Oddity Archive: Episode 46 - Interstitials

An entire show devoted to between-show filler? I must be headed for a breakdown.
Visit us at www.theoddityarchive.com
Or, if you're a social media nut:
Facebook: oddityarchive
Twitter: @oddityarchive

[@FuzzyMemoriesTV]

New From Hasbro: The SNI-PETS. Collect 'em all!

[@elklandry]

It's SNI-PETS or nothing!

[@iron1349]

y'all are the lifeblood of this sho

[@hayleywaalen2612]

Or a Virtual Pet website LOL

[@Fuzy2K]

4:35 -- So, the moral of the story is, if you eat junk food, you'll turn into clay and melt. Got it.

[@FSinWCR]

15:49 literally crying over spilled milk.

[@SNARC15]

They should change the song to "The biggest crybaby in the whole wide world..."

[@AbsoluteDigitalPictures]

Lol I was going to say that but I was 8 years late 😅😂

[@FragglevisionReturns]

I lost it at "Oh dear, he created an illuminati symbol."

[@NijiMarii]

"I don't like to touch." "But touching is good!"

[@ThePhantomSafetyPin]

"Hiiii~, I'm Soft~... and I have a 'fuck me' voice~..."

[@JL-sm6cg]

...says her creepy uncle.

[@Lundipolish]

My favorite episode of the Archive. Not only informative, but you had me crackin' up Ben.

[@DoctorKandosii]

We never had these in Britain. We were just told that life is unfair and deal with it, or go out the back and wait to be shot.

[@SuperCosmicMutantSquid]

Did anyone notice that the kids in te cartoon broke down at simple shit but the real life kids just laughed off all their mistakes and kept going? Cartoon kid spills his milks and loses it. Real life girl makes a mess out of her ice cream and thinks its the funniest shit on Earth. Cartoon kid cries at his blocks falling down Two real life kids are enjoying ripping a kite out of a tree a little too much. I'm getting mixed messages here. The cartoon is telling me that I should cry at little shit but the real kids are having the time of the lives as they potential wreck shit and kill themselves, like riding bikes into traffic and falling in streets!

[@TackyRackyComixNEO]

I think it's more that the real life segments are how you should react (though maybe it's too over the top), whereas the cartoon segments are how you might want to feel when something like that happens.

[@JL-sm6cg]

Children cry over different things, and sometimes they have emotional problems and need help, okay?

[@frostychocolatemilkshakes2944]

How about doing an episode on TV bumpers?

[@frostychocolatemilkshakes2944]

CuteEwok :D

[@badcatalex]

Hi, it's me, Face! And no!

[@NaviciaAbbot]

What about the most popular interstitials? School House Rock! It's the only series that has been put in on a home video format!

[@crabbyoldgamer3028]

+Joshua Cain Yes, I wondered why he didn't cover SHR. Maybe because it was good, he's saving it for a different episode.

[@ArchiveofAwesomeness1886]

It was made specifically for ABC

[@SouthShoreSonics]

11:05 Doctor writes with left hand. 11:32 Artist paints with left hand. 11:35 Judge hits gavel with left hand. True archive of left-handed people in action (even if they are cartoons)!

[@RetroCirq]

I'm surprised you've didn't mentioned "One to Grow On", NBC's Pre-"The More You Know" interstitial....

[@mr3urious]

At least during the later period of the E/I mandate, networks at least tried to give us some high quality edutainment on Saturdays like Histeria and Pepper Ann. Only around the middle part of the 2000s did they get cheap and just air a bunch of bland nature and career-oriented shows just so the FCC could allow them to keep their licenses. There was a glimmer of hope with Saban's Vortexx block, but even that was too good to last as it was yanked last year in favor of Shitton's One Miserable Morning.

[@austinreed7343]

mr3urious And then even the blocks that just aired stuff from the cable channels died in 2016.

[@malakaibrown94]

like I need to watch Tommy Davidson going on a cruise with a white family

[@dcb99filmz]

Magi-Nation had edutainment shoehorned into the dialogue and it didn't work.

[@harvardnshorty]

Ben, you should do an episode talking about Schoolhouse Rock!

[@tigerkay9393]

is Hooray for Reading the inspiration/springboard for Reading Rainbow?

[@FragglevisionReturns]

I have a disc of cartoons from February 1984 that has a LOT of those "Snipets" things. It was taped from WCIX in Miami, which I'm guessing is another Field station. (Also for some reason it plays the same ice cream cake commercial every other two breaks. Most of the other ads are so-70's-it-hurts PSA's, with the occasional 1984 cereal/juice ad or Star Trek or Welcome Back Kotter promo thrown in.)

[@owenrock69]

Maybe you have the presumed "lost" Snipet of the "Come Back Can" that everyone who likes retro stuff like this has been looking for.

[@tsteeleosuou]

A Billion for Boris was the sequel to Freaky Friday (which was made into a movie several times, most notably with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris)

[@BenGriffithsHammond]

I want to know why I can't shovel snow over 40 while having sex.

[@ThePhantomSafetyPin]

Because OMG NOOOoooooo why would you want to have sex in a snowdrift

[@yulanottenfwicke7578]

The Retro Revival People over 40 should not combine two tiring activities especially if one activity requires layers of clothing making the other more difficult and therefore tiring.

[@yulanottenfwicke7578]

The Retro Revival And I almost needed frostbite treatment in a very sensitive area.

[@dustinthehuman8626]

The Retro Revival Because multitasking could be dangerous. So don't multitask and brag, Retro.

[@guitarbrad]

My childhood! Laid bare for all to see. These were 70s TV.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Have you watched any British PIFs on here? The Spirit of Dark And Lonely Water or any of our Stranger Danger short films that they'd play to us in schools? Or the Stay The Fuck Away From Electricity Substations where Billy gets fried retrieving some girl's frisbee or a boy gets literrally _blown the fuck up_ getting a ball from such a horrifying place? Our interstitials were slightly different in tone for some reason, not sure if American youth would have been healthier, I do know that you don't see this sort of thing nowadays and I actually think that's a shame.

[@guitarbrad]

I did watch a few of the British PIFs, like Spirit of Dark And Lonely Water, Stranger Danger and a UK PIF called Fireworks Safety (which tells people not to let kids meddle with fireworks at something called Bonfire Night; they don't exactly celebrate the 4th of July, do they?). Yes, these were fairly scary & can freak out some kids. Some of these are not meant to show to kids - they're more for parents. The scariest ones are from the US in the 1960s. One in particular called The Child Molester produced by the Highway Safety Foundation in 1964 (the same people that brought you Blood and Asphalt & Highways of Agony). This film scarred some kids for life! They were posting comments decades later about being scared to death after seeing it! It was obviously meant for parents only and was removed from the schools a few years later.

[@TackyRackyComixNEO]

I'm gonna have that "something happened, something happened!" song stuck in my head for weeks now.

[@RobotRollCallMusic]

Judging by that mimes face, I don't think those were cigarettes.

[@thepeternetwork]

Was that mime Marcelle Marceau? I couldn't tell.

[@daveb5041]

That green gumby thing reminds me of a bad acid trip. Thats creepy as hell.

[@Losaru]

I can't really remember if Canada had anything like this. I mean we had PSAs out of the wazoo but something like this seems like something more from Sesame Street. Unless now School House Rock falls under this. Man I miss those.

[@Pixelanon]

This episode has probably my favorite archive riffs of all time. Ben's commentary during the interstitials had me crying with laughter.

[@artistwithouttalent]

11:43 I'm surprised that hasn't generated any Trump jokes.

[@spy4863]

Rather surprised you didn't make any mention of some of the most famous interstitials such as The More You Know (NBC, 1980's-2000's), One To Grow On (NBC, 1980's), In The News (CBS, 1970's-90's), Time For Timer (ABC, 1970's-80's), and of course, the most famous of all interstitials , Schoolhouse Rock (ABC, 1970's-1990's)!

[@SailorMaxie]

Ben kind of likes to shy away from the 80's for the most part, and hardly ever dips toes into the 90's. And thus, The More You Know and One to Grow On are kind of off the table for him. As for the others, I guess he just didn't have the time.

[@ThisGuyFrritz]

12:15 I saw these in about the late 1970's while watching cartoons on WNEW Channel 5 (if I recall correctly). I didn't know that they were made in 1972. And the episode shown at the beginning (00:01)! That got me imitating the sounds, especially near the end where this guy slips on the kid's toys at high speed! Oh yeah, I can also remember this game show episode where at the end Fumble (who might've tried to rival Big Bird) called the host and said "The most important person in the whole wide world is me!" And, one-by-one, the other kids say "And Me!", "And Me!", "And Me!", "And Me!", "And Me!", "And Me!". And the host exclaimed "YOU ARE ALL RIGHT!" Years later, as I remember that moment, it's like, "So, these *cartoon characters* are the most important people in the whole wide world! Huh???"

[@ThisGuyFrritz]

Oh yes, another thought came to my mind: In the last scene, Fumble appears through the letter "O" of the big "YOU". He said something (I don't know what it was, and I was awake when I saw it!). Anyway, that "cartoon caption" (if you will) read "YOU are the most important person in the whole wide world!" They (those who made the cartoon) are telling *all the kids* that they are the most important... *ALL OF THEM*! Even to those who would make appearances in "Cops" or "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" or "The Jerry Springer Show" or "Maury [That was a lie! / You are not the father!]" or "Paternity Court" or... well, you get the idea.

[@loneshewolf74]

I tend to be hard on myself when I make mistakes because it's *not* okay to make them. Nearly all mistakes are made because of carelessness and could have been prevented. Try saying it's all right to make mistakes to a doctor, lawyer, politician, pharmacist, police officer, executioner...

[@seamusesparza1943]

It was more a response of the Boomers to their hard nose- most whom spent the war getting STIs and were REMFs- GI generation parents who had a holier and better than thou keeping up with the joneses attitude.

[@crabbyoldgamer3028]

+loneshewolf74 You certainly try to avoid mistakes. But nobody is perfect.

[@derekroberts6654]

i also remember Hal Linden (aka Barney Miller) doing a Saturday morning segment about animals called... ready?..."ANIMALS, ANIMALS, ANIMALS"

[@crabbyoldgamer3028]

+Derek Roberts That show aired on Sundays.

[@RetroCheater81]

13:00 at the end of most of your videos I see it says that anything funded by the government is technically public domain. So is making a DVD like that truly illegal?

[@daveidmarx]

Any chance you could track down footage of the test-marketed Play-Cable in action? It was designed for use with Mattel's Intellivision video game system and was tested in select areas from 1981-83. We had it back in the day and I'd love to see some footage of it in action but can't find any.

[@JohnJohnson-fr5cx]

3:32 Ben, WTHeck is this? This one flew over my head and I am pretty sure I should be grateful.

[@zorak1704]

PSA had a more innocent meaning back then. For us men over 40, it has a different meaning now.

[@donparker8246]

I remember all the Sutherland bits and Snippets. What can I say, I watched WFLD 32 as a kid.

[@blackphoenix77]

The music on that first FYI interstitial you showed sounds so familiar! My parents used to watch soaps on ABC in the early 1980s, so I probably heard it a few dozen times as a kid. And I think One to Grow On and School House Rock should've been on here

[@fromthesidelines]

130 segments of "THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON" were produced in 1972-'73 (and originally seen on "CAPTAIN KANGAROO"), and later syndicated by Viacom.

[@BernardChelgren]

Snipets were awesome!

[@sawbonesquad4876]

That "Hooray For Reading" intro is the most 1979-1980 thing ever. That new wave guitar riff

[@erichudson2195]

Ah, I remember all those old Field Communications gems watching WLVI as a kid..

[@JL-sm6cg]

WKBD in Detroit showed them too.

[@imrustyokay]

08:22 ITV Night Time music. Now all we need is Salem.

[@BenGriffithsHammond]

OMG, it totally sounds the same

[@TheGerkuman]

That piece of scary music during billion for Boris seems familiar...

[@JohnnyKronaz]

I thought for sure these things were called interstitials, but your video is the only one that comes up when I search the term (other than a bunch of videos about advertising and diseases). But these videos are exactly what I wanted, and I'd love to know where to find more of them. Granted, it's a long shot such an old video would even get me a reply...

[@UNOwen1]

+OddityArchive: (11:36) One of my favourite quotes by one of my favourite bots; Crow T Robot! I hope you know Crow and Tom (and Gypsy) - and even Joel - are ALL BACK on Netflix, Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Return - it's TERRIFIC (so far, I LOVED Avalanche with Mia Farrow, Rock Hudson. I could not stop laughing). Thanks for the great videos!

[@yaboimaxwell9031]

This episode never really covered what happened after these. You probably could have covered after school specials in this episode too.

[@Art7220]

I remember Oprah bought the rights to those. She did a couple specials, but dropped them so her show would not be interrupted.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Back in the day, we had the Central Office of Information (formerly the Ministry of Information, yes really) creating public information films that would play between kids programmes, let's just say Tobe Hooper could have had a promising career working for the British government making PIFs for kids (he may well have done) If you were British, I get the feeling you'd have an entire section dedicated to the Children's Film Foundation and possibly the National Film Board of Canada whose work always seemed to fill up a weekend afternoon or find it's way, again in film shows at schools.

[@alansmith2426]

Those brats screaming "Snip(p)ets!!!!!" set my teeth on edge!

[@ChakkyCharizard]

"You know I think this must be every politician's theme song"

[@75aces97]

I remember the Sutherland interstitials, although I may have remembered some of them wrong. There may have been more than the Most Important Person and World of Could Be You, as I recall them accounting for a lot of broadcast time. So much so that I mistakenly thought these were half hour programs. On Saturday mornings nbc had Ine to Grow On, CBS had In the News shorts, and of course ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock. Syndicated weekday cartoons had From Me To You, mostly about general safety and health. As kids we didn’t know or understand the ramifications of changes in FCC rules, so I didn’t know the reasons why, but by 1984 or so most of these just stopped airing. Around that time broadcasters dropped any pretense of educational content.

[@johnnyklebitzrevenge4793]

15:55 Flashbacks to getting beaten for spilling Milk... Thanks, Ben

[@mychiller]

they must have really liked to see that kid fall of his bike

[@NickBartolo]

This episode gave me legit flashbacks.

[@Supergirl-fe5rg]

Lol what in the word now i wish i had grown up in the seventies these were hilarious

[@JL-sm6cg]

I remember the Oops I made a mistake skit. I think I felt most bad for the little girl who (I believed) ripped the picture by accident, although clearly you'd have to be total doorknob (even at that age) to be carefully cutting the pic and then just cut right through the head, you know?

[@jackatkinson3682]

You forgot about the most famous interstitial series of all time, Schoolhouse Rock! And then there's One To Grow On, The Bod Squad, Zack Of All Trades, Computer Critters...

[@floatingsanvich4819]

It took a long time to realize that the scene of the kid falling off the bike is three different occurrences, and not the same scene.

[@thethrashpanda]

Zooey Deschanel is not a bad singer at all, really.

[@DrewberTravels]

+Shelbie Lynn Thrasher It's all subjective.

[@Betapvnk]

I like her better than Katy Perry

[@altfactor]

What about "In The News", an interstitial airing between Saturday morning cartoon shows on CBS during the 1970's, narrated by Christopher Glenn, which explained current news issues to children?

[@BaccarWozat]

The only Snipets they ever showed in Chicago for its last year or so, was the one about making a "Come Back Here", which was a metal can with a weight inside that, if rolled away from you, would come back. I never got to see any of the earlier ones. And is "The Kingdom of Could Be You" the same show as the one with the wizard who sang "Be Curious" to some kids? If so, that's the only one of that show I ever saw for a year too. Man were we subjected to repetitive stuff back then.

[@crabbyoldgamer3028]

+Baccar Wozat Those kids are still stuck in the Kingdom of Could Be You. It turns out, that kingdom is their hell. They're middle aged now. Every day the wizard shows them what they could be when they grow up. HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!

[@owenrock69]

What's funny about that Snipet is it is I believe one of the only ones that hasn't been uploaded anywhere and is presumed "lost"

[@BlackFlagHeathen]

"Maybe you'll find sex improves with age..." Hey if you can still have great sex in your 80s I'd say you did something right.

[@nostalgiakarlk.f.7386]

Why does the box allways cover half your face?

[@crabbyoldgamer3028]

+NostalgiaKarl If it covered his whole face you wouldn't know if he was there.

[@dorourke105]

He's not that attractive dude, he openly admitted that in one video. Why would you wanna look at his face?

[@dailyvault]

Ben: "Don't shovel snow over the age of 40 while having sex." Me: Don't tell me how to live my life. On the other hand, that would give new meaning to the term "blue b..." Whew... stopped myself in the nick of time.

[@gillnosowitz2795]

when you said "this is every politician" I just pictured the clip of R. Budd Dwyer with the "mistakes" song playing in the background. I would make it and upload it to LL or a decent website, but the internet is so f'ing sanitized I cannot think of a single place to upload the video. Thanks modernity! You ruined everything!

[@EddieMillerStudios]

7:14 ~ (Ben and Ed begin sobbing and babbling incoherently)

[@supermariofan772003]

11:35 Nice MST3K reference :)

[@fjccommish]

I am much older now than Hal was in these pieces. I can run a 4 minute mile, exercise every day for hours. No Hal, people your age and older don't have to take breaks after every 5 minutes of shoveling snow.

[@robmclean4352]

What, no love for WKBD in Detroit or (now defunct) WKBS in Philadelphia? I remember watching "Snipets" on WKBD, along with many of the other PSAs shown in this episode...

[@PearlieRKT]

Laughed so damn hard man ILY Ben :3

[@holyshard530]

11:35 "I wanna decide who lives and who dies!"

[@sarahleeann87]

The last 4 mins had me laughing so hard.

[@robfriedrich2822]

14:50 there is some sound leakage audible. A unwanted effect of magnetic tape.

[@goatprince1]

14:31 So that's what Sunny Funny's lookin' like nowadays? Holy expletive, kids, don't do meth.

[@thepeternetwork]

Yeah, I remember the Most Important Person shorts. If you showed kids of today this stuff, I bet you they'd find it some kind of weird.

[@robfriedrich2822]

5:57 Reading is a city in California?

[@progrocker666]

Does School House Rock count as a collection interstitials?

[@jimc5634]

Yes, as they only ran about 3 minutes.

[@ArchiveofAwesomeness1886]

@@jimc5634 But it got so popular that it actually got listed on tv guides

[@nkextrask.f.4839]

Wrist Nightmayer?

[@fromthesidelines]

Because Viacom distributed "THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON", they also turned up during WPIX-TV's (New York) daily edition of "MIGHTY MOUSE PLAYHOUSE" (also a Viacom offering) in the mid-1970's.

[@lorandabos3120]

Man, how I hate the stupid mistake song. Of course, anyone can make mistakes, but it's just like "you're making mistakes, but it's all right", not "if you actually pay attention you can severely reduce the amount of mistakes you make, so stop saying "but everybody makes mistakes" as a goddamn excuse for your incompetence", like it should.

[@jamesslick4790]

The complaints by the authors about "Hooray for Reading" is asinine. If they weren't giving away "spoilers", It was FREE ADVERTISING for their books. I can't wait for these literary geniuses to discover that LIBRARIES exist.😳 🤦‍♂️

[@ArchiveofAwesomeness1886]

14:18 Helga just revealed her secret to Arnold.

[@essvee86]

I like to see more Interstitials geared towards adults.

[@JL-sm6cg]

@14:41; Um, she's in a band called She and Him, fyi.

[@audiodood]

12:07 that aged like fine milk

[@SuperSaiyanKirby100]

14:34 Flowey the Flower?

[@ZXRulezzz]

+Shy Biscuits "In this world, it's snip or be snipped" idk lol

[@itzspencerr1403]

Undertale seems to follow me everywhere. My crush made a impressive recreation of the character, my friend Kitsune Goddess is a fan girl of Undertale, and my entire suggestions box was just Undertale videos... And now this comment. Beautiful.

[@Betapvnk]

+Minecraftdude456 every dork has his day

[@itzspencerr1403]

+Betapunk Films ain't that the truth.

[@ibrahimorhan2215]

Shy Biscuits Undertale, being predicted since |ORIGINAL DATE OF INTERSTITIAL|, finally revealed again in 2014.

[@TheFI4X]

6:49 how it feels to chew 5 gum.

[@wakkowarner5297]

If I'm not fighting fires, I'm fighting my damn nagging wife.

[@MichaelHansenFUN]

4:36 thats my neighborhood

[@memriloc]

great vid man.. made me laugh too,....id dig it

[@GATEJUMPER1]

jay leno with a bag of doritors ,what ,s up with that.

[@crabbyoldgamer3028]

+monty s Before Jay hosted the Tonight Show, he was a stand up comedian and a spokesman for Doritos. He did a lot of Doritos commercials.

[@sallyvillarreal4294]

This is my favorite episode of Oddity Archive so far. But was "Schoolhouse Rock" an interstitial? What about the two I remember so well, "Make a Saturday (not a Sunday)" and the one about chewing crunchy vegetables to strengthen your teeth?

[@harvardnshorty]

Yes it was. I don't remember the other two.

[@mikemayberry7121]

I have an idea for a TV show. It's a cross between Back To The Future and MST3K...🤔

[@peytonlutz1]

0:24 How to tell if you're high 101

[@peytonlutz1]

The commentary not the photo..

[@eddiereptile1049]

3:40 interestingly worded XD

[@orbulonayylmao248]

0:00 no it is gabe newell

[@daviddavenport1485]

We need to bring interstitials back, there is enough junk on TV as it is these days. Who's with me?

[@ArchiveofAwesomeness1886]

13:23 That only sounds extremely weird.

[@JohnJohnson-fr5cx]

14:37 YESSSS!!!! Dude my gf BOUGHT her dumb “She & Him”album where she sings old songs and her voice is not good….mit really isn’t I kno the only reason she got the album is cause she’s famous but idk who TF told her she could sing cause my mom sings better lol but seriously she does and she’s a secretary

[@JoelGetzhasauselessurl]

So many horrible things I could say...

[@micromints1735]

You’re over 40?? How?

[@austinreed7343]

Did you know the woman who created the Saturday Morning Cartoon death bill died recently? My reaction: "DING DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD!"

[@haileyshannon7548]

+Austin Reed It wasn't her fault, blame cable and channels like Nickelodeon and Disney which shows programs made for children 24/7 (If you don't count Adult Swim and Nick at Nite), it made them not so special.

[@beyondobscure]

HAL LINDEN! NO!