You hide behind this public machine, still follow same old scheme

[venta]

Hello. I've been on holiday, but I'm back now. More of that another day.

This morning, I read on the BBC that advertising cigarettes on TV was banned in the UK in 1965. Gosh, I thought, that's weird, I'm sure I remember seeing ads on TV when I was a kid.

So I thought about it a bit, and concluded that the only one I could actually remember was about the first "born smoker". And so I googled that, and it turns out it wasn't an ad, it was an anti-smoking government public information film.

However, much more excitingly it turns out I now know that there is a massive archive of public information films. Did you know that? You didn't tell me.

I've remembered I'm supposed to be at work, so apart from checking out the First Born Smoker and a couple of films featuring Charley, I have restrained myself. Oh, apart from the watching the extremely peculiar The Fatal Floor.

I had been going to comment that the period 1964-1979 boasts a whopping 38 films in the archive, while 1979-2006 fields a mere 16 for a timespan nearly twice as long. However, I think it's probably a good thing if the government no longer feels the need to make short films to warn us not to fall over rugs.

Are public information films still made? I barely ever watch TV, so wouldn't see them. I hope they are.

Also, does anyone remember a longer version of the First Born Smoker film? I'm sure there was a bit about how children "will be exposed to smoke from an early age, by people called 'friends'".

Comments

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Cigars were advertised on telly in the 80s; I remember Russ Abbott in the Hamlet ads.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Good point... I'd forgotten the Hamlet ads. Weird that they banned ads for cigarettes, but not cigars.

Aha, Wikipedia he say (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_is_a_cigar_called_Hamlet) that all tobacco advertising wasn't banned til 1991.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I think the theory was that cigarettes were the coffin-nails of feckless proles who were easily duped by the advertiser's art, whereas cigars were enjoyed by sophisticated, intelligent people who knew the meaning of self-restraint (and Russ Abbott).

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I looked through the ones around when I was 5-10 presumably their target audience, and only remember the Green Cross Man, and that vaguely, so they did little good.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Unless you mean you were specifically looking at the ones aimed at children, I don't think kids are necessarily the target audience. Far more of them seem to be aimed at adults.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Those things used to scare the bejeezus out of me. I'm not even looking at that archive, for fear of triggering traumatic flashbacks!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, some of them were pretty terrifying!

I think that's an acknowledged thing, now... various articles described later films as "less hard-hitting", and other such similar euphemisms.

It's interesting to note that the 1951-1964 archive does seem to be of films which genuinely just provide information. They're not safety films at all, they're just informing you about (eg) the Suez crisis, or the political situation in Nigeria. I haven't watched any (yet) because they're rather longer, but I'm guessing they might be tipping over more into propaganda.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

described later films as "less hard-hitting"

I struggle to imagine anything less hard-hitting than "The Fatal Floor". It makes me want to polish my floor and put rugs on it just to see how slippy it really is!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, that wasn't a particularly good example of the sort of thing people regarded as too graphic :)

In fact, I'm not sure it was a good example of anything. Had there been a spate of rugs-on-slippy-floor-related injuries in the early 70s? Was this a problem that was addressed so successfully by this campaign that we, the responsible adults[*] of the present day, are unaware of it?


[*] No, really.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The one that really stuck in my mind was the kid getting electrocuted after going to get his frisbee back from an electricity substation. I'm still very wary of those things.

I mean, you actually saw him getting electrocuted live there on the screen! Jesus. Christ.

(Sorry if I've given anybody else nightmares now by reminding them of it.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I avoided mentioning any of them specifically for fear of wigging floralaetifica out :)

However, since we've started... I'm pretty sure I remember being scared of "Peach and Hammer" when I was kid, but I have to say yesterday it just made me laugh.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'd forgotten that one. Enough to put you off peaches for life.

Ooh, Lonely Water, that was another nightmare one.

Gah, you've started me now!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've not seen that before... not that scary to someone who didn't see it at an impressionable age, really!

Curse those Sensible Children, curse them!

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Yes, bad undyingking! I'd forgotten about that one.

Fortunately that's not one of the worst ones for me. The fireworks ones absolutely traumatised me - I'm still scared of fireworks displays.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Watch this instead... http://www.archive.org/details/Designfo1956

It's a US promo-film made by General Motors to advertise their new range of cars for '56. Oh, and to advertise Frigidaire kitchens. It's about as sexist as you'd expect a kitchen ad of the 50s to be, but is fabulously weird.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, there goes my evening...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I had been going to comment that the period 1964-1979 boasts a whopping 38 films in the archive, while 1979-2006 fields a mere 16 for a timespan nearly twice as long.

Also, it turns out that the archive isn't complete - at least according to me. For example, the "Drinking and driving wrecks lives" films are missing.

Oh, unless they weren't Public Information Films but were a campaign run by someone else. The police? Wikipedia reckons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_And_Driving_Wrecks_Lives) they were PIFs.