never occurred to you that it’s best to cut your nails after a shower when they are least brittle? :wink: Sorry, I find that a bit funny.
I would say that coming up slow on someone working who doesnt know you are behind them was a helpful truth learned.
I have used that many times in my various jobs to good success.
That’s from ‘Days of our Years'(623a)
“Oh, this is terrible, he died MINUTES before his time!”
As a now retired school band director who taught for thirty years, for me it’s a slam dunk: Mr. B Natural! My colleague and I both thought it was hysterically funny, and, I must confess, school band recruiting films have not advanced much since this one was made! I would have loved to show it to our high school students, but I probably would have lost my job! How did they get this away from the Conn company, anyway?
First runner up goes to The Chicken of Tomorrow. I loved it when the narrator says, “Now let’s see the breeding room,” and Crow lets out an ecstatic yell.
“Is This Love?” taught me how to distinguish a real relationship from rough sex with Michael Douglass. :oops: Also, never room with a Romulan.
Keeping Clean and Neat taught me to never go to bed with wet hair . . . or a first date. Now its no problem since I’m balding and I haven’t had a first (or any) date since the Reagan Administration. :sad:
I know someone said “Young Man’s Fancy” as a joke… but a serious question… WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF THIS SHORT??????
The point was to drill into every housekeeper’s head that spending time on cooking meals is the worst thing in the world, something to be regarded not as a creative act but as a mechanical, assembly-line task (“a modern kitchen is a lot like a factory!”) to be gotten out the way as quickly as possible. “Young Man’s Fancy” is probably one reason I didn’t have one single good meal in Michigan when I visiting my mate’s family there: why prepare real food when you can open a box and turn a dial?
If “Hired!” made even one incompetent manager realize that maybe, just maybe, throwing his new employees into the fire without bothering to train them first wasn’t the smartest managerial decision, then the film was worth it. Even if it does feature an evil troll with a hankie on his head.
“Last Clear Chance” does have a few useful things to say about defensive driving, but the hectoring, browbeating cop doesn’t help to deliver the message. Also it doesn’t help that, at the end, the boy who inevitably dies to prove the cop’s point didn’t die because of the ordinary errors the cop was talking about–“highway hypnosis”, not checking before merging, all that. Instead the kid dies by driving like a utter moron. Wouldn’t that just get people thinking that they don’t need to worry so much about safe driving if the only accident we see comes from driving turned completely freaking backwards?
Then there are the unintentional messages that have been pointed out here.
“A Date with Your Family” tells us that surface is everything. How many times does the narrator say that someone “seems to think” or “seems to feel” or “look as though”?
“Cheating” teaches us that cheating is bad but helping someone cheat is “just trying to help”. Also it tells us that if you get into trouble your friends should put you on trial without telling you about it. You deserved that knife in your back, Johnny!
“The Days of Our Years” is the really creepy one. The underlying message seems to be that having a life outside your job will ruin you. The guy who cripples himself made the mistake of being excited to get home to his fiancee. The guy who blinds himself made the mistake of being excited about his newborn son. The guy who had a heart attack on the job was guilty of looking forward to retirement. Oh, and if you feel vaguely ill? Go home or you’ll be a murderer! Like any real-life boss would give you the rest of the day off just because you thought you had indigestion. I get the feeling that Union Pacific’s ideal employee was someone who had nothing waiting for him at home but a desolate one-bedroom apartment. Why let yourself be distracted from your job by stuff like family and friends?
What’s with the many entries this week that are nothing but:
[name of short], because [repeat joke from MST3K verbatim]!
We’ve seen the episodes and remember the jokes, thanks.
@ Fart Bargo #25
I had, indeed, forgotten about that nugget o’ info. So I guess the short wasn’t a total loss…
I’d have to go with The Phantom Creeps shorts because they taught me the importance of having a large robot when it comes to world domination. Also I learned what could happen if you turn down Frankenstein when they offer it to you.
DrChadFeelgood #32: I remember reading somewhere that “A Date With Your Family” was shown to High School students – who, understandably, were rolling in the aisles at not only the MST riffs, but just the general goofiness of the short.
You’re confusing it with What to Do on a Date. See here.
It’s a bit funny that about half of us took this opportunity to make snarky comments about the shorts when that was the exact opposite of the question posed in the topic. :???:
I love the humor in Chicken of Tomorrow and I learned quite a bit about the poultry industry, But… I learned the most about healthy families from Appreciating Your Parents and A Date With Your Family. I was stunned frankly, because I came from a household where we kids bolted down our food as quickly as possible as conversation was not encouraged and all the better to avoid Dad spouting his dogma. Imagine if I knew then what I know now, I probably be a less awkward, healthy adult. (Or not.)
I did learn that Home Economics is more than sewing and cooking and Industrial Arts should be required of all boys who are bad at math.
I’d have to go with one that was never shown, but included in the set with Killer Shrews (I think), Assignment: Venezuela. I actually met someone from Venezuela and was able to talk intelligently about her native land, although I had never visited it. Sure, my comments were somewhat dated (believe it or not, people no longer drive cars from the 1950s), but that didn’t stop me from knowing a thing or two about oil fields, Maracaibo and commenting on how WIDE everything is in Venezuela.
Randy
“Are You Ready For Marriage”-waiting for ” Boing” until you are married is a good lesson. No marriage no boing, then again if there is no boing in your marriage what does that leave you?Any answers? :?:
Is there any connection between ” A Case Of Spring Fever” and ” Are You Ready For Marriage”? Springs go ” boing” according to Coiley and you should wait for ” boing” until you are married. Does that mean no springs = no boing = no marriage? Think of it, :???:
Dated and weird, some of the shorts do have some relevance still:
Money Talks and Hired people have mentioned already.
Out of this world has some basic sales advice that isn’t bad.
The two grooming shorts explain why being an unkempt slob isn’t a good plan.
The Speech short does make a good point about appearance being important when doing presentations.
Last Clear Chance and X Marks the Spot do make good points about being a careful and courteous driver.
ok then there’s the other shorts that make no sense whatsoever…so i looked them up.
Young Man’s Fancy is one of my faves…it feels like 50’s training like A Date with Your Family. But I read that the actual point was to encourage housewives to use electricity more. Did anybody catch that as a message because I sure didn’t. They just seemed to randomly mention their electric kitchen lol
Once Upon a Honeymoon also made zero sense to me. So I looked that one up too and read that it was for the phone company and was intended to make you want to have multi-colored phones in all your rooms. Go figure.
“Money Talks” and “Body Care and Grooming” actually had one or two pieces of advice that weren’t blatantly obvious. I sometimes do a “brisk rinse” at the end of a shower.
“Chicken of Tomorrow” is great because of the joke it has created at our house. We have a fat cat and a skinny cat in our house. We call our fat cat “The Chicken of Tomorrow” because of the scene where the two chickens are shown side-by-side. However, because it is so informative, it is not one of my more rewatched shorts.
“The Selling Wizard” was informative about how freezers work.
The bit in “Keeping Clean and Neat” about cutting your nails after a shower (as Paul mentioned)is actually good advice, as was keeping a budget to manage your money in “Money Talks”.
“Are You Ready for Marriage” does make a good point about not rushing into marriage until after a relationship and the partners involved have matured a little.
The summation of “Hired” where the guy reminds car dealers of the best methods for getting the most out of your employees is good practical advice for anyone in a supervisory role.
That’s about it for me, the rest contained nothing of any practical interest or use other than perhaps serving as time capsules to remind us just how much times have changed, often for the better.
arch hall 3 says:
September 6th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
“Is there any connection between ” A Case Of Spring Fever” and ” Are You Ready For Marriage”? Springs go ” boing” according to Coiley and you should wait for ” boing” until you are married. Does that mean no springs = no boing = no marriage? Think of it, :???:”
Maybe. “A Case of Spring Fever” goes off on a tangent that goes beyond literal springs and into stuff that has “spring” to it. So, I guess the “boing” of marriage could be linked with springs.
#59 I get the feeling that Union Pacific’s ideal employee was someone who had nothing waiting for him at home but a desolate one-bedroom apartment.
——————————–
Hmm, I wonder if they’re hiring.
I am very partial to our jungle king Ross and his Seminole Indian pal raping the world of animals.
Discovery channel was never the same for me after seeing that.
In terms of being helpful and informative, “Money Talks” is almost not funny; the goofy-ass set-up is the only reason why its riffable in the first place. Had they filmed it with the kid receiving financial advice from, say, the other young man in the short who saved up money for his car, the short probably would never had made it to MST3K in the first place.
I have actually found myself using “gentle pressure” when approaching someone working intently in a noisy environment. It actually makes some level of sense.
I have also found myself wishing I had studied Industrial Arts in high school, since I tend to use the wrong end of the hammer and always get more paint on myself than on the walls.
Oh, and when I win the lottery, I am so getting a Firebird 2 (the rocket car in “Design for Dreaming”
What I learned from all of the shorts:
There was a time when funding was available to make brief films that sold a product or a platitude.
I’d have to say the one about marriage was most informative. And apparently all the stuff he talks about is still true today.
Ironically enough, “The Guardian” today posted “Dr Luisa Dilner’s guide to . . . cutting toenails” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/08/luisa-dilner-cutting-toenails-guide), which indicates that there is no real advantage to cutting your toenails when wet.
What nonsense. At the very least a wet, and softer, toenail is easier to control when it’s being cut. No errant shards flying across the bathroom.
“Design for Dreaming” – I have to admit that this was actually kind of fun. It was weird and all over the map topic-wise, but a cute woman dancing (quite well, to boot) around with 50s futuristic appliances is appealing in its own way. I have no idea if I learned anything of substance from it, except that the guy who killed Lisa from Funky Winkerbean is this woman’s dream lover.
Century 21 Calling was pretty informative about how rotary phones worked, even if it took forever to get to the point.
“The Chicken of Tommorrow”, among other things, taught me that there is an unholy alliance between the “Big Oil” and “Big Chickens” conglomerates. I found that short very amusing (especially Crow’s little ditty as the baby chick is emerging from its egg).
“Speech: Platform and Posture” (which focused on the standing and presentation side of a speech) taught me the “knee test” where you buckle down to your knees and swerve… a lot.
Aquatic Wizards: I never knew Nazis could water-ski. If someone has already mentioned this I am sorry but whenever I attempt to read all the posts someone always has to list at least 20 of their favorite ones and then I skip to the end.
Very good topic. I would say both Union Pacific shorts are pretty useful—gentle pressure and looking at RR stops should be a priority for everyone. I personally love “A Case of Spring Fever”; it’s demented presentation ensured me to never ever forget those fundamental laws of physics, as well as to never summon a spring sprite.
I’d have to say that the two shorts about marriage “Is This Love” and “Are you Ready for Marriage” have gotten the biggest response from groups I’ve shown them to. Most people say how funny the shorts are, but how much good information is in them. If only they weren’t so darn goofy.
One of my favorite moments is from “Is This Love” where the parents offer the girl a house if she will wait before marriage and Mike and bots start chanting “Take the house!” My wife and I were saying the same thing.
I also think that the ideas behind the Rifftrax short, “Buying Food” are sound. Meal planning and creating a list of items to get at the grocery store can be very helpful and avoid impulse buying (even if the bread truck guy spent a half hour on the display to obtain more grocer good will). :-)
“X Marks the Spot”: The basic message is just as relevant today, if not more so, than when it was made. Greater numbers of drivers, with way too large a percentage speeding, tailgating, weaving in and out and across lanes, and doing everything but paying attention: eating, grooming themselves, talking and/or texting on their cell phones. When are people going to realize they are wheeling around thousands of pounds of metal, plastic , and glass at high speeds, not playing bumper cars at the amusement park? Of course, until something happens to them personally, they don’t give a damn. Irresponsible infants, all of ’em. So yeah, “X Marks the Spot” is all the more relevant today. Bye for now.
I really enjoyed “A Date With Your Family.” Its content was not really educational, but its existence was, testifying to how strange the 50s really were. I convinced my 10th grade American History teacher to let us watch it in class and everyone got a kick out of it.
The “knee test” is a legit stretch. We do it at every martial arts class (though we don’t make many speeches afterwards).
Is “plenty of lip and tongue action” beneficial in any way in martial arts? :mrgreen:
p.s. -Just kidding. Please don’t hurt me. :neutral:
X marks the spot. See everyone does have a guardian angel, and heaven is actually a courtroom. What I don’t understand is what will your guardian angel do once his/her task is done?
Also Robot Rumpus. Never EVER trust your robots to do chores for you. Mom and dad know better to ask you to do work. Plus milk and crackers are a great snack!!
would have to be “Cheating”–once I saw it, I vowed to never cheat in school again—of course, I was 40!!