- One Got Fat
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One Got Fat Directed by Dale Jennings Written by Dale Jennings Narrated by Edward Everett Horton Cinematography Max Hutto Release date(s) 1963 Running time 15 min Country 
United StatesLanguage English One Got Fat is a 1963 bicycle safety film. It is narrated by F-Troop and Fractured Fairy Tales star, Edward Everett Horton.
Contents
Plot
In the film, ten friends who are children with monkey masks and tails, plan on going to the park for a picnic. They all ride there on their bikes, but each one meets a different fate on their way to the park as a result of their failure to follow specific bike safety rules (like not making hand signals, not reading traffic signs, not riding with traffic, riding double, or riding on the sidewalk). One by one, each of the friends makes a mistake and suffers an interesting fate. In the end only one of the friends (who not only followed all the bike safety rules, but is also a normal human, whose face is not shown until the very end) makes it to the park and eats all the food by himself. Thus, as the title says, "One got fat!"
Characters
The characters and how they met their demise.
- Rooty-Toot ("Rooty") Jasperson
- Make Signals
- Demise/Fate: Turned left into ongoing traffic
- Tinkerbell ("Tink") McDillinfiddy
- Watch Signs
- Demise/Fate: Forgets to watch out for a stop sign, resulting in being hit by a large truck
- Phillip ("Floog") Floogle
- Keep Right
- Demise/Fate: Rides on left side of street, while doing so a car moves out, hitting him
- Mossby Pomegranate
- License/Register
- Demise/Fate: Bike was stolen, police couldn't find it because it wasn't registered, as a result of running between one and nine blocks, his feet arches collapse
- Slim Jim ("Slim") Maguffny and Trigby Phipps
- Ride Alone
- Demise/Fate: Due to Trigby's lack of vision because of Slim blocking his head, he steers right into an open manhole covering
- Nelbert ("Nel") Zwieback
- Yield
- Demise/Fate: She begins to ride on the sidewalk without giving pedestrians the right of way, she rides right into two people carrying groceries
- Filbert ("Fil") Bagel
- Tune Up
- Demise/Fate: Because of the poor maintenance of the bike, the brakes no longer work, resulting in Filbert being run over by a steam roller
- Stanislaw ("Stan") Hickenbottom
- Lights/Reflectors
- Demise/Fate: He rides his bike into a tunnel without anyway to be seen, nothing is seen of his fate only heard, it sounds like he was simply hit by a car
- Orville ("Orv") Slump
- He's no monkey, so he made it to the picnic site and got fat
Reception
After experiencing a mild revival of popularity on the Internet, the film was presented as a RiffTrax feature in April 2008, with commentary by Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy; they described the film as "a concentrated dose of lab-purified nightmare fuel" and saying that it "makes monkeys more terrifying than they already are."[1] The film was also featured on Cracked, in the "Worst Lessons PSAs Accidentally Taught Us" episode of Michael Swaim's video show Does Not Compute.[2]
The film is extensively sampled in the music videos "Everything You Do is a Balloon" by Boards of Canada, "Bloody Palms" by Phantogram, "20 Inches of Monkey" by Lamps,[3] "Fool's Life" by Dr. Dog, "St Peter" by The Black Spiders,[4] and "January" by Venetian Snares. Clips from it are also used in the music video "Oh Me, Oh My" by Nerf Herder.[5]. The band Li'l Cap'n Travis made a video for Natural Fool that consists entirely of re-edited footage from this film. On their 2011 European tour, the band Primus used clips during renditions of "Here come the Bastards".
See also
References
- ^ Nelson, Michael J. "One Got Fat: Rifftrax". rifftrax.com. http://www.rifftrax.com/ondemand/one-got-fat. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
- ^ Swaim, Michael. "Does Not Compute: Worst Lessons PSAs Accidentally Taught Us". Cracked.com.
- ^ "20 Inches of Monkey". Lamps. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbPAqETdhqk. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
- ^ "St Peter". The Black Spiders. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaGFqamY20Y. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "Oh Me, Oh My". Nerf Herder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH3x7J9ZDaY. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
External links
- One Got Fat at the Internet Archive
- Ook. Eek. Ick. "review" of the short at Progressive Boink
- One Got Fat at the Internet Movie Database
- January - Venetian Snares at YouTube
- Natural Fool - Li'l Cap'n Travis at YouTube
- Everything You Do is a Balloon - Boards of Canada at YouTube
- Fool's Life - Dr. Dog at YouTube
- Gorillaz Routine - Kid Koala at YouTube
Categories:- 1963 films
- Short films
- English-language films
- American social guidance and drug education films
- Rooty-Toot ("Rooty") Jasperson
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