Monster Shack: Social News Reels

Sharing Work At Home (1949)

Summary: See how you can help Mother avoid a nervous collapse by picking up after yourself, you slob.

Open with Howard and his father, cleverly referred to as "Dad" (boy, those guys at Coronet Instructional are just too good sometimes!) slapping up hideous, floral wallpaper in the living room. As the excitement reaches its climax, i.e., will the next strip of wallpaper be straight?, in walks Big Sister, Martha with a tray of sandwiches. Lunch time, guys!

Mom, enters as well. "Who would have ever imagined that we could redecorate this room and do all the work ourselves," she gushes as she lays down a pot of coffee.

Man, this is intense!

Who would have ever imagined that we could pick wallpaper as ugly as this?

Why, everybody is so happy happy happy and "working well together" as the narrator explains. But wait! It hasn't always been so. "Let's take a look back last month,..."

Oh joy.

Fade to <cough>, "last month." Martha explains to the neighbor that her mother isn't feeling so hot, so she's trying to come up with some strategies where the whole family can pitch in and help with the housework.

"General cleaning is much easier if everyone picks up after himself," she reads aloud from her home economics book.

The camera pans across the messy living room and Martha has a fantastic insight: Why if they'd all just clean up their own mess, why, the house wouldn't be so messy, and mom would feel better!

Huzzah!

Martha stands up to walk over and pick up a newspaper scattered across the floor and accidentally drags a lamp off a table and sends it crashing to the floor.

"Boy, a home sure is a lot of work!"

I quit.

Conclusion: Sorry, I could only make it halfway through this one. Even I have my limits.

Office Etiquette (1950)

Summary: You women better behave yourselves, ya hear?!

We open with a woman's voiceover looking back with fondness to her first typing class where she not only learned how to type, but also how to "get along" in a business "environment."

Ahhh yes, the joy of watching a classroom full of zomboid teenagers banging away on clattering mechanical typewriters while the narrator reminds us that the Golden Rule also applies at the office.

Scenes like these are what makes writing for my website such a joy.

Fade to later when our young narrator, Joan, has just completed her first job application and delivers it to her potential boss, Mr. Randall.

Randall glances at Joan's application and notes that she's a former student of Mrs. Purcell, the typing teaching. "Mrs. Purcell's recommendation has a lot of influence here," he mentions, because, you know, large businesses always base their hiring decisions on input from high-school typing teachers.

"Can you start Monday morning," Randall abruptly asks. Joan immediately accepts the job offer.

"You know," Randall continues, "we're a small company. Getting along with people is pretty important around here...do you think you can do that?"

Now, I'm thinking that if a guy would have said that to a young new-hire these days, he'd be smacked with a sexual harassment suit, but hey, things were simpler back then.

"Getting along is pretty important around here...heh heh."

Well, that Monday, Joan's first day on the job, things go pretty well even though in the upcoming weeks there was "many a-night" where she had to take work home to get everything done. Yes, and I've spent many a-night writing up reviews of crappy news reels, do you see me complaining? (Don't answer that.)

Man, this goes on and on and on. Horrid stuff. Joan learns to gracefully admit her mistakes, get along with everybody, and...damn. I guess I'm 0 for 2 today. I just can't take these social reels tonight.

Conclusion: The Horror.