“Weirdsville 18”
Oddities From The Archives – the 1970s
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, September 3, Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the strange, the bizarre, and the sometimes baffling short films, commercials and trailers from deep within the Oddball archive. These “found” films surface in the process of research for other programs: too good to languish on the shelves, they demand to be screened! This month we revisit the awful 1970s! Weirdsville is a monthly companion program to the Strange Sinema series.  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to:  info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.
Highlights Include:

Television Behind The Scenes (Color, 1978)
Focusing on the Donny and Marie show, depicts how a weekly variety television program is produced. Includes comments by the producer, director, head writer, art director, and performers who explain the complex interrelationship of the various people involved in the production of this weekly variety show masterpiece.

Information Processing (Color, 1971)
Narrated by comedian David Steinberg, featuring a who’s who of mostly yet unknown 1970s TV stars as subjects (including Uschi Digard from Super Vixens and a thousand other soft-porn movies) and using for its base a crowded, noisy Hollywood cocktail party, this film analyzes how people process information. Deals with attention, language processing, long and short term memory, mnemonics, retrieval strategies, and problem solving.  See if you can recognize the half dozen or so “stars” in waiting!

Big Mouth Goes To The Dentist (Color, 1979)
Children become familiar with the sights and sounds of the dentist’s office when ‘Big Mouth’ is encouraged to visit his playmate’s friend – Dr. Jules. Designed to gain the cooperation of children, the film covers the dental examination, cleaning, flouride treatment, X-rays, brushing habits, and regular visits, and provides a positive role model for children.

Leisure (Color, 1976)
Oscar-winning, fast-paced, humorous and thought-provoking film using animation by Australian newspaper cartoonist Bruce Petty. Utilizing a pop-art sensibility, the film emphasizes the use of leisure time as an important aspect of life in our society today, tracing its history and possible future.

Six Filmmakers in Search of a Wedding (Color, 1971)
Six rapid-fire shorts covering the same wedding – some naturalistic and gentle and others more comedic and satirical (one is done in pixilation with background music by famed Canadian animator Derek Lamb; another is crudely animated with photos and drawings moved across stationary backgrounds). Interesting fashions, very Seventies.

Not You, Too?! (Color, 1973)
Anti-fraud educational film teaches how to avoid typical scenarios like paying to have a studio record your stupid hippy song (convincing you it’s a sure fire hit).

Teenage Father (excerpt) (Color, 1978)
Oscar-winner Taylor Hackford’s (An Officer and a Gentleman) unknown, thought-provoking film about a young parent- notable here for the slice of life 1970s teen suburban cruising scenes at the opening, in which we will revel and marvel at.

PLUS- 1970s movie trailers, commercials and more straight out of Weirdsville!

On Friday, August 27th, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of films about chickens! We broil them, shake and bake them, fry them, braise them, stew them- the poor chicken doesn’t stand a chance! Which came first- the chicken or the egg? The answer will be revealed at this one-night-only program!  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Featuring:

The Colonel Comes To Japan (Color, 1984)
This Emmy-winning documentary was made 14 years after the opening of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Japan. Hosted by Eric Sevareid, it is often hilarious/ridiculous as Western fast food meets Eastern politeness and service seriousness.  Many scenes invoke the farce of  Itami’s Tampopo. Sensitively written, produced and directed by John Nathan (translator of Mishima and Oe and writer of many books on Japanese culture), with a nonetheless obvious eye for humor.

Finger Lickin’ 良い!

Le Poulet (B+W, 1962)
Influential French triple threat (director/producer/actor) Claude Berri’s directorial debut, a boy “hatches” a scheme to save a chicken from becoming his family’s Sunday dinner. Utilizing an economy and simplicity of design and featuring Tati-esque comedy, The Chicken is ultimately a heartwarming tale of father and son and the inherent goodness in man. Written by Charles Nastat, it features Jacques Marin, Viviane Bourdonneux and Martin Serre.  Winner of the Palme d’Or and the1965 Academy Award for best short film.

Chicken Love

Courtesy: A Good Eggsample (Color, 1976)
First meet Eggbert, a good egg, who helps his mother at home, apologizes for bumping into Mrs. White, and politely takes his place in line while waiting for the bus. Now meet Benedict, the “rotten egg,” who pushes into line, is always late to class, and never respects the rights of others. It is only when Benedict falls and cracks his shell and Eggbert helps him up that Benedict realizes how important it is to be kind, helpful, and courteous to others.

Good Eggs

Eggs (B+W, c.1950)
See the early industrialization of egg farming, which despite the hundreds of thousands of eggs produced looks positively benign compared to today’s monster farms.

Eggs®

An Egg Scramble (Color, 1950)
Farmer Porky gives “Old Maid” Prissy hen an ultimatum- produce or it’s the cooking pot.  When she finally does produce an egg (actually placed as a trick by one of the other hens), she goes on a mad hunt to track it down before it becomes someone’s breakfast…

Ham and Eggs

One Turkey, Two Turkey (Color, 1971)
The turkeys demand equal time- they even get their own song!

Come On Let’s Turkey Trot

Plus! Many more crazy chicken shorts and clips!

(Reuters) – After nearly a quarter century at the bottom of a Japanese river, Colonel Sanders has come up smiling.
Ecstatic fans of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team tossed the statue of the Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot into the Dotonbori River in Osaka, western Japan, in 1985 when the perpetual underdogs won their first Central League pennant in 21 years.  Tiger fans, who saw a resemblance between the Colonel and the team’s bearded American slugger, Randy Bass, jumped into what was then one of the country’s most polluted rivers when the losing streak ended — and took the life-size statue with them.
The team went on to win the national championship, the Japan Series, that year but has never done so again, prompting some to suggest that the Colonel’s disappearance put a curse on them.  A diver checking for unexploded bombs from World War Two in the river as part of a clean-up found the Colonel’s top half on Tuesday, minus his hands and glasses but still sporting his trademark string tie and grin.  “When I heard the statue had been found, I felt that history had ended,” Yoshio Yoshida, 75, Hanshin manager at the time, was quoted by the Asahi newspaper as saying. “Recalling 1985, I’d like them to achieve the dream of being Japan No. 1 again.”  The Colonel’s smile might have widened if it could on Wednesday, when his bottom half was recovered and reunited with the top. “It’s only a statue, but I felt as if I was rescuing someone,” a worker told reporters after the lower half was found.

Rescued Colonel

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

“Bride of Trailer Trash!”
Trashy Trailers Screen at Oddball Films

On Friday, August 20th, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening rare B-Movie, Art Film and vintage sleaze film trailers, from the 1960s and 1970s.  Ranging from 30 seconds to several minutes in length, these promotional shorts for coming attractions were often much more entertaining than the features they promote (and often contained footage not in the final film).
In addition, a reel of censored film clips will be presented as found.  Marked “Mandatory Edits” and compiled presumably by the editor at the big Los Angeles TV station where this reel originated, these feature film clips were apparently deemed too violent, sexual, suggestive or shocking to be shown on TV.  Jarring edits take you from the Civil War to WWII to the old West, to Ancient times and back, and from color to B &W.  See flaming arrows in the chest, suggestive undergarments, bloody stumps, heaving breasts, and so much more!  See Gary Cooper, Buddy Greco, Burt Lancaster, Charo, and a cast of thousands together in the boldest film that never was! Plus the shorts “We Live In A Trailer” and “Tin Can Tourist”. Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Trailers Include (but not limited to):

Dead Heat On A Merry-Go-Round; Chamber of Horrors; Munsters Go Home:  The Third Day; The Ghost and Mr. Chicken; Hell’s Belles; The Female Bunch; Battle of the Amazons; The Virgin Witch; The Possession of Joel Delaney; Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Hyde; Escape From/Battle for/Conquest of/the Planet of the Apes; Cabaret; Dog Day Afternoon; Airport 1975; Eat My Dust (w/ Ron Howard); Cover Girl Models; Switchblade Sisters; War Goddess; The Big Bus; Zero Population Growth; Little Fauss & Big Halsy; Grave of the Vampire; House of Exorcism; Return of Count Yorga; Play It Again, Sam; Girls in Trouble; Girly; The Student Body; Super Stooges Vs. The Wonder Women; Girls Are For Loving; 1000 Convicts and a Woman; Black Mama/White Mama; Face of Terror (w/ Arch Hall Jr.); Dimension 5; The Secret Passion; Lilith; Dear Heart; Flight From Ashiya; Woman of Straw; Moment to Moment; The Farmer’s Daughter; Obsession; Prime Cut; JD’s Revenge; Mein Kampf; Underworld USA (Sam Fuller); Black Gold; Winterhawk; The Master Gunfighter; Swiss Family Robinson; The Warlord; Take Her She’s Mine; Go-Go Mania; Hitler’s Harlots; Diary of a Young Writer; Raga; Pink Flamingos; Jabberwocky; State of Siege; Truck Stop Women; Seduction of Mimi; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Satutrday Night Fever; Star Wars; Klute; Cool Hand Luke; American Graffiti; WR: Mysteries of the Organism; The 1972 NY Erotic Film Festival; In Like Flynt; and many more!!

PLUS-

Mandatory Edits (color, B&W, c.1950-1965)
Wild compilation of violent, sexual and otherwise “not ready for primetime viewing” film clips, edited into one bizarre reel.  It’s as if William Burroughs got into the Saturday afternoon TV-movie vault and applied his “cut-up technique”.

We Live in A Trailer (color, 1959)
Back by popular demand: trailer-trash in training.

Trailer Trash in Training

Tin Can Tourist (Dir. Mannie Davis, B+W, 1937)
Farmer Al Falfa and his dog hit the road in their modern, gadget-loaded trailer home. “Riding along with a trailer / Happy as can be, / No rent to pay, no landlords, / No-sir-ee!”

Al and his dog hit the road

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

“Weirdsville 17”
Oddities From The Archives
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, August 13, Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the strange, the bizarre, and the sometimes baffling short films, commercials and trailers from deep within the Oddball archive. These “found” films surface in the process of research for other programs: too good to languish on the shelves, they demand to be screened!  Weirdsville is a monthly companion program to the Strange Sinema series.  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to:  info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

Wings To Hawaii (Color, 1951)

This beautiful color film begins in a small New England town with a newlywed couple on their way to San Francisco, where they enjoy the views from atop the Mark Hopkins Hotel before heading off to the Pan Am Clipper Boeing 377 for a flight to Hawaii.

The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was a luxurious long-range postwar prop airliner. Its pressurized cabin could hold about 100 passengers or sleeping berths for up to 28 berthed and 5 seated passengers. One distinctive feature was a lower-deck lounge, reached by a spiral staircase from the upper-deck, that inspired the one on the later 747 jumbo. Only about 56 were built as airliners and by the early 60′s, they were quickly made obsolete by the success of the Boeing 707 jetliner.

We see passengers and luggage boarding the aircraft. Shots and views of and from the cockpit are seen. Engines turning up, without the ever present oil smoke clouds, We then see takeoff and flight over San Francisco in a large roomy first class cabin with sleeperette seats.  During the long over water flight the captain comes back to greet passengers and then it is time to eat. The stewardess prepares the cabin for meals. We see a big Clipper flying kitchen that prepares 7 course meals for hungry passengers.
The passengers wander to the lower deck, where the bar and lounge serves drinks to fellow passengers. While upstairs, bed sized berths are readied for passengers to sleep in.  The next morning the Pan Am Clipper arrives in Hawaii and passengers are exiting PAA N90944, Clipper Romance of the Skies. NOTE: This Clipper was involved in the 2nd worst accident involving a Boeing 377 when on November 8, 1957 the aircraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean, 940 miles east of Honolulu.

The remainder of the film shows us everything you would expect to see in Hawaii in the early 1950s: a luau, hula dancing, and some great outrigger and surf scenes!

Best of the West (Color, 1967)
The year’s best print, billboard and television ads as chosen by the American Federation of Advertisers. Some highly entertaining innovative ads are seen, punctuated by the contemporary fashion of groovy lightshow go-go dancers and acid rock poster graphics.

Destination: Dotted Line (B+W, 1953)
This 1953 training film for the Pontiac salesman educating him on the finer points of making a successful sale is worth seeing just for the car features, but the Film Noir style elevates it to low art.

The Litterbug (Color, 1961)
In this Technicolor D*sney live-action/animated “special”, we are given a sneak peak at a new book called “Pest Control” by one D.D. Tee. The author/narrator explains that, while Mankind has for the most part neutralized such predatory pests as the mosquito and boll weevil, we have not yet rid ourselves of that most annoying and destructive of pests: The Litterbug (who in this film looks just a bit like Donald Duck). Though the private “domains” of the Litterbug may be clean and tidy, on weekends the little nemesis is capable of littering three times its own weight. The Litterbug is most active during the vacation months, generally migrating to the beach or the mountains. We are offered some rather messy examples of the worst offenders, including “The Unconscious Carrier”, “The Sports Bug”, and “The Sneak Bug.” The catchy closing song, performed by several not-so-timid woodland creatures, takes the Litterbug to task for blighting and polluting the landscape.

The Rip-Off (Color, 1976)
Teen scare film demonstrates the kind of trouble a little innocent shoplifting can bring.  Starring Charles Martin Smith (Toad in American Graffiti) as the bon vivant shoplifter who goads his friend into some serious trouble at the local sporting goods store.  Where’s Candy when we need her?

Ski Whiz (Color, 1972)
Kooky skiing and winter sport short by the great Warren Miller, features brisk editing and styles from the era when cigarette pants and wrap-around shades were still the rage.

Sun Healing: The Ultraviolet Way (B+W, c. 1930s)
Horribly dangerous looking device called the Life Lite looks like it would be right at home on a crappy cable TV infomercial. Only this product, which touts “all the healing properties of the sun”, probably caused burns, radiation sickness and cancer.  Nonetheless, it’s shown being used by happy customers and their babies…

PLUS- movie trailers, commercials and more straight out of Weirdsville!

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

On Friday, July 9, Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the strange, the bizarre, and the sometimes baffling short films, commercials and trailers from deep within the Oddball archive. These “found” films surface in the process of research for other programs: too good to languish on the shelves, they demand to be screened!  Weirdsville is a monthly companion program to the Strange Sinema series.  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to:  info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

The Wild Goose (B+W, 1973, Dir. Bruce Cronin)
An endless round of octogenarian birthday parties, insipid poetry readings, boring meals and confrontations with no-nonsense nurses make the “wild goose” determined to escape from his nursing home, wreaking havoc in his motorized wheelchair in this hilarious fantasy filled with sight-gags and in which no dialogue is necessary. Winner of a Baltimore Film Festival award, 1975, and still used as a nursing home training film!!

Foiled Again!

Hypothèse Beta (Color, 1967)
An Oscar-nominated French filmed animation, which deals with an isolated computer punch card perforation who tries to join groups of well-behaved perforations, is rebuffed, and finally manages to create complete disorder. Remember punch cards? Neither do I.

Rebel Hole

In A Harem (B+W, 1941)
An all-dog, “talking” short from Paramount’s “Speaking of Animals” series. A little pooch falls asleep and dreams he has his own exotic harem.

Puppy Dreams

New York City! (Color, 1968)
Straight boy meets straight girl in this “Fly the Friendly Skies of United” promo. Our “swingin’ squares” discover the sights and sounds of the Big Apple as they tour the touristy Times Square hot spots. Later they hit a belly dance lounge and end up at the famed club Salvation featuring the 60s garage rock band “The Churls” (with psychedelic backdrops). The evening ends with our two lovebirds heading home on motorbike-to mom!

The Churls Perform "City Lights"

The Concert (Color, 1975)
A comedic fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that his feet produce piano notes as he walks across the street.

Some Other Crosswalk Musicians

What Made Sammy Speed? (Color, 1957)
Another great Sid Davis production (hero of the Scared Straight series), this one in stunning Eastman color with great southern California street scenes and 1950s cars.  A teen-age driver, Sammy Robertson, is killed in a traffic accident as a result of speed. This film explains the steps leading up to the accident: background, attitude, and reasons for poor driving.

Find Out Friday

The House I Live In (B+W, 1946, Dir. Mervyn LeRoy)
Made to oppose anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at the end of World War II, it received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe award in 1946.
Features a young Frank Sinatra teaching a group of boys a lesson in religious tolerance and singing the title song, which compares America to a house we all inhabit.  Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the established hand behind such hits as Little Caesar (1931), Random Harvest  (1942) and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). It won a Special Oscar® for Best Tolerance Short Subject and a Golden Globe as Best Film for Promoting International Good Will. Way to go, Frank. (Also features rare Sinatra-mania street scene footage!)

PLUS- movie trailers, commercials and more straight out of Weirdsville!

On Friday, July 2 Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present “Monkey Time: Apes, Chimps and Gorillas”, a program examining the pseudo human activities of apes, monkeys and gorillas and their anthropological history.
The screening takes place at 275 Capp St in San Francisco. Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is required. RSVPs to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415.558.8117.

While similar in physical appearance to humans, monkeys are very far removed from so-called thinking beings. Still, humans insist on dressing up monkeys for their own amusement. While these animals certainly have a better fate than cows, pigs or chickens they nonetheless suffer for our entertainment. In this program we examine and explore the hilarious and sublime lengths humans go to entertain us via these proxy mammals.
Before the heyday of television and the domination of cinema, vaudeville, theater, circus acts, magic shows, impossible and death-defying stunts were all that amused thrill-seeking audiences across the US. Animal acts were a big hit and monkeys basked in their glory.
Tonight you’ll see “Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp”, a TV detective in an all-monkey spy spoof, “Chimps in Training and Show Business”(!), a behind the scenes look at animal training and the popular 1930s shorts re-released by Castle Films “Chimp the Cowboy” and “Chimp the Fireman”. For context and contrast we’ll also screen several anthropological shorts including “Monkeys, Apes and Man: The Chasm”, featuring world renowned anthropologists Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey as well as “Snow Monkeys of Japan”, a revealing look at these rare mammals.
We hope you’ll be delighted and even enlightened at this quirky yet revealing look at apes, chimps and gorillas. If you like monkeys or if you’re a monkey yourself, you’ll love this program!

Featuring:

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (Color, 1971) in “To Tell the Tooth”.  Get Smart meets James Bond in this TV spy spoof as the top agent of APE (Agency to Prevent Evil) detective Lance Link discovers a dentist working for C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan) has been inserting secret radio transmitters into the teeth of military officials.

Chimps in Training and Show Business (1950s)
Watch them get trained for the circus and onstage action!

Chimp the Cowboy (B+W, 1937) + Chimp the Fireman (B+W, 1936) Mischievous chimp comedies feature a trained chimp donning various costumes playing multiple “career” roles.

My Children (B+W, 1931)
Featuring the famous Tiffany Chimps in an early chimpsploitation comedy short. An all-monkey, all talking picture!

Movie Trailers for the “Planet of the Apes” films (1970s)
Watch half men, half apes battle it out in these 3 classic trailers!

Snow Monkeys of Japan (Color, 1975) Visual appreciation of the Japanese Snow Monkey as an intelligent, beautiful animal. They are the only known monkeys who will enter and play in water, and have adopted the hot springs of the Yokoyu Kawa River.

Monkeys, Apes and Man: Exploring The Chasm (Color, 1971)
An overview of the monkey-man link, this film follows Dian Fossey into the Central African rain forest to study mountain gorillas, Jane Goodall into Tanzania to study Chimpanzees, Japanese scientists to Koshima Island where they are studying the macaque and Wisconsin scientists to their laboratories where they study rhesus monkeys.

Plus! Free bananas, door prizes and more Monkey surprises!!

About “Lancelot Link Secret Chimp”

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp aired on ABC from September 12, 1970, to September 2, 1972. The Saturday morning live-action film series featured a cast of chimpanzees given apparent speaking roles by overdubbing with human voices. The network episodes added a laugh track; later syndicated and video versions do not.

The plot, always played for laughs, featured Lancelot Link and his female colleague Mata Hairi in secret agent and spy satires. Link worked for APE (Agency to Prevent Evil), engaged in an ongoing conflict with the evil organization CHUMP (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan). CHUMP’s monocled chief, Baron von Butcher, inevitably hatched the latest plan to endanger the world. The Baron’s network of international fiends included his shifty chauffeur Creto, mad scientist Dr. Strangemind (with an exaggerated Bela Lugosi dialect) and racist stereotypes imperious Dragon Woman, drowsy Wang Fu, singing sheik Ali Assa Seen and the cultured Duchess. One or more would appear in each episode.

A regular weekly feature was chimp TV host “Ed Simian” introducing a musical number by an all-chimp band, “The Evolution Revolution.” An album of these songs was released on the ABC/Dunhill record label. There were also Lancelot Link comic books and other merchandise, including Halloween costumes.

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp was the most expensive Saturday morning children’s’ show of the time, with location filming, props and costumes, and the laborious staging and training of the animals. The filmmakers made the most of the budget, staging multiple episodes with the same settings and wardrobe, occasionally reusing the more elaborate chase footage that sometimes included BMWs. The show later appeared on the Nickelodeon cable television channel during the 1980s as well as infrequent syndication.
NOTE: The show did extremely well when it ran in Central Africa, and in 1987 became the number one show in Zaire!

On Friday, June 25, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the most popular short films screened over the last six months here at the archive. A sampling of the best, most entertaining, and occasional surprise “hits” from the broad range of programs, from Lost Animation to Scared Straight, Girl Trouble/Boy Trouble to Weirdsville. Missed a program?  Now’s your chance to see the best of show!  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

De Düva (Dir. George Coe/Antony Lover, B+W, 1968)  Weirdsville 10
Nominated for an Oscar (Best Short Subject – Live Action) in 1969, this short parodies three of Ingmar Bergman’s films – Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, and The Silence. It also marked the first film role of Madeline Kahn. Speaking in mock Swedish, with English subtitles, a retired physicist with a hernia recalls, while sitting in an outhouse, a garden party he attended as a youth. In a game of badminton rather than chess, Death loses his intended victim because of a hilarious obstacle – a dirty pigeon. Director George Coe was one of the original cast members on the first three episodes of Saturday Night Live. And scriptwriter Sid Davis, who also plays the role of Death, is perhaps best known as a director/producer of educational safety films; he was also a long-time body double for John Wayne. (Tom Warner)

7362 (Dir. Pat O’Neill, Color, 1965-67) Weirdsville 11
A mind-blowing visual and sound experience by experimental filmmaker Pat O’Neill with sound by cult musician/early synthesizer artist Joseph Byrd (The United States of America). Described as “a bilaterally symmetrical (west to east) fusion of human, biomorphic and mechanical shapes in motion. Has to do with the spontaneous generation of electrical energy. A fairly rare (ten years ago) demonstration of the Sabattier Effect (re-exposing partially developed film to light during the processing) in motion. Title refers to the film stock of the same name.

Birds, Bees and Storks (Dir. John Halas, Color, 1965) Weirdsville 13
A father sets out to explain the facts of life to his son, but becomes increasingly embarrassed to the point where his explanations are so vague as to be incomprehensible.

Inspired by Gerard Hoffnung’s 1960 book of the same name, this is a delightful and all too familiar study of the embarrassed middle-aged British male, as a father attempts to explain the facts of life to his son but ends up delivering a monologue so packed with euphemisms about birds, bees and butterflies that it ends up being totally incoherent.

Produced by the esteemed Halas & Batchelor Animation Studio, the visual style (inspired directly by Hoffnung’s drawings) is simple in the extreme – for much of the film, we just watch the father squirming and blushing in his chair, which focuses our attention both on Peter Sellers’ monologue and director John Halas’ subtle visual characterization, all nervous tics and fidgeting.

Boy With a Knife (B&W, 1956)  Girl Trouble/Boy Trouble
Narrated by film noir legend Richard Widmark, this educational film makes juvenile delinquency seem positively benign compared to today’s problem youth.  Some great campy moments.

Mr. Frog Went A Courtin’ (Dir. Evelyn Lambert, Color, 1974) Lost Animation Fest
Another frequent collaborator with Norman McLaren, Evelyn Lambert forged a distinct whimsical style with dark undertones utilizing cutouts.

Zoo (B+W, 1962) Weirdsville 15
Hilarious docu-comedy by the brilliant Dutch filmmaker Bert Haanstra. Director of the 1959 Oscar-winning short Glass (another Oddball favorite!), Haanstra must have spent many days shooting  to capture these amazing shots.  Utilizing a hidden camera and brilliant editing , “natural” animal and human behavior/interaction is cleverly exposed.

“Observing people and animals when they don’t know you’re there is
fascinating: I bonded with them” – Bert Haanstra

The Innocent Party (Color, 1959) Scared Straight 3
The guilt-tripped noir-like shocker about a “dirty” girl and her hidden secret- VD! See what happens when she “gifts’ her boyfriend with it!  A cool beatnik-jazz soundtrack highlights highlights this sordid tale produced by the Kansas State Board of Health!

The Wizard of Speed and Time (Color, 1979, Mike Jitlov) Time, Space, Movement
A young man in a green wizard costume runs throughout America at super speed, much like the superhero The Flash. Along the way, he gives a pretty girl a swift lift to another city, gives golden stars to other women who want a trip themselves and then slips on a banana-peel, and comically crashes into a film stage, which he then brings to life in magical ways.

Buried Treasure (B+W, 1928) Banned! Censored! Cartoons!
The Granddaddy of pornographic cartoons- ri”dick”ulously funny.

Plus! Some of our favorite vintage commercials and mind-bending movie trailers!!

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

“2nd Annual Vintage Bicycle Film Fest”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Saturday, June 12, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of vintage bicycle films- bike safety, maintenance, history and more.
Bikes are everywhere these days and gaining in popularity by the minute. Amidst the bicycle revolution taking place in San Francisco and other cities, for some it simply a great and healthy means of transportation; for many, it’s become a way of life.  There is now a popular Bicycle Film Fest touring major cities throughout the US featuring all new films about bikes: Oddball is happy to dust off some oldies but goodies from the 50,000+ archive that will appeal to the bike crowd, vintage and camp enthusiasts alike.
Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

One Got Fat (color, 1963)
Bizarre/legendary bike safety film- 10 young cyclists acting like monkeys (wearing masks and tails!) head to a city park for a picnic.  9 out of 10 makes a bonehead mistake and suffers a major accident- all but one, who reaches the park and…
Here’s how a few of the characters meet their demise:
1. Tinkerbell (“Tink”) McDillinfiddy forgets to watch out for a stop sign, and is           hit by a large truck.
2. Phillip (“Floog”) Floogle rides on the left…POW!
3. Mossby Pomegranate’s bike is stolen, police can’t find it because it wasn’t            registered, as a result of running between one and nine blocks, his feet             arches collapse.
4. Slim Jim (“Slim”) Maguffny and Trigby Phipps ride double, due to Trigby’s     lack of vision because of Slim blocking his head, he steers right into an     open manhole covering.
Find out Saturday the fate of the others!

Monkey Tale (B+W, 1952)
Produced by the New Zealand National Film Unit for their national Transport Department, this bike safety film features “Marquis the Chimp and Family” as they really monkey around on their bikes!

Hike or Bike (B+W, 1943)
WWII era film made by Paramount focused on walking and biking (as gas and rubber for car tires were in short supply).  Lots of great historical footage of early bicycles!

I Like Bikes, But… (Color, 1977)
Super-70s dork fest follows little Lisa as she grows from a pig-tailed young bike rider to feather-haired teen driver. A General Motors driver’s ed film about sharing the road.

How To Protect Your Bike (Color, 1973)
Kooky film by the legendary Sid Davis about protecting your precious chopper from thieves, made with the cooperation of the Santa Monica PD.  Filmed on and around the Venice Board Walk in Santa Monica, the wily thief (played by an unknown character actor who’s played the heavy in hundreds of 70s TV shows and movies).  Learn all the tricks!

I’m No Fool With a Bicycle (Color, 1956)
Jiminy Cricket accentuates the positive in this classic Technicolor beauty.

Bicycle Rules: Safety First (Color, 1980)
With Bill Cosby, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. When Weird Harold’s uncle lends Harold his racing bicycle, Harold breaks all the rules, until he learns that a cyclist who ignores the rules is a danger to himself and a threat to others.

Copenhagen: The Bicycle City (B+W, 1955)
Warner Pathé newsreel portrait of the famous bicycle city of Copenhagen- is San Francisco next?

PLUS! Vintage bike commercials and PSA’s, an eccentric inventor and his bump-powered 10 speed and more surprises!

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

On Friday, June 11, Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the strange, the bizarre, and the sometimes baffling short films, commercials and trailers from deep within the Oddball archive. These “found” films surface in the process of research for other programs: too good to languish on the shelves, they demand to be screened!  Weirdsville is a monthly companion program to the Strange Sinema series.  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to:  info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

Zoo (B+W, 1962)
Hilarious docu-comedy by the brilliant Dutch filmmaker Bert Haanstra. Director of the 1959 Oscar-winning short Glass (another Oddball favorite!), Haanstra must have spent many days shooting  to capture these amazing shots.  Utilizing a hidden camera and brilliant editing , “natural” animal and human behavior/interaction is cleverly exposed.

“Observing people and animals when they don’t know you’re there is
fascinating: I bonded with them” – Bert Haanstra

The Remarkable Riderless Runaway Tricycle (Color, 1982)
Adapted from the popular children’s story, a young boy leaves his tricycle to play with a kite he retrieves from a trash can. It’s trash day and the tricycle is mistakenly picked up by the trash men and taken to the junkyard. Just as it is about to be crushed into scrap metal, the tricycle magically speeds away… Music by Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini.

Run, tricycle, run!

Jerry’s Restaurant (Color, 1976)
Most certainly the inspiration for Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi character, Chicago deli owner Jerry Myers throws in a side of verbal abuse with every sandwich. For over thirty years Jerry Meyers has screamed and yelled at customers who come into his deli.  The film attempts to explain why people keep  coming back for more.

No sandwich for you!!

A Sharper Focus (Color, 1972)
Training film for salespeople utilizes pop art animation and bizarre puppetry.  Made by the pioneering, Oscar-nominated industrial filmmaker Henry Strauss.

Sell, baby, sell!

Magic Highway, U.S.A. (Color, 1958)
Live action, archival footage, culminating in stunningly beautiful mid-century animation from D*sney examines the past, present (circa 1958) and paleo-future of transportation (*note* a small portion of the end of this wonderful otherwise unavailable film has been lost no doubt to a hungry high school film projector).

“As father chooses the route in advance on a push-button selector, electronics take over complete control. Progress can be accurately checked on a synchronized scanning map. With no driving responsibility, the family relaxes together. En route business conferences are conducted by television.”

Retro-futurism gone wild

Crash Bang Boom (Color, 1970)
Bizarre, catchy/annoying educational film introduces various percussion instruments to kids. Sing-songy jingle vocals provide the “narration”- culminating in a hippy freak band playing in a field while pre-teen Woodstock wannabees get groovy. Lysergic educational filmmaking at its “finest”.

The Moebius Flip (Color, 1969, excerpt)
A fantasy movie in which a group of skiers find that the world has flip-flopped onto the other side of reality. They have to do the moebius flip, a ski maneuver consisting of a flip plus a full twist, in order to flop the world back to reality. Made for the Hart Ski Company by Summit Films (Ski The Outer Limits), this is a visually stunning piece of retro style utilizing eye-popping optical print effects.

Flipped

PLUS- movie trailers, commercials and more straight out of Weirdsville!

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.