This has nothing to do with nudity. Just some amazing nostalgia.
From my e-mail:
There was an educational film in the 1950s that was almost feature length. It’s called The Alphabet Conspiracy. It’s technically 54 minutes long, although three of those minutes are the closing credits.
The plot is, a young girl is frustrated with her English homework, especially with trying to figure out all the rules. Then she falls asleep, and dreams that characters from Alice in Wonderland have launched a conspiracy to get rid of English.
Dr. Frank Jackson, an English professor from USC, parleyed a local program about Shakespeare and theater craft into the role of “Dr. Research” on a series of Bell Telephone Hour science programs produced in the 1950’s, with some directed by Frank Capra. This was one of them,
All featured well-known actors of the time like Eddie Albert, Sterling Holloway and Hans Conreid. I believe that Dr. Jackson and Holloway were the inspiration for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker on the Muppet Show.
The linguistic work of Professor Jackson has continued to this day. Although I have lived in four states (plus NYC, which is different from upstate) and five foreign countries, this quiz was able to identify my home town from my peculiar pronunciations and expressions.
Thanks for posting this. Man, what a rush of long-forgotten memories! They used to show these films with that same guy to my elementary school class. That was so long ago that they would roll in a 16mm projector. Even as a kid, I always thought these were much better than most of the educational films they showed us. I later began my writing career in industrial video, and my habit of trying to inject some humor and creativity into dull subject matter probably was inspired by watching these films.