AAAHAHAHA! Aw, MAN. I tell you, sometimes you just come across something that makes you wonder, "WHAT were they thinking?" I've been doing a lot of old film footage digging for a project lately, and today I uncovered this gem, made by your pals at the United States Department of Health in 1977: "You In Public Service." This series was designed to entice people into working for Uncle Sam by explaining in a hyper-friendly yet slow-witted way how to function in the most basic ways in order to be a good American service lackey.
To make it all even more surreal, the actors (who seem to be rather inexperienced) break into song every couple of minutes, with exciting tunes and dance routines about communication skills and what to do with the endless piles of useless paper your government job will process. At the end, one of the actors pretends that she took her Civil Service Exam and passed, and she's so stoked about it that you'd think she'd won the lottery and is off to sip champagne on Fantasy Island rather than facing filing case numbers for 30 years in windowless, cubicle-choked government building.
Oh, Government. You big sillies. Please to enjoy!
"You In Public Service (Introduction)" (1977)
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman