Thunder Rod!!!! (1971)

This 16mm film from my archive is supposed to be a parable... So here it is: Work hard washing cars, and you can buy the most awesome build-it-yourself SSP (On Sale!), put it together in your basement, race it with your best friend, smash it to bits against the wall, and you get to put it back together and do it all over again. So... That's the parable! Honestly, every kid knows that smashing Thunder Rod was the best part! Worth a week washing cars. And aren't there rules about child labor and low pay? Anyway - The moral of the story is have fun, work hard, demand a living wage, and don't be a sour puss just because you don't think that repairing things is the most fun of all. As usual I transferred this reel with my own Telecine and corrected color to taste. Enjoy!
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[@AlphaCryptoMegaDick]

1971 was the best year for content production. Never as good before and never as good since.

[@SueBobChicVid]

The best part of these old (er) films is just the background stuff. The things that are "everyday" - back then.

[@allissondiego1989]

Like child labor

[@SueBobChicVid]

@@allissondiego1989 Exactly. How can we solve child poverty now that we don't let them work?

[@jefffree6990]

So cool - I love the trippy backwards music.

[@ShughaKane]

Kid is a pretty good actor.

[@johnmitchelljr]

Really good little movie. Thanks for your channel. Many good videos.

[@Toby_the_Glen]

11:35 that guys never tightened a lugnut in his life!

[@EskWIRED]

He's apparently trying to loosen it. I blame the director.

[@dan78nad]

The irony is great!

[@RetroBerner]

Fred is all grown up now, dropping $6.50 on coffee each morning

[@jlucasound]

When Rocky said, "Don't spend it all in one place!", I thought, "That's impossible!....Today."

[@hotpuppy1]

No, Fred is 60 and trying to figure out how he's going to pay for his kid's $200,000 college bill since he got laid off from his $12/hr job that he had to take after his company moved production to China 15 years ago.

[@threynolds2]

I believe the actual name of the film is "Spend, Spend".

[@Johnathan_Waters]

"If people were allowed to sell junk like that, just look at the mess we'd be in!" -- Prophetic words!!

[@nkronert]

Thunderrods are GO!!!

[@CARLiCON]

oh oh oh oh Thunder Rod...oh Thunder Rod oh..

[@chriskeffer]

"smashing Thunder Rod was the best part! "

[@mypl510]

So that is what you get when you mash a Kenner SSP with an MPC 71 Road Runner model kit! Awesome! Oh, sorry, Thunder Rod!

[@EricAtRandom]

Those backward instruments are a bit hard on the ears. 😂 I LOVED SSP cars as a kid, though!

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

Born into a world of shoddy toys

[@TinLeadHammer]

Born into the world of consumerism and planned obsolescence.

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

@@TinLeadHammer and deception.

[@DeaconG1959]

Model looks closer to a Plymouth Superbird to me...saw them on the NASCAR tracks in the early 70's.

[@seanbatiz6620]

Exactly what i was thinkin’ as well… was actually gunna mention it amazing not one reference given throughout this whole short film of a Superbird. Extra long front end fell off from minor front end collision, just as the real McCoy would’ve back in the day

[@threynolds2]

It's a 1971 Road Runner. MPC made the model kit with the Superbird nose. Plymouth prototyped the idea but thanks to NASCAR limiting the aero cars to 305 motors the aero cars became a thing of the past. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aX_CpWaofqt1n7c

[@goodun2974]

Amazing that the title got past the KZbin censor-bots!

[@WhoDoUthinkUr]

Takes me back . So cool.

[@AndyWilliams8]

7:57 I feel ya, bro.

[@scottlangille9900]

Great video thanks for sharing

[@craigpennington1251]

A junk yard like that would be a Gold Mine today. A lot of those cars went to the crusher, then shredded, then melted down. I remember hauling away some pretty nice rides to the Midlothian, Tx. steel mill to be melted down into steel bars & slabs. Federally mandated. Pity. Classic stuff here Fran. Cool to see these type film reels again.

[@davidg4288]

My dad always hated to go to junkyards because "Someone was proud of those cars once." I didn't understand until I went inside one and it had someone's belongings in it, just things he carried on the road, nothing valuable. The glove box had a detailed service record that just abruptly stopped, no major repairs or problems. Then it hit me, the owner died and the car just got towed to a junkyard. It was old and nothing special so no one wanted it. I bet if you hooked up jumper cables it would have started. No one even bothered to clean out his stuff.

[@dwarftoad]

This one was kind of weird and low key dystopian.

[@mikebarushok5361]

If people were allowed to sell junk like that think of the mess we'd be in. [Camera zooms out as characters walk away revealing acres of cars in a junkyard] [Roll credits]

[@kyleb3754]

I literally receive 15 Christmas catalogs a day at my house (junk mail) and browsing through the pages of all those catalogs all I see is "junk like that". I SWEAR I keep hearing somebody say "climate problem" but I'm not sure where that noise is coming from

[@Felice_Enellen]

That's the whole point, I think. The early 70's was a time when people were pushing for state/federal lemon laws to prevent people from selling shoddy vehicles and consumer products. The federal lemon law was passed in 1975. This film was probably made to support the cause.

[@TheDanno210]

Ah yes, back in the day when as kids we were safe to go pretty much anywhere.

[@RetroBerner]

They just arrested a mom for letting her 8 year old walk home :/

[@franklittle8124]

It still is. Lots of mythology about things being more dangerous today.

[@Felice_Enellen]

We kids who didn't get kidnapped and murdered, you mean. Survivor bias is a thing.

[@michaelv3340]

Directed by Skeets McGrew!

[@RonaldJS]

Ironically it became his high school nickname.

[@charletonzimmerman4205]

Thanks bought my Mopar, "THUNDER ROD" 1970, in 1977, enjoyed it for "REAL". !

[@newportshapwick]

Love the music!

[@benrose7534]

Right on ! Thank you Fran ! ❤️🌹

[@YohaneRockett]

Very nice movie!😻

[@stellamcwick8455]

4:11 , ah yes the classic backwards record playing into the wet fart fade. Such a staple of the American music scene of the time.

[@ChuckSembroski]

Nice color correction. Somehow it exactly matches the strange earth tones of my childhood. lol

[@djcsdy2]

Someone in the production team discovered you can play audio tapes backwards and got a bit carried away.

[@CARLiCON]

I had SSPs but I don't remember putting them together as a kit from parts..btw this film has a bizarre "Vanishing Point" kind of vibe to it...

[@SkeletonSyskey]

was the backwards music score a common thing in 1971?

[@FranLab]

It's common on KZbin not to get a copyright hit.

[@Felice_Enellen]

@Fran Blanche (et al) - I would actually guess that this was aiming to help push state and federal "lemon laws", which was a movement in the early 70's that resulted in a federal lemon law in 1975, forcing (mostly car) manufacturers to buy back products that could be shown to have inherent, unfixable defects (euphemistically known as "lemons").

[@TinLeadHammer]

Until the very last minute this looked like a typical consumer conditioning, interspersed with harrowing images of car-oriented urban development. But the final shot convey a different message: all these shiny things turn into piles of junk pretty fast, so don't lust for them. Spend time with other humans.

[@davidg4288]

"If people were allowed to sell junk like that, look at the mess we'd be in!" Cut to junkyard full of not so very old cars. A few years after this was made cars were rusting in the showrooms.

[@Felice_Enellen]

@@davidg4288 A few years after this was made, the federal lemon law that requires manufacturers to buy back shoddy/defective products (mostly cars) was passed. Probably not a coincidence that this was made around that time.

[@davidg4288]

@@Felice_Enellen Many manufacturers do have a habit of trying to deny design flaws and avoid recalls. I think lemon laws are mainly intended for poorly assembled cars that are impractical to fix (depending on the skill of the dealer or lack thereof). I've met independent mechanics who know the problem and can fix it, so they buy the car with a salvage title, fix it, and use it themselves. They used to "launder" the title in various ways and sell it to unsuspecting buyers but that's hard to do now.

[@Felice_Enellen]

@@davidg4288 Oh, did they finally do something about the lax rules at Florida's DOL? I remember a time when I was looking to buy a certain car used and I kept having to abandon leads because a carfax would turn up a trip through Florida right after the car had supposedly been written off.

[@davidg4288]

@@Felice_Enellen Carfax IS the solution, as far as I know. I don't know most of the tricks, but changing from state to state can clear a salvage title in some cases. I might take a chance on a flood salvaged car if I lived in the desert southwest, but I live in the rust belt so I'd never buy an even slightly flooded car. A good inspection should reveal a rust belt car. It'd also reveal that I fixed collision damage myself, Carfax wouldn't know about that. Of course Carfax wouldn't know about the oil changes that I've done myself either.

[@nottiification]

Directed by Skeets McGraw

[@guidobrunellijr.3]

Cool !

[@aldntn]

Smash it up; send it back to the manufacturer...

[@SueBobChicVid]

I believe the chassis of that model car is a Kenner SSP. You can see the single fly-wheel/drive wheel at 5:21. I had a few of these as a kid, but not the "Super Stocker". I think the prop department made a new body for this film where the parts could come off. Ironically, I had a pair that were intended to be smashed together, with a mechanism that would pop the pre-dented doors and hoods off in a collision. kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5XPgJqjq7mgf9k

[@deerfish3000]

Comes with everything you see, rightchair!! 😁

[@jctoad]

Those were so cool. Parts everywhere 💥🚗

[@pa4tim]

I know those, my brother had on, I think that was in the early 70's (the Netherlands). You drove them against something and then they fall apart.

[@tvtoms]

I had a smash up derby set as well. Several SSP toys. With four older brothers, I think we covered the full gamut of toys from that era.

[@scottthomas6202]

I had a purple SSP Laker Special....that thing was durable.

[@michaelmoore7975]

Wow! Bootsy Collins and a young Bill Gates!

[@DaaaveO1971]

But...Thunder Rod is based on a car that was never built! If you look at the roofline and side window (especially in the C-pillar area) the body is clearly a 1971 B-body Road Runner with a Superbird nose and wing modified to fit. Maybe it was based on what would have been of the 1971 Superbird until Nascar reduced the engine size of the winged cars to 305 ci., effectively killing that car. Oh, for what might have been?

[@threynolds2]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aX_CpWaofqt1n7c

[@willdatsun]

great job on colour correction.. did you reverse the music (copyright?)

[@electrosoundaust]

Interesting, these were sold in Australia. There is a SSP website but I don't remember any of the cars other than the purple rocket type one - I was probably to old to be interested and was into Scalectrix. Perhaps a local manufacturer lisenced them and made their own designs? I do remember the zip cord teeth wearing out though.

[@matthewleary7782]

Didn't anyone else notice the writer as Laura Ingram????

[@threynolds2]

Close. Laura Ingham.

[@fallwitch]

75p to wash a car? Even in the 70s that was robbery.

[@HeffeJeffe78]

Considering "Thunder Rod" is a kid's toy, I think my idea of using that as my porn alias is out the window.

[@Felice_Enellen]

Yeah, you don't want anyone yanking on your zipcord.

[@TheGreatAtario]

Did you reverse those music segments as an anti-copyright-strike tactic, or is it in the original film that way?

[@fanplant]

thats what I want to know, either way its trippy

[@bradmad8346]

The color is supposed to be like this "The World through Rose colored glasses", just think how swell things were back in the good ole daze...or haze, this is a very deep story as old as time itself. I guess, best not to make comments when I am so ah, well anyway don't smoke those little cigarettes the big kids offer you. The moral of the story is the box is more fun than the toy that was in it? "Thunder Rod" should ship in plain brown wrapper.

[@mce_AU]

That was so cheesy I could taste the cheese toasty.

[@SuperShecky]

This seems to be the same company that made "The Plot Against Harry", a feature length indie shot in 1969, but didn't really get released until 1990, when it got kind of revamped and a little promotion in art houses . I kind of wonder who would want to finance a film of this kind? A quick search reveals little. It seems unlikely King Screen Productions would produce something like this unless they were paid by someone to do so. But whom? IMDB only lists 6 titles (with this one missing), one of which is attributed to being produced by the Sierra Club.

[@kevinkier6790]

No wonder I turned out so weird....

[@sguttag]

They used to call them "shag boys."

[@johnwsimpson3153]

There was a Dirty Harry movie from around 1980 that had a car chase between Harry and a little RC car about that same size. It was a lengthy chase that must have required a lithium battery. They were around in 1980, weren’t they? kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqu4pYuDg86tjNE

[@chinanorthairguns]

Plymouth did design a 71 superbird, but they never went into production.

[@threynolds2]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aX_CpWaofqt1n7c

[@StevesMusicTalkandGearReview]

Hey Fran how did u find this time capsule? Great 👍 content as I'm a big 70's fan

[@VanWinger]

Someone please un-reverse the music

[@bobpockney]

That's Fran to get round the copyright trolls.

[@VanWinger]

@@bobpockney The thought that crossed my mind when you said this is that the original production 'borrowed' some production music and used it in reverse to avoid the license and cost.

[@rb032682]

"Thunder Rod" ?!?!? Is this a porno?!?!?!? lol, just kidding

[@midnightrunner684]

Those car were fun until you got your hair all tangled in the wheel

[@catlady8324]

Fred’s not very good at washing cars.

[@davidwood351]

Hil ar e us