The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

OK... so I was hanging out with some friends at a bbq this weekend and we got on the subject of obscure movies that haunted us when we were kids. NOT mainstream movies that you saw at the theatre, but rather the shit they showed you in elementary school or perhaps stuff you saw on TV after school specials. Being that I was about 9 years older than the next oldest person... everyone looked at me like I was crazy when I talked about some trippy movie that involved pancakes... can't for the life of me remember the title. There was also Shirley Jackson's "the lottery"... a personal fave of mine. Two others I can recall... one was where a classroom of kids were taught about racism and were separated by the color of their eyes in two groups... and another where some kid was on a bus and then he got off and collapsed in the snow and it was about his sickness and/or recovery. That's all I can remember about that one! I saw all of these in the 70s and if anyone else can look in their minds eye that perhaps shared these experiences and recall titles or any clues that can help me turn up a useful google search... please let me know!!

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Hi LAJ,

I'm an old coot like you and I watched all kinds of stuff in the 70's too (Land of the Lost is still my favorite). Unfortunately though I can't recall any shows or movies like the ones you are descibing. Have you tried imdb.com ?

Mark

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

The one about the eye colour, I think I remember - it was a "very special" sort of thing about how totalitarian regimes rise to power (the one I have in my brain from childhood was, anyhow) and it was meant as a claassroom assignment to show how Hitler managed to make some ppl feel all awesome and special for characteristics over which they had no control?

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

I'm 47, but none of the film topics are ringing any bells here either. Then again, I grew up in a small town that was a decade or three behind the rest of the world.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Kevin Mitnick's stalker that used to be on here looks like Sigmund from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters... does that count?

And I KNOW you know who Im talking about.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

You guys kill me... lol...

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Save chakka!
Watch out for sleezstak

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Yeah! :) It was a kids show for sure but it had lots of mind-bending sci-fi. Alternative universes, Time Travel, weather control, . closed-loop worlds, and of course, dinosaurs. I miss it.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

The only wacky thing i remember seeing in these times was a series called "Faces of death"

But this lottery is the first I've heard it.
Heres the clip for those who aren't familiar:

The lottery (part2 of 2)

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

I’m in the “47 Club” also.

I remember an animated film back in the late 60’s contrasting life in the U.S and Russia. It featured two characters, John Q. Public & John Q. Publikoff. This was at the height of the Cold War of course.

At that time all “educational” films shown by the State of Georgia started off showing the Georgia state seal while Dixie was playing over it.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Well,
get ready for enough Chakas and sleeastacks than you can handle..

Will ferell is doing a remake

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment...rom_dinos.html

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

That pretty much ensures it will be pretty lame.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

One of the most popular video rentals I had in my store. (Serial number 5046, I still remember, and I'm Not Rain Man-1057, yea, 1057)
I had to buy three of those (In the days of maybe 2-3 of a new release in a store)

Then there was faces of death 2, and 3
Then some copycats came out and the last popular one was "death faces 4"

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

I think of great 70's flicks like Network the great Sidney Lumet prophecy about TV. The idea of giving time to broadcasting a terror group's activities was such dark satire.

It came to pass in many ways. Reality TV and shiite.

Another of my favorites is The Presidents Analyst, a film they would never make today. This film threatens us with the notion of all control (Cold War) going to TFC - The Phone Company. Damn, they hit this one out of the park too.

Watch these and thank LA J for the thread!

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

I know... it sucks. I wish they would make a serious sci-fi version, but instead we're just going to get a "comedy" with Will Ferrrel hamming it up. Crap.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Even though I'm almost in the 40-ish crowd (I'm presently 38 yrs young), I don't recall either of those movies.

Although I Loved Land Of The Lost. I used to try and stay home playing sick from school just so I could watch it. The modern day version of that show for me is a movie called "Dinotopia". The movie is much more elaborate but with a similar premise. No Sleezstak's though - just T-Rex's ;)

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

Amber you is a young un!
When you coming back to the mopthership

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

I dont remember them either.

I do remember some real "classics" from the board of education though. I'm quite sure that if I were to hear that stupid theme music that all of the ones here had at the beginning while showing the Georgia state seal and Georgia Board of Education copyright, I'd fall asleep immediately as a pure Pavlovian reaction.

They showed us these things on old reel to reel projectors that barely worked. And the films themselves were 20 years out of date back then. We were watching them in the 70's with a bunch of child actors on screen that looked like they fell straight out of Leave it to Beaver. Films shot in color were a rare treat.

The flapping of the the reel once it was complete and unthreaded itself would wake everyone up.

The lazier teachers would do this every friday for all of their classes, kind of a free day off from actually teaching for them. Gotta love government provided education.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

What did they call those classes where they crammed 200 students into and you had to self serve your education?

You know it was in a 3 ring binder. You read the shit, did the exercises and tested out. All the teachers had to do was feed the answer sheets into the reader to grade them?

This is back when the school ran out of room so brought in trailers to house the extra asses.

Re: The 40-ish crowd... Please help!!
 

How true. There was always one kid named "Billy" in a checkered shirt who looked like he combed his hair with buttered toast.