We got a triple feature of shorts tonight from all different decades and with all different target audiences, none of which are us necessarily but it's fun to speculate a little bit on who exactly they are for and how effective their rhetoric is.
First up we have "Where Did I Come From?" a video about how babies are made, particularly appropriate since Sarah is going to be induced tomorrow. This video is obviously meant to answer that question, but we all questioned what age exactly is this video meant for. Obviously, Jade at two years old is too young, but what makes this video so curious is that it really gets into detail about sex. It talks about anatomy and the baby growing obviously, but it really goes into some specifics about sex. Weirder than that is that it says the reason people aren't having sex all the time is because it's tiring? That's it? Not, you know, because it can make a baby and that's a big responsibility? Or any other reasons? Also, when they show the mother and father's genitals in a tub, there's a duck just staring them both right in the groin and it's hilarious. The science is, as expected, a bit questionable even though they were clearly going for straightforward and accurate.
Spoon Rating: 5
This next one caused me to have a little PTSD from the second the jingle played. Made in 1996, this fire safety series was peak for our childhoods and I vividly remember shortened versions of this video playing on television in between kid's shows on Nickelodeon. The messaging is accurate and not bad, but the jingle is incredibly ear wormy (I remember it after nearly 30 years) and the video itself is really cringy. At the time it probably read as out-of-touch attempts from older people to appeal to kids with rapping about fire safety, but now it's a perfect 90s time capsule in the clothes, sets, and editing. They really did love their fisheye lens. They also emulate the styles of hip-hop artists of the time and the Beastie Boys fairly accurately but in an uncanny kind of way. And there's a talking smoke detector who's just awful to look at. It's not really funny, but it's at least kind of interesting . . . unless you had to hear it on a daily basis as a kid. The jingle lives rent free in my head, but god, I wish it paid.
Spoon Rating: 3
The final feature was the absolute best: "Instant Adoring Boyfriend." Those TikTok teens making date POV videos wish they were this passive aggressive! A man of dubious accent talks to the camera as if you are his girlfriend and he is utterly obsessed with you, saying all the things some woman apparently wants to hear. Sometimes he just lifts weights or reads gossip rags near you, but mostly he just says a bunch of bull about how beautiful and perfect you are. He has no hobbies outside of you, is living off of millions of investments, cancels plans with his friends for you, feels you chocolate cake (which he sloppily puts whipped cream on, messing up your floors), irons your denim skirt (why?), and says he'll drive you home from the club at 3AM with KFC in tow. At the end, he proposes. He is going to take out a life insurance policy on you and then kill you. He is talking to a corpse just off screen. This man has escaped from somewhere, either an institution or a tech lab, and I'm not sure which one. It's hilarious. When it was over, we discussed whether this was meant to earnestly be a fantasy fulfilling product or a gag gift. Sarah and I firmly rested on gag gift because there's a point where all his fawning becomes just a bit too self aware. Adam falls a bit more on the side of earnestness. Either way, not a dream boyfriend but definitely a dream bad movie short.
Spoon Rating: 8
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