Reacting to OUTRAGEOUS British PSAs (I can't believe they showed these)
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2024
- I gotta be honest, I could NOT believe these British PSAs were real! Let's react to some very surprising British Informational Films from the 1970s to today. Did any of these traumatise you as a kid?? I wouldn't be surprised!
As a Canadian living in the UK, I love learning about UK culture and what it means to be a British person - including learning about these wild British PSAs!
Make sure to leave a comment down below of your favourite UK PSA!
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Hey! I'm Alanna - a thirty-something documenting my life as a Canadian living in England.
I share the ups and downs of an expat living abroad and what it's really like living in the UK. It's not always easy, but there's been so many wonderful experiences, too. I post a CZcams video every Tuesday plus an additional video every Saturday on Patreon + YT Memberships. I also livestream every Wednesday and Sunday at 5:30pm GMT/BST on Twitch.
Alanna x
do you have a favourite crazy PSA?? also here's my business in case you wanna smell nice 😊 edenbridge.co.uk
We were bombarded with these as kids in the 70's and 80's. We were given the "Play it safe" book so we could reteaumatise ourselves whenever we wanted 😂
You have to watch Apaches, 1970's.
I've never drunk paraquat or drowned in a slurry pit thanks to that one 👍
Have you ever seen "When The Wind Blows"?
Proper tearjerker 😢
that car advert for seatbelts in the back. Julie knew her killer!
My favourite
czcams.com/video/bWLksTAnuFE/video.htmlsi=40AtlJOcwtb--h3K
@@DustinHoward-xh9sl I remember that one. Very clever.
One scary PSA about seatbelts has stuck in my head. The voiceover script: "Like most victims, Julie knew her killer. It was her son, who was sitting behind her without a seat-belt. After crushing her to death, he sat back down."
I was hoping Alanna would see that one.
I thought that was 1 of them for a sec, but it turned out to be a different 'un.
Kids in the 70s needed to see PSAs like this. We wandered all over the place on our own.
So true. Got into all kinds of minor mischief as kids. Best memories ever. Lots of cuts and bruises.
It turned out the most dangerous place to be was in a car with Jimmy Savile.
So true, I the early 80s we would cross the rail way track, to get to the quarry to go swimming. On the way back we would enter the electricity sub station to get the frisbee stuck on the roof. Then get in the van with the old bloke who had the puppies to take us back home. We would pet the rabies infested puppies. We’d get home, watch Jimll fix it and then make some toast in the Bath before bed time before falling asleep sleep with a cigarette in my mouth at the age of 12
What? Can no one in Britain swim? No wonder they had to wait the D-day invasion until the Americans could get there.
Relax, people. It's just a joke.
@@CanWeNotKnockItI'd rather crash thru a windshield.
The spirit of dark and lonely water is one of the best pieces of film ever created.
Narrated by Donald Pleasance who could, despite his name, make anything sinister.
Especially when it's followed by Jim'll f** it.
It honestly kept me safe as a kid. We were allowed to roam more without parents and we definitely went near rivers etc. The advert definitely scared me enough to be cautious!
@@rosemarmion1655 I agree there was no way I was ever going to play in that water. you must be mad. It's full of run off from the local mine, there is old diesel oil, oil, supher, lead oxide, old car battery's,....... It was the 70's
@@TheEulerID from the great escape and halloween no less.
There's one from my childhood in the 2000s. It opens with a little dead girl led against a tree. She says "if you hit me at 40mph there's an 80% chance I'll die. If you hit me at 30mph there's an 80% chance I'll live" While she's speaking, tîme is moving backwards, the blood goes back in her ears, her wrists snap into place and she slides back into the road as if being dragged.
I remember that.
Where"s the chest freezer one? Little Jimmy playing in the woods and gets in a freezer and the door shuts. Perfect Darwin Award winner!
I fell in a chest freezer when I was 8. I was leaning in to get an ice lolly and flipped in and the lid shut, I was on loaves of bread and meat. I could open the lid from the inside but still wary of chest freezers if they are not full to the brim
As I remember it was one of the old freezers with the external latching handle. They definitely locked and the you couldn't get out of them from the inside. I think that's why they changed the domestic freezers to magnetic catches.
What a chilled out way to go
@@lips5913 We had a fridge just like that... it lasted decades.
It was so retro it would still be cool now 🧊
I was born in 1973 in the UK ; can confirm that these ads were regularly screened - seeing them again takes me back to a time where our mum and dad would gladly send us out of the house for hours on end only expect us back several hours later. No mobile phones, no internet, no social media, good times!
Those were the days, back before dark was the only rule...
@@LoremIpsum1970 It is a bit odd to think we used street lights coming on to tell us it was time to go home :D
@@user-py8kl5gh2q, my Dad used to whistle to let us know it was time to go home at night - that was in the 1950s.
Hunger or too dark to see the ball!
Yes. Climbing trees in the woods - falling out of them from insane heights but it didn't matter because the branches kind of cushioned the fall (a lot of pain and minor scrapes) and you ended up hiting soft grass or moss. It was hilarious fun as a 1970's child when you took the L like that.
Same with ponds in winter - absolutely we would skate on the frozen ice. Just don't go near the overhanging bushes - guess how I learnt that one when going under the ice? An L turned into a life threatening educational experience W.
For a more leisurely pastime go and invade the local landowners estate in order to collect as many conkers as possible - but hide from the gamekeepers who would use their shotguns at ruffians like me. (They really did but obviously shot in the sky and made us 7-8 year old scramble for our lives. We honestly believed the local lord was allowed to kill us on sight.)
So much more fun than anything kids get to do today.
Nothing scares children like Jimmy Saville
😬
Surely he can fix it
Well, he was a national treasure at the time, or at least headed in that direction. Who didn't want to get on Jim'll Fix It?
In the 80s I was gutted as a kid I never got a reply when I wrote in to jim'll fix it, in hindsight I'm glad...wasn't broken then but might've needed fixed now 😂
Nothing like a mental trauma joke lol.
Maybe but the Rolf Harris PSA about swimming is very close.
I remember a film showing a young boy walking around seeing people crying and upset, and wondering what had happened. He crosses a road and a car goes through him and he says 'that hurt more the first time!'
omg 💀
Was it the one about children more likely to die if hit by a car driven at 40 mph?
@@wilmaknickersfit I think that was the one with the little girl in the reversed impact footage. Hit at 35 = 70% chance of death, hit at 30 = 70% chance to survive iirc
"that hurt more the first time" ... thats what the Jimll fix it regulars used to say.
@@AdventuresAndNapsAt the moment I only 3:43 min,s in and these thinking that these may not be as bad as Apache a late 60,s BPSA which is made like a film and the complete thing is on CZcams ,
“You numpty” 😂 you are certainly becoming more and more like us everyday 🥰
The one with the lighter has a cut in the middle of it for some reason, the character actually burns the whole city down.
As a small child I was convinced that countries like France and Spain were full of rabid dogs roaming around eager to bite small children like myself.
My mum was a vet but didn't really do much to reassure me.
The FAST stroke one definitely worked for my nephew - he was in a staff room having his lunch when he was experiencing his stroke and his lady workmate - who had recently seen the advert - noticed his face dropping and his mumbled speech and knew straightaway it was the sighs of a stroke and dialled 999. She literally “saved” him as the Paramedics were able to take him very quickly to a Stroke Unit at the hospital so that the Doctors there could treat him. If his workmate had not been aware of the Stroke signs and acted as the PSA said, my nephew would be very disabled…..
The recorded message you hear when phoning my doctor's surgery, includes the signs of a stroke as one of the conditions for which you need to phone 999.
The point of being a "Drink Driver" is that you don't have to be "drunk" to be a peril behind the wheel of a car. Just drinking and driving is enough, because a second drink can take you over the legal limit for alcohol,, but at that point you are still a long way from actually being "drunk".
There's also yhe offence of being "unfit to drive", no limit there.
There's a phrase here in Ireland for someone who has consumed too much alcohol, as 'having drink taken'. Used more in Courts than general conversation nowadays.
@@robmontier3770 Also Drunk in charge of a Horse / Animal / Bicycle, so no riding to and from the pub.
@@robmontier3770 im not even dinking and that applies to me
@@tonys1636 Also: He's not a drunk, he just likes a drink.
"Charley Says", if only to get to the Prodigy track of the same name that samples the PSA series heavily.
Fun fact: the cat was voiced by Kenny Everett
I lived in England when the "Charlie says" adds aired, year later I emigrated to Australia and was a head chef. One of my motivational phrases was 'Charlie says' and obviously no one knew what I was talking about, until my 2nd chef went on holidays to England and was watching late night t.v. and saw the adds in a comedy show.
He actually sent me a postcard telling me all about it and to this day it is still a regular greeting we share.
Boiling a kettle on a boat became a big problem in the 80s with Bullseye contestant winners!
laughed out loud , great comment sir !
Superb! I remember they actually released a Bullseye game for the BBC Micro in '80s. My sooper middle class rich friend was all like "Oh, this is so working clarse!".
I just found his reaction highly amusing rather than starting a class war and being a total dick.
(He was a great source of pirated games it has to be said)
She didn't think it was real did she?
excellent work
@@soudley8 SO DID I 😂😂😂😂
That "don't leave glass on the beach" PSA was extremely effective.- we've NO glass on our beaches anymore, only plastic.
The broken glass on a beach happened to me when I was a kid in the 1970s. Ruined my holiday. Whenever people react to these PIFs they omit 'The Finishing Line' - a 25' film about the dangers of playing on railway lines. Truly terrifying. It's on CZcams.
I and my sister were extras in it.
Also the Rolf Harris "learn to swim"😢😢😢😢
Swim away before he catches you
@@camelcasee or get a "thumbs up" from Len Fairclough!!! [The OG PDF]
@@jamesbeeching6138 I'm creasing
A lot of the PSA 's in the sixties and seventies were made by young filmmakers straight out of art school who later became famous producers and directors . Alan parker , Ridley Scott to name a couple . That's why they're so creative and a bit over the top !! lol
Scott of course did the iconic Hovis advert 'Boy on a bike.'
You need to watch the ‘Charley Says’ & ‘Tufty Road Safety’ adverts…….they are classics
I just recommended Charlie Says. They ran for so long and I think they only made about half a dozen.
I was going to mention those, and they weren't scary the way most of these were. Check out the animated "learn to swim" ad starring Joe & Petunia.
There was a Road Safety ad that always stuck with my dad… cuz it had DARTH VADER in it!
@@CD-Gaming Aah yes, David Prowse as the Green Cross Code Man. I remember that well - Darth Vader unmasked.
They use drink driver to emphasise a little alcohol can be dangerous. Drunk driver would suggest it’s only a problem if you’re hammered.
That Irish anti speeding one has been altered by the internet, that cartoon squishing sound was never in it lol
Drink Driver implies that you don't need to be drunk... you only need a need a drink... we use both drunk and drink, but drink is aimed at those who frequently drink and drive because they don't get drunk. The law is not being drunk whilst driving...
That's what I was thinking - I don't remember the sound effect!
I'm pretty sure it was on in the UK too or perhaps doing the rounds on the internet, because I definitely remember seeing it at the time.
Drink driver is rarely used and usually only when taking about a specific incident.
@@Gambit771 No... clueless people use "Drunk Driver" in the UK... Authorities, law enforcement and everyone who has done research use Drink Driver. I was being polite... until you came along.
This is true. I can confirm that the comic sound effect was not in the original version. The use of such a noise would have caused huge public offence and would have been seen as a deliberate insult to countless grieving families.
I don’t know if it was because we lived in a semi rural area but whilst at junior school we were shown a PSA about being safe on a farm. From memory 1 kid drowned in a slurry pit, 1 kid impaled himself on metal spikes on a piece of farm equipment and another crashed a tractor and died.
it was called Apaches.
Loved this one
Also one drank weedkiller and died
I went to a rural school too - we were shown one called Never Rest, which sounds pretty similar.
I think there was a ghost in it - just for an added level of spookiness.
Yes. This. Is. Trauma.
The spirit of dark and lonely water is narrated by Donald Pleasance, who specialised in the sinister. He was in many films, and even played a Bond Villain.
Also, as far as don't get in a car with Jimmy Saville is concerned, he had that covered too. About the same time, he was the face of British Rail exhorting people to travel by train. "This is the age of the train" as the slogan was sung at us back in the 1970s.
Scary how many 70's tv stars were "not good people" !
"Let the Train take the Strain"
When you're a child of the Seventies and you see a news report about one of the stars of your childhood, you actually hope it's the announcement of their death because that's one of the two most likely reasons for them making the news now.
The other is that they've come to the attention of Operation Yewtree.
@@DEEJAYWAL You don't have to be a child of the seventies. I was a kid in the 80's & I still remember seeing the news & going "Oh, not Rolf Harris!"
British Health & Safety in the 70's & 80's. Do what you like, just don't come crying around here if it all goes wrong.
Don't say we didn't warn you either, serves you right, now go to your room!
You've not scratched the surface when it comes to traumatizing PSA's - Check out "Apaches" to see a group of adventurous little tykes get massacred in inventive ways. As for the 1970's PSAs about fireworks... gruesome. There were also a series of "Follow the Country Code" animated PSAs with Joe and Petunia, being terrible city-folk who ruin the countryside/seaside.
Sparkler 😮
Kids were more resilient than the snowflakes of today ....
I remember Joe and Petunia on the beach waving back to in the sea Dave who is actually drowning! "Coo-eee!" 😂
@@wilmaknickersfitYes! 🤣🤣🤣
They showed Apaches twice in my rural primary school projected in the classroom when I was there in the late 80s. It was such a small school that there were only 2 classrooms so some very young kids saw it. To cheer the us up they showed a very old fashioned early 1950s cartoon called Lambeth the Sheepish Lion that I've never seen anywhere else, except of course it's on CZcams these days.
It was right to show it to us. One of the kids was run over by his dad's tractor once but thankfully the farmyard was so muddy he was ok.
The 'Drink Driver' thing is to let people know that you don't have to be drunk to have your judgement affected by the alcohol, the first thing that alcohol does is affect your perception and reaction time.
Mr Cholmondley-Warner's ' Women know your limit's ' was the best ever PSA. 🙂👍. It warned of the dangers inherent in women over extending themselves 🤣.
More fun ones were "Charlie Says" and the Green Cross Code Man (aka Darth Vader)
I'll never forgive George Lucas for not using his voice.
Oi foind yer lack of faith disturrbing.
Moral of the frisbee in the electrical substation one is never listen to girls !
😂
Lol! Love it! :D x
Play on the train tracks instead. The ones where the third rail carries only 700 volts.
Yeah, get your own soddin frisbee!
Nothing beats Protect and Survive for the scariest series of public information films.
"When you hear the air attack warning...."
"If someone in your sanctuary should die..."
And probably the most pointless 'advice' ever published! 😂 Neutronic radiation doesn't much care about bricks and the like!
The sound of fallout haunts my dreams.
@@UranusMcVitieFish-yd7oq "put them outside, remember to tag them first for identifications purposes."
Try 'AIDS don't die of Ignorance' from the 80's another classic scare the crap out of you PSA
Or the heroin psas
Yes, I was thinking of the AIDS ads. Truly terrifying.
Our PSAs have always been prety visceral. They get their point across and don't pull any punches, even our modern ones are quite graphic.
The stroke one hits me hard to this day, I remember seeing it on TV before I had to go to hospital to have my appendix removed. In the bed next to me was a nice older fella in his 50s, we got chatting a lot about different stuff, but suddenly he started slurring his words, I asked him if he was okay, more slurring. I started screaming for the doctors. They all came running and pulled the curtain around him, all I remember was the doctor shouting to him that he was having a stroke. He got whisked away to surgery and I never seen him again before I was discharged, but I did go back a few days later and thankfully he was alive and well. His son was visiting at the same time and I was able to explain what actually happened. They both thanked me but I just kept saying to thank the doctors and nurses. Sorry for the ramble, but that memory just came back as vivid as it was 18 years ago.
it's horrible
and a similar anti smoking one was awful too
Suggest check out Joe and Petunia Public Information Films for a funnier cartoon side, Coastguard is a classic, Joe and Petunia were in quite a few and I loved them as a young nipper 😁
Boats generally had gas bottles without a flame failure device ...
Boiling water overflows pan and extinguishes gas flame. Without a flame failure device the gas continues to pour out and lines the bilges, eventually igniting as a gas-air mixture.
The have since added flame failure devices ...
When I was young, many moons ago, there was a spate of explosions/fires on boats on the Norfolk Broads caused by similar events.
Was the word you were looking for "Visceral"? Also my preferred drink driving ad was the one where the Bartender basically acts out the whoel situation, becoming a police officer, a judge, the man's boss firing him, in a rapidfire series of impersonations, then goes back to neutral with "So... what'll it be?" which is a great double-meaning.
"C'mon, Dave. Just one more."
God, that one’s so powerful and so well acted!
“I’ve lost my job, my wife left me, can’t see the kids…” I believe it went like that, I know the one you’re on about, I’d forgot about that!
"He who shall not be named" was all over the telly in the 70s, fronting the "clunk clip "seatbelt campaign, and advert for British Rail.
When I was 9 I jumped off a fence onto what I thought was grass, but was actually grass growing over a wooden board with a rather large nail in it. Went right through my shoe and foot. The worst part was having to remove myself from it so I could get home. Luckily managed to miss my bones somehow, didn't stop me jumping off fences but I did pay more attention to the ground after that :)
Same here but had to walk home with a plank 'nailed' to my foot! kids nowadays have it so easy! (luckily no lasting damage to my foot)
My school teacher did something similar whilst on holiday - but the other side was the top of a leaf covered greenhouse / vine house - He was lucky got some seriously bad cuts and broke both legs.
@@glenday7217 I mean, I actually couldn't have done that, with what I was nailed to, but it didn't even occur to me to try. My memory is admittedly by this point what I've told people, I'm 40 and I was 8 or 9 when it happened. I remember going to the doctor's, and my friend was with me and we were nearer his house so we went there first. But yeah I had to detach myself from the nail to move anywhere.
@@rupertaitken3114 I think the broken legs might have been the bigger issue there :)
From N Ireland 'The Cat's in the Cradle' confidental telephone line PSA from during the troubles sticks in my mind. Theres a few more road safety ones from there as well but the class of children one os the most remembered.
Form the mainland, 'she knew her killer/then he sat back down again' is a good one.
I sometimes wonder how we survived the 1970s. My personal favourites, in a gentler vein, are Reginald Molehusband parking his car and Augustus Windsock safely overtaking on his bicycle.
Getting shocked by a power station is much worse in person. I had a friend die this way when I was 14. He was 12. He climbed up the pylon and put his hand close to the top and the electric jumped into him. Killing him instantly, he fell to the ground and landed on the big spiky fence below.
Strewth, talk about overkill!
Growing up there was a pylon in the garden of the house next door. We used it as a climbing frame. Our parents never said a word.
@@shaunfarrell3834 kids are fearless because they don't understand
Had some `likely lads `climb over the fence to a big substation to knick the cable`s , we live a mile away and saw the flash just as the lights went off ,,,,say no more
I remember all of these, and I can tell you they worked. Gen X is the generation who grew up living great childhoods without a Nanny State controlling every aspect of our lives, and we survived. A lot of cuts and bruises, but we survived. These films did stick in your head.
We also had 30 minute films in the classroom about playing on building sites, farms, and by canals.
Did your teacher just put episodes of Casualty on that they taped the night before?
Aye. I remember the police coming to our school with a video about trespassing on the railway. Never did that particular thing again.
I remember my parents comforting me any time nuclear war was mentioned by telling me "Don't worry we live in London we'll be dead before we know it's happened."
Remember watching "When the Wind Blows" cos it looked like "Snowman" and "Fungus"?
Wow.
@@doyle8711That is the quintessential stiff upper lip.
"Meow wah waah meow"
Charlie says look for my starring role in the best 70 s public information films!!
The point is/was, you don't have to be 'drunk' (from the perspective of most Brits), to be a 'Drink Driver'.
Hope Charlie the Cat is on here - (Stay away from Strangers - unless they have a fish, I think)
I always eat fish like Charlie now.
Ah "Charley Says..."
Keith from 'The Prodigy' liked this one too
Don't you just love CZcams? They have the ad break just as the car slides sideways and then resume the crash after the ads - revenue over disaster!!
Because no tv network ever cut a show/movie just before some climactic point for an ad.
An adblocer fixes this type of thing.
@@lobbymccawker2083 Agreed, but why should I pay to not have something that I didn't ask for? That wasn't the real point of the comment it was just the terrible timing.
@@clivewilliams3661 adblockers are free.
I grew up with and remember all those 70s ones, they never leave you. The Charlie Says ones I remember most
There were less cars on the road in the seventies and no screen technology, so kids went out and explored their environment, thus the plethora of horrific PSA's.
I remember all of these. I'm 52 and still alive, despite being basically stupid, so they obviously worked. The most horrific was one of the Public Information Films, which could be five or ten minutes long; from 1977 it's called The Finishing Line and features school kids on a railway line.
APACHES is a 70s public information film about the dangers of children playing in and around farmyards,it was brutal and scared the crap out of me as child despite the fact I didn’t live anywhere near a farm.
As Gen X, I saw the 70s ads as a child. They were effective and we did need them because we were famously unsupervised as children. The irony is that we also seem to have raised the most supervised and over-cossetted generation ever and I wonder if that's the real legacy of ads like those.
As a kid in the '70s, I remember these. They were scary. I suppose the objective was to frighten kids into staying out of danger, maybe give them nightmares, but I did the kind of stupid things these kids do, so it didn't work with me. Kids just think it won't happen to them. By contrast, there was a series of cartoon information films featuring a cat called Charlie who would hold a child back from danger, speak in garbled cat-speak to the child and the child would translate for viewers what Charlie had said. My friends and I thought it was funny rather than earnest.
"This video is sponsored by me" is a refreshing touch. Hope sales go well!
Edit. Just bought 15 Ml of 'Chartwell'. To use North American parlance..."We shall fight them on the bleachers"...
🙏🏻
Opening few seconds I thought "please don't tell me you've been sucked into a MLM"
Thankfully that notion was quickly disavowed and it's her own company making artisan products. Faith restored.
the fireworks adverts were shocking back in the 70s and 80s
I know a guy who was blinded by fireworks, he wrote to Sir Jim about his dream of milking cows, sir Jim fixed it for him, he spend hours milking a cow that day.
Still get nervous walking past sub stations or near any kind of power lines and I am 45 now, those public information films, were very scary when they were shown in daylight hours for me as a youngster in the 1980s.
"Don't put a rug on a polished floor..." Brits of a certain age will let out an involuntary laugh, knowing what's coming next.
I didn't but some prat did this where I work and I almost went over
Mother in law (91) bless her still has rugs down on her floors ,we go over every day and my job is to take them up and hide them ,,,,she still finds the buggers ,,,, burning bin comes to mind ,,😂😂
@@1tonyboat Or you can get a rubber mesh that can go between the floor and the rug to reduce the likelihood of slippage.
Oh Alanna, I love your "go play on the train tracks instead" comment, naughty but...🤭 and your British accent and sense of humour are coming along swimmingly 😉
Oh, there were a number about the dangers of railway lines too. Similarly nightmare inducing.
@@mistycromThe Finishing Line. I was in it, aged about 9.
Ironically, Jimmy Saville became the face of the British Rail InterCity train travel ads, once he stopped doing "clunk click".
"this is the age, of the train...."
Former Safety Officer here.
In fairness to the final film, there is a danger in boiling an over-filled kettle over a gas flame (whether on a boat, using a gas cylinder stove, or anywhere else). When the water boils, it can overflow and put out the flame, so the householder never hears the kettle whistle (and may forget about it). This allows unburnt gas to enter the kitchen, which then becomes an ignition or an explosion hazard when the returning cook next lights the cooker. A version of this scenario was the mechanism of a carefully crafted "accidentally on purpose" killing in an Episode of the British TV series "Murder Most Horrid".
Actually - thinking about it - a liquid spill on an electric hob is also likely to end badly.
TLDR: just take care, people - the "MAX" marker is there for a reason. Y'all stay safe now.
21:34 - PATRICK ALLEN - British actor Patrick Allen's voice became synonymous with UK Public Informtion Films. One in particular began 'When you hear the four minute warning....' and was about the threat of nuclear war and what actions a family must take. It became so well known by British households that a Liverpudlian pop group, 'Frankie Goes To Hollywood' sampled it for inclusion in their UK Singles chart-topping anti-war song 'Two Tribes'.
Before the Don't Drink and Drive campaign ... people drove home drunk, because they "were fine", after, you got designated drivers, who got free cokes at the bar...
Hi Alana, I grew up in the 70's and remember these. Ironically, whilst the government was scaring us to death with PSA's in order to be "safe", they were providing us with "Adventure Playgrounds". These were basically buildings sites for kids to play on, yet adults would not be allowed on them without safety equipment and extensive training !
The "drink driver" as opposed to "drunk" was because they advocated zero alcohol if you were driving. Drunk would imply you could have "some" so long as you didn't get drunk.
When I got over the trauma of all these PSA's, I made it to the 80's where I could have the time of my life with lots of beautiful girls - NO, we will now scare you to death with lots of AIDS PSA's. They were really grim.
BTW:- Your Anglofication is coming along. Nice use of both "Numpty" and "Bint" 🤣
Remember the one with the kid balancing on that pillar next to the train track…he falls the bahm..baaaaaah. Train rushes through.
It's made my evening seeing this. The most priceless moment is when Alanna says "I love those fashions"......only to then be obviously thinking "Holy crap, that poor kid really does have rabies". And it wasn't staged, it was real! The reason the announcer said "that was a public information film" is because it would have been shown on the BBC, probably late at night, in order to remove any suggestion it was an ad.
6:24 - The musical backing track of this 'Anti-Speeding' PSA is 'SWEET CHILD OF MINE'. I believe that 'cartoonish' sound effect was specifically chosen/designed to be memorable. It works! It certainly made this video presenter re-play the footage.
Re "drink driver" I think the British term is better. The point is that you don't need to be what you'd consider "drunk" to be impaired enough to get someone killed while driving.
Quite correct; we gave those ‘across the pond’ the correct words but they messed up the English, as they are oft do 🤨🤔
21:15 "you daft bint" , Alana instantly became British for 2 seconds
You should see if you can find the animated "Charlie Says..." animated ones with a kid and his cat named Charley. They completely entered pop culture.
Your reactions were funny. If I remember correctly seat belts were not mandatory here in the UK until the 1970's, so getting people to wear them back them using adverts made sense.
I think it was the 80's.
@@elemar5 1983
The fire kills one reminds me of the warning on matchboxes. "Fire kills children" meaning I, an adult, am immune to fire
I prefer the excellent advice on medicines - "Keep away from children" 🙂
Fire Kills, Peter Kay Phoenix Nights‘Keith Lard ‘
Women were targeted in the ‘clunk click’ film as a common objection to the introduction of compulsory seat belt was that for bustier women it was uncomfortable. The seat belts were uncomfortable at the time, they have improved. Also it was perceived as less necessary on shorter and lower speed journeys.
Seatbelts and all car safety features are still made with the male body in mind.
I didnt know that, i thought it was because Sir Jim had a special interest in women's safety.
There was one about natural born smokers which was like a horror film, but my favorite was the cartoon kid and cat “Charlie says”. The prodigy turned it into a track on one of their early albums. All the fireworks ones were fairly haunting too
That first clip you watched, used to scare children witless when it was shown in the 70's. I should know, I was one of them.
These films were needed though. Children were usually told to go out and play, or get out from under the adults feet, as it was often put. We were only expected home for meals, then sent out again until the street lights came on. Kids in the 70's were rarely at home. I practically lived in the local woods.
As a kid I used to know the labyrinth of paths through my local woods like the back of my hand and after school they would echo with shouts and laughter until the streetlights came on - Returning home after my father died I was sad to see the woods so silent and the paths all overgrown. Even the Broadmoor Siren had been removed; the kids are all indoors now so there's no incentive for the pedophiles to escape 👨👧
The Irish speeding PSA you watched had that ridiculous sound effect added. The original is at czcams.com/video/Wv1rKHGeMRk/video.html
Yes- the first time I watched the real one it was the most shocking ad ever, closely matched by one whose care driver is killed by the head of the child thrown forward in the collision.
The squish sound 🤣
I don’t know who put that sound on, but the kiddoos definitely didn’t go squish on the original tv version. I remember finding it chilling and trying to avoid having to see it again.
I love the PSA about drink driving. When the guy gets a pizza and drives obviously while drunk.
Then say after the crash say "What a waste... of a pizza." While the splattered pizza slowly slides down the inside of the car window, with the injured driver in the background.
Back then, there was no wishy washy subtle messaging in PSA's, it was in your face get it through your thick head stuff. I can't imagine the participation award generations ever making such PSA's, hence no one get the message any more.
Please say I’m not the only one who burst out laughing.
When that car went splat 🤣🤣
I remember this add on TV in NI and it didn't have the splat, I think the version you got for this has been edited to add that!
@@timoneill31same
I'm crying here...
The first film plays on folklore stories of strange malevolent characters that lurk in rivers, ponds & lakes, like Jenny Green Teeth, or the Kelpie. I recall one PSA in the 1960s about children getting into abandoned refrigerators and getting locked in and suffocating. It advised breaking doors off before they were disposed of. Back in the day those big refrigerators had handles that locked doors and of course there weren't any on the inside to get out. Nowadays there just held lightly shut with magnets. There was a guy called Shaw Taylor who presented a series of PSAs encouraging people to wear seat belts, introducing the phrase, "clunk, clip, every trip!"
Need the classic "don't put gloss paint on polystyrene tiles"
That was a hilarious one in the 70s about putting rugs on polished floors
😂 now you'll never put a rug on a polished floor!
I watched it as a kid, and never put a rug in my hall since. I just stick to the mantrap :)
@@allenwalker5840 Women would be okay, then? 🙂
The worst thing about this is I was recently visiting a relative whose elderly mother was staying with them. The mother was sitting in a chair standing on laminate flooring. Her walker was on a rug in front of her. Every time anyone stepped on the rug you could see it slide a little. It's an accident (I hope accident) waiting to happen.
So, still applicable today.
You know that last one about boiling a kettle on a boat is a joke? It uses clips from two different PIFs and a modern VO trying to sound old.
Ah, that solves the mystery of how a kettle boiling over can make a boat explode.
I remember the bit about the kettle boiling put the gas out so the kitchen filled up with gas resulting in an explosion. The boat one I don’t remember. Wish I could remember the comedy program that brought he beginning of the kettle PSA and marched it with the boat PSA ending.
the famed hauntological Scarfolk blog satirised this whole phenomenon
My wife, Rhona, is an actress and she was in one of the drink drive adverts from around 2000. Hers was about summertime drinking in a pub garden. Same sudden crash effect.
The advert paid well, and she just had to sit in a pub garden for a day!
Brian.
That squish, I laughed 🤣
Since I'm not sure what else to say, I'll just leave this comment to please the algorithm.
I'm very pleased, signed, The Algorithm.
ALL HAIL THE ALGORITHM
Surely the most useful PIF was the "Reginald Molehusband" film on how to park a car.
Growing up we used to watch these - the one that really scared me was one about playing on train tracks.
Britain had to switch to using cartoons for PSAs, after 8 children died making them in 1978.
I don't believe that's true.
Ahh i was in tears over the 'splat' sound effect....had me in stitches - yeah like a cartoon splat is gonna soften the blow of seeing a car squash a classroom of kids.
There were also scary TV shows for kids like The Tomorrow People, The Feathered Serpent and even mid-70s Doctor Who could be frightening!
Tom baker!
That was a brilliant video. Thanks. Still can’t forget all the smoke alarm ones!
“Spirit of Dark Water”? My, you’re certainly jumping in at the deep end for you first British PSA! No pun intended! And I most certainly remember that 2009 drink driving one, it was actually jus one of many done in the same fashion! Speaking of drink drive PSAs, I remember one from when I was a kid in the 90s, it had Summer Time playing, they were in a beer garden, they supped up, got in a car and we saw them drive off, the camera panning up and the next image was them still in the car wrapped round a lamppost! British ads, everyone and you wonder why we are the way we are!
I used to live in a council house where they had forgotten to remove a film covering the central heating vent so all fumes were trapped in the house...which was nice.
Well, my quest goes on... One day I'll find a youtube reactor who can witness a pre-smart era mobile phone and resist the temptation to say "OMG old phone looks old". I don't give up hope though, I WILL find one someday
Another thing about the UK not a lot of people think about, is just how morbid most of our nursery rhymes are. They are usually about death. So when children in playgrounds are singing Ring Around The Rosie, they are actually singing about dying to the plague. Or Jack and Jill falling down a hill. Or the old man who went to bed and bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning. Or a craddle comes tumbling down baby and cradle n' all etc. When you stop to think about them they're kind of horrifying. 😐
The "boil a kettle on a boat" one was because of gas safety (or lack thereof on a lot of boat stoves). The spilling water could extinguish the flame but without a cut-off the gas would continue to flow and fill the boat (including the bilges) until it met a source of ignition. Venting the cabin wouldn't vent the bilge space, so the incident could happen later (for example when starting the motor).
The one that I recall from childhood is a family come in from being somewhere but the mum can smell gas but before she can 'act', the kid flicks a light switch blowing the family up.
LOL, the "don't boil a kettle on a boat" is a satirical comedy by Michael Spicer, parodying 1970's PSAs
My favourite was from c1960 and probably hasn't survived. The donkey on a motorcycle. Over and over again he would be ignoring warnings about speeding; "I am in complete command of the situation". Finally came the crash round a blind corner, the donkey grew wings and floated upwards, and a lugubrious voice came drifiting down; "I WAS in command of the situation".