Bizarre Rainy-Day Recesss Movies

When I was in grade school, they would sometimes show short movies during recess if it was raining outside. This was back in the 70s, so our movies were shown on a real film projector. This used to be my favorite part of school--not watching the movies, but running the projector. I was the kid in class who was good at threading the projector. If you've never done it yourself, it was a great activity for a kid. It was like solving a hands on maze.

We didn't have many options, as I recall. I think we watched The Red Balloon a lot. (I think they were trying to teach us that foreign films are boring.) We also had something called Winter of the Witch. The one unforgettable element of this short was that the witch made magic pancakes. If you eat them, they make you happy. One character asks, "What did you put in them?" Acid, apparently, because every time somebody eats one, they hallucinate pretty, trippy colors.



Looking back, I have to wonder it some of my grade school teachers -- to borrow a phrase from Bill Clinton -- inhaled. Of course they weren't the ones who made the film, so it's unfair to suggest that. But, on the other hand, they must have been high to think it was good to show us the short film called All the Troubles of the World. It's based on a short story by Isaac Asimov, so they must have felt that gave it educational merit. But their judgment was questionable at best. I think it's probably a great read for a seventh- or eighth-grader, but for forth-graders it was just disturbing. It's a bit of a dystopian nightmare. Spoiler alert: It's set in a future where everybody depends way too much on a central computer called Multivac. As Multivac is given more responsibilities, it becomes sentient and suicidal. The classroom film version ends with the computer repeating "I want to die" over and over and over and over. Then it shuts down. That's super-creepy when you're a kid who really wanted to be outside playing kick ball.



Did that freak you the hell out, too? Maybe you should try having an extra helping of magic happy pancakes! You can watch the whole Winter of the Witch short here. (Warning: May induce flashbacks.)