Slog - Comments on I Need Some Help

Comment by Griff

Griff — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:07:24 -0800

Speaking of old school videos, has anyone seen a copy of "The Death Zone" floating around the net?

It's an old film about School Bus safety that they showed us in Elementary School in the early eighties... as was par for the course the film featured the (hilarious) demise of 3 school children, with an ominous voiceover that said things like "and she'll never go back to her job at McDonalds again".

Has anyone seen it, or know where it can be found on the net??

Comment by Paulus

Paulus — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:13:23 -0800

Sounds like the Spice Girls concert I saw at the Tacoma Dome.

Comment by Tom in SLC

Tom in SLC — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:20:24 -0800

We got this at my junior high in Murray, Utah. The teachers would talk about it all year, because it basically turned into a day when they didn't have to do anything. I remember getting a workbook of ads for Clearasil and Old Spice along with learning such brilliantly bad rhymes as "Where were they going without ever knowing the way?"

Comment by Ari Spool

Ari Spool — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:21:05 -0800

It was SO like a Spice Girls concert! It was soooooo weird.

Comment by Mr. Poe

Mr. Poe — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:22:54 -0800

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TELLYAWHATIWANT

Comment by Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:24:49 -0800

I believe ours were called "Up with Life", but that was in the mid-80s. I can assure you there was nothing so hip as a Semisonic number in any of the versions I was forced to attend.

Comment by Travis

Travis — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:30:52 -0800

At my middle school in Iowa circa 92 or 93 we totally had an Up with Life three screen extravaganza that sounds very much like what Ari is describing. Thanks for the terrifying flashback.

Comment by Scojomojo

Scojomojo — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:36:49 -0800

We had these things every year I was in high school back at the end of the 80's. I just remember thet on one of the screens, Michael J. Fox was walking at us, down a hall, and telling us not to succumb to peer pressure or something like that. It was very dramatic. I just remember some kid behind me saying that this just made him want to do more drugs. Although I went through high school drug and alcohol free, I agree with him.

Comment by redhead intern

redhead intern — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:39:27 -0800

Did anyone else watch "From the Rave to the Grave?" Simply awesome.

Comment by redhead intern

redhead intern — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:46:44 -0800

which was not this... but an education film. but this is almost as good.

http://www.returnofthelivingdead4and5.com/movs/rave.html

Comment by longball

longball — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:57:03 -0800

We had something like this. i remember some kind of ambiguous don't drop out to do drugs and kill yourself message backed up with highlights from the movie Backdraft. We were confused.

Comment by Kate

Kate — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:06:45 -0800

We had something in middle school called Read All About It. Freakin weird.

Comment by carlos

carlos — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:08:30 -0800

In 1989 we had that same three screen thing, and the song was U2's "Desire"

Comment by giantladysquirrels

giantladysquirrels — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:09:04 -0800

The three-screen wonder that hit my midwestern middle school in 1989 was entitled "Eye to Eye."

Comment by Ari Spool

Ari Spool — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:10:13 -0800

Oh my lord, other people seem to sort of know what I'm talking about! Honestly, this has been met with blank stares form everyone I mention it too! Now we just need video.

Comment by torrentprime

torrentprime — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:11:56 -0800

Ari
Didn't see that one, but I did see a similar one. This was when the term "multi-media" was all new wave and stuff, and so they did the multi-screen/high volume/overlapping tracks thing. It was not anti-drug, I don't think; it was about peer pressure and cliques and talking behind people's backs. "Voices" was the title. I remember more that they hyped the term "multi-media" so much, and I was thinking, "It's 3 TVs at once, whoop de shit."

Comment by bing

bing — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:16:51 -0800

Sounds like Channel One. This insidious marketing-to-captive-schoolchildren program was discontinued from many school districts after parental outcry. You can find vids, google Channel One Pepsi.

http://www.obligation.org/channelonehome.php

Comment by torrentprime

torrentprime — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:26:26 -0800

Channel One was separate from the multi-screen thing I think (different schools, etc.), but oh do I remember that. 10 minutes of commercials followed by "news" that would make Fox News blush, it was so thin and rah-rah.

Comment by SDA in SEA

SDA in SEA — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:27:34 -0800

Nope, no Semisonic.

However, I was taking driver's ed in the mid 1970s, and distinctly remember a driver training film featuring Goofy (yes, the Disney character Goofy). Perhaps some of the oldsters in your office remember that one. :-)

This was long before commercially sponsored "educational" videos, a practice which I find abhorrent.

Comment by Ken

Ken — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:42:17 -0800

We had the Pepsi Show in middle school in Reno, NV. I could not tell you what I learned from the Pepsi Show, other than perhaps that it's possible to make a living doing high-production value multimedia presentations to kids who won't remember a word of it.

Comment by Ken

Ken — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:43:52 -0800

Oh, it was the late 80s, btw.

Comment by Gitai

Gitai — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:57:09 -0800

We didn't have Up with People come to our school. We just had this one "motivational speaker." He spent two hours telling us about his youth spent doing heroin and stealing, and then finding Jesus. I read, my friend and his girlfriend played Magic, some people gossiped, and the rest of my school had to be prompted into applause by the principal. I was incredibly bored and just wanted to go back to my calculus class. Mind you, my best friend was a meth addict, so it wasn't like the speaker was saying anything I hadn't watched first hand.

Comment by anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:11:31 -0800

Is this it? sponsored by Pepsi http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/inside.php?sid=5820

There are you tube vids - search Camfel

Comment by DownWithLife

DownWithLife — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:41:32 -0800

If someone heard U2's "Desire," then they must have been at their nutty multi-extravaganza ZOO TV Tour they did in the early 90's. Man, what crap that was. "...she's like the needle, needle and spoon...," indeed.

Comment by Katelyn

Katelyn — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:18:58 -0800

Yeah we had those at my Minnesota high school as well, Ari, and I'm '03 too. I hadn't figured out how to skip assemblies yet, so I had to watch. What I got out of it: Drugs R Bad! Drink Pepsi! Don't Tell Anyone If You're Depressed, They Will Make You Drink Pepsi!

Comment by Postureduck

Postureduck — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:59:03 -0800

http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/gr/nov2004/assembly300x292.jpg

http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/inside.php?sid=4254

The Internet doesn't seem to have any videos of these things, however.

Comment by Jason

Jason — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:07:30 -0800

Central NJ in 91 got the Blue Angels set to "Dreams" by Van Halen.

Comment by Soo

Soo — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 21:37:09 -0800

I was in HS in the 80's and they had the "Pepsi Assembly" back then as well. It was the raciest thing many in my suburban Catholic High school had seen. I remember many of the geeky kids referring to it in the "My Favorites" portion of the year book. Those were the kids who didn't realize that if you went to the side door by the gym on Tuesdays around 11pm you could buy the best coke I, unfortunately, have never had since.

Comment by Jamey

Jamey — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:31:17 -0800

Ari,
I was class of '95 in Pennsylvania, and I definitely recall having some sort of three big screens extravaganza. I think it traveled to my high school twice in those four years. I know it had some sort of typical BS teenage message but hell if I can remember what it was. Was it really sponsored by Pepsi? I don't remember that either. But I can see why #17 thought of Channel One. That WAS some insidious marketing crap. Hard to believe we all tuned in to those Clearasil ads for 10 minutes every morning. Ugh. "I pledge allegiance to the corporations..." They start us young.

Comment by pretentious

pretentious — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:32:45 -0800

does anyone remember 'donald in mathematicland'?

Comment by jessiesk

jessiesk — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:14:40 -0800

I'm just dying to know which wealthy suburb it was that Ari grew up in. Andover? Lexington? Brookline? Hingham? Please share...

Comment by JenK

JenK — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 13:47:48 -0800

We got a longer-than-usual version with a "Salvation Message" tacked on the end at North Seattle Alliance Church in the mid-eighties.

It was referred to as a "multimedia presentation."

Comment by Christin

Christin — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 08:11:52 -0800

Definitely attended one of those, once in middle school, which would've been circa 1195. We were herded into a professional sports arena, and then there were lasers and loud music and people shouting messages like "Don't drop out" and "don't do drugs" and (perhaps unique to mine) "eat healthy foods." They made us do The Wave. I remember the whole thing reminding me, bizarrely, of the movie Space Jam.

Comment by kt

kt — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:29:38 -0800

"Code Blue", Ari!!

Comment by tae bee

tae bee — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:03:23 -0800

Man. What we had (mid-'90s Central Valley of California) was SO much better. One, we had a sex-ed video where a mom made ovary-and-uterus-shaped pancakes. Yum! Two, we had men who were burly and broke chunks of cement with their heads, which was supposed to illustrate why we should not do drugs, although probably not in the way they intended.

Comment by oijes esbpqth

oijes esbpqth — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:54:08 -0800

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Comment by James Morrison

James Morrison — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 08:53:35 -0800

what a load of rubbish!