Drugs Are Like That

You know what kids today are missing?

They have been spared the indoctrination of poorly done morality plays that masqueraded as classroom filmstrips and afterschool tv specials.  These preachy melodramatic stories tried to breakdown complex issues that parents wanted to avoid and teachers probably weren’t equipped to deal with.  Somehow, lining up teenage actors, thrusting them into a crisis (divorce, sibling rivalry, drug use, bulling, sexual confusion, pregnancy, domestic violence), and letting it play out over an hour (with commercials) would lead to a satisfying conclusion that educate and inspire the audience to avoid that crisis.

I guess these stories are better than The Hills and Gossip Girl:

• My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel
• The Boy Who Drank Too Much
• Stoned
• Please Don’t Hit Me, Mom
• The Day My Kid Went Punk
• What If I’m Gay?
• My Dad Can’t Be Crazy (Can He?)
• The Girl with the Crazy Brother
• Two Teens And A Baby

The striking thing is that as goofy as some of them were, they still stick in my head.   Cipher in the Snow was a film short I saw freshman year of high school.  All I remember is that right after the opening credits a kid drops dead after getting off of the school bus.  Face first right into the snow.  Then in some crazy low budget Citizen Kane fashion, one of the teachers at the school investigates the kid’s death.  The teacher discovers that nobody knew him; his divorced parents allowed him to drift into the oblivion of depression—hence the “cipher”.  It disturbed me then and it does now.  So mission accomplished, I guess.

I’ll have to do some digging, but there is a lot of this stuff out on the internet.  Mystery Science Theater 3000 used to run a lot of the 1950s filmstrips, the infamous Posture Pals and Mr. B Flat come to mind.  I did find this bizarre anti-drug film from 1979 with voiceover by Anita Bryant.  I’ll look for more in the coming weeks.  Careful with the crazy theme song, it will stick in your head, as will the gripping Lego sequences.