Our next short film opens in a classroom, where it seems the eighth-graders need a couple of volunteers from Mrs. Whoever's fifth-grade class for an assembly production. (Assembly production? Yeah, right. Lining up the poor saps up for a date with "John" and a "Swirlie Shirley" is more like it.)

As the selection process commences, our narrator chimes in, noting that to be picked for such an honor, it is very important to be clean and neat. For personal hygiene is the beginning and the end of all things social, right? Well, anyways, as the camera pans down a row of students to young Don, a rough and tumble looking fellow, he seems healthy enough for the job. But Don is a little too unkempt for the fascist narrator, who takes him to task for his awful appearance (-- but speaking from personal experience, I don't think anything can help that kid's cow-lick.)

Herr Narrator then turns omniscient, and turns back the sands of time until we find Don back in bed. Soon rousted out and mustered so he'll have plenty of time to properly get ready for school, Don hits the shower, where Herr Narrator cracks the whip until the boy scrubs down to the white meat on his elbows, toes, and naughty bits. Herr Narrator also informs Don that he must bathe at least once a day during the summer, but every other day in the winter will suffice. And he should also wash his hair at least three times a week (-- although I'm not sure if water will actually penetrate all that Vitalis.)

Next comes the grooming, and for heaven's sake, don't brush your teeth until after breakfast or face the wrath of you know who ... After Herr Narrator turns Don into an obsessive compulsive just this side of Howard Hughes, they return to the bedroom, where the lesson in hygiene discipline continues. One must make sure to always wear clean skivvies and clothes, Herr Narrator instructs, making extra sure that everything is adjusted and secured properly. And since Don's shoes are a mess, Herr Narrator conjures up a a shoe-polishing kit out of thin air. He also offers that we can make a kit ourselves (-- but that's a whole other industrial short all together). Once his appearance is hashed out, Herr Narrator then gets all over Don's case to clean up his room, and with the help of some time lapse photography, the deed is quickly done, leaving Don wore out (-- and probably in need of another shower).

So Don is now looking dapper, but what about his friend Mildred? Well, she's a mess, too, meaning Herr Narrator will pick on her next. Setting The Way-Back machine to the night before, because girls are more fussy about their appearance, and since they must wash their hair before going to bed, Herr Narrator warns that girls must never, ever go to bed with wet hair (-- under penalty of torture!). After Mildred puts her hair up to dry, she begins to trims her nails with an emery board but, of course, she's doing it wrong and accidentally opens up a wound. (Sorry, Mildred, Herr Narrator says that whole finger will have to come off now. Must be tidy.)

With her nightly primping complete, Herr Narrator points out that Mildred's room is a bigger disaster area than Don's was. And with his cajoling, and magical powers over time and space, the speed-cleaning commences. Then, with her room clean and her hair dry, an exhausted Mildred flops into bed ... The next morning, poor Mildred is put through the same obsessive/compulsive drills as Don. After clean undies and such, she must first fix her hair before dressing (-- and is it me, or are the filmmakers letting little Mildred linger in her slip for a long, long time?), and Herr Narrator demands at least 100 brush strokes on each side (-- no more, no less. Ve must have discipline!). Her hair finally in place, Mildred then dresses -- but Herr Narrator says the first dress she chooses is too formal and not appropriate for school (-- and makes her look like a tart), so she changes into something more reasonable. Squeaky clean and spiffy, Mildred head's off to school.

Alas, this was all Herr Narrator's pipe dream; so Don and Mildred aren't pretty enough to be selected for the assembly and are passed over for someone else. 

And the moral of the story? It's not who you are, but the clothes you wear, and how you wear them, that's important. And remember: pretty people fit in better because people like you better when you're as pretty as society says you should be. So, to sum up: stop at nothing to look as pretty as the mystery voices inside your head tells you to be.

The End

Have you ever sat around and wondered just where exactly did all these educational shorts like this one come from? Sure, they're a hoot to watch today, but they were created for a purpose -- I assume with the best of intentions, and have been brainwashing the youth of America ever since.

Some would have you believe that they were the direct result of the adults who won World War II not wanting the next generation to degenerate into the free thinking, hard drinking, and hard partying bunch of sexually-deviant nihilists that dang near led the country to ruin after the first World War. Committees were formed, experts were consulted, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was distilled down to a simple formula: obey the rules and maintain the status quo. And if you refused to obey and conform, you will be ridiculed, amount to nothing, and worst of all, you will die a horrible and catastrophic death.

I'm guessing those military hygiene and scare films used to keep the troops in line were good enough for the kids, too, so the medium was adopted. If the kids won't listen to reason, then we'll scare the piss out of them by showing even the most innocent of mistakes will lead to a life of ruin or death. 

Did these things actually work? Were countless lives saved because of these 10-minute one-reelers? Whose sole purpose was to show you a quicker way to screw up and die? The world may never know.