Public safety/information films

[Inspector Abberline]

Basil Brush Airbeds (1976)

One of my favorite of the shorter public information films that use to get shown in between the adverts, usually on a Saturday morning in the ad breaks for Space 1999 and just before Dickie Davies and the World of Sport.The shorter Pif's were always seemingly crammed in between the ad breaks on a Saturday morning, there was the one where the little kid looks at his family as they break every Highway code in the book with dad nearly running over granny and the other one which has always stuck in my mind is the man who sticks the cord of his power tool straight into the plug socket?..Even at that tender young age, I saw this, I knew he was gonna end in big trouble, although not as much trouble as I got into when I tried it once with an old bedroom side lamp, got a thick ear that day.But at the time around 1976 what I really loved more than anything was the Basil Brush show which ran from (1970–1980) well he did make other appearance but this was the series I remember and with the original voice of Ivan Owen.So as a mega fan I was more than happy to have Basil appear in the middle of wrestling with commentator Kent Walton, while Big Daddy tries to suffocate some poor fella by falling on him (belly flop I think it was called)...Of course, Basil was only as good as his sidekick, and at the time it was Roy North ("Mr Roy") who did his stint from 1973-1976 and was a great foil to Basil Brush's Terry Thomas impersonation...The pif itself is a nice low budget affair with our heroes sat on a sandpit while Basil warns Mr Roy of the dangers of using an airbed on the sea...It's a strange thing to say but there is a real chemistry between these two and a nice cozy familiarity that brings back some very nice childhood memories.

[Demoncrat]

Quite charming that sir ....

[Inspector Abberline]

20 Times More Likely (1979)

20 Times More Likely (1979)
This has EastEnders legend Gillian Taylforth in this public information film about taking your motor bike test, mixing old school soap opera tactics with a proper message that if your a cocky sod who does not learn about the highway code you are going to get killed on your bike..It also stars as Gillian love interest Ray Burdis who is or was a familiar face on television in the 70s and 80's.Who is probably most famous for appearing in Scum and also the 1980's sitcom Three Up Two Down with Michael Elphick as his son. Its incredible to think that most British actors probably made a public information film or a British sex comedy during the rather fallow years of the mid 1970's...20 Times More Likely has a bit of sting in its tail as it has a rather nifty kind alternate universe thing going on. When Burdis scoffs at the motor cycle training and shots off down the road leaving Gillian and her mate aghast at his arrogance, its not longer before the screech of tyres are heard and we find Burdis spread eagled on the floor under a car. But when Gillian arrives on the scene to find him squashed, it turns out he was only goofing around and he really is alright,oh you scally..Burdis in an effort to win the fair hand of Gillian in the love stakes, decides to take the motor cycle test seriously and bucks his ideas up and starts taking it all seriously, even to the point where he dons the most reflective jacket since Joseph put on his his dream coat. But all is not as what it seems, when Burdis decides to go on a trials bike much to chagrin of Gillian,but what's this Gillian looks like she has been tazered and we soon realise everything after the crash was just her imagination of what might of been...doh and Burdis died at the crash..A weird and wonderful short that sends its message sledge hammer style ,but you do not want subtlety when trying to stop people being idiots.

[Demoncrat]

Remember it well. Still quite shocking.

[Susan Foreman]

These have probably already been posted here

Five British public safety videos which scarred us as children - The Portsmouth Evening News

[Susan Foreman]

Recently re-discovered film featuring Adam West as Batman teaching children their kerb drill in 1967

[Inspector Abberline]

Every now and then I have to re-watch the compilation dvd Charley Says, I feel the need to reconnect to the the 1970s and thus delve into the pit of my childhood memories. Saturday late mornings watching Space 1999,before Dickie Davis (when will Matt Berry get that Dickie Davis Bio-pic gig??) introduced me to the world of horse racing and fat middle aged men in tight fitting pants rolling around on the floor, grabbing each other in very intimate places, no this wasn't gay porn but you be forgiven for thinking so with names like Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, but I digress...I expect most people are familiar with the Tales From The Crypt like Lonely Water (1973), with its foreboding warning of doom about swimming in dangerous places.( I imagine we may even have known somebody in school who had died in such circumstances, when I started secondary school a boy two years above me drowned in a quarry.).But I always loved the funny ones or the slightly quirky ones, but who could forget Basil Brush And The Airbed (1976) or that stupid bloody cat only his owner could understand, never mind the fact that this kid could communicate with his kitty, or that he was so stupid he had to take life lesson from a moggy...Of course there are a couple of celebrities who back then were very popular, but who now have shall we say fallen from grace, mentioning no names but a certain Aussie painter and a man who love to wear jewellery and track suits. It would of been very ironic if they had done the stranger danger PIFs..So before the internet if you wanted to learn a life lesson, and survive a nuclear war, or playing Frisbee next to a power station or not plug an electrical item in with matchsticks then all you had to do was watch telly on a Saturday morning, before a man with a bushy moustache told you witch horse to bet on or what fat man in a leotard to watch, life really was that simple...

[Inspector Abberline]

YWhKs.jpg

While Lonely Waters got a lot of attention, mainly for having Donald Pleasance doing the narration as the metaphysical presence that is death, the grim reaper or a man who hangs around canals pushing children into dangerous waters. And Apache which is just down right brilliant, and the public information films equivalent to Friday the 13th movie, believe it or not there is even a better one, which pre dates The Final Destination films and also mixes 1970s television fixation with time travel and giant computer tapes turning slowly on the walls, probably holding about 10 kilobytes of information, and holding information of use to nobody. Building Sites Bite (1978) has posh Ronald and his faithful dog snoopy visit his lower middle class cousins Paul and Jane at there new house, with much of the new estate still a building site, this proves a great place for some death dealing shenanigans. With Ronald is his posh mother played by top tv actress Stephanie Cole, who manages to annoy her relatives , after only a few seconds of arrival. So its up to Paul and Jane to take Ronald on some head trip, where from there futuristic control room, they send Ronald out into the building site and see if he has any more common sense than his dog Snoopy, and basically he hasn't, he fails miserably at every quest, which ends with his death, whether its being drowned, buried alive or just flattened by heavy machinery, poor Ronald, like some episode from an EC comic, he is brought back from the dead only to be killed again by his taunting cousins. And just to cheer everyone up at the end, we then get some rather chilling statistics of some real deaths...Christ I luv the 70s.

[gag]

Come across this recently, all Charlie said videos in one clip.

[nosferatu42]

Bout time for a bit of this then.