One Got Fat: Bicycle Safety (1963)

Oct 30, 2014



An extremely strange and, one presumes unintentionally, creepy bicycle safety film from Interlude Films. The starring children are wearing monkey masks, which seems to draw some distinction between what silly monkeys would do and what wise and safety-conscious humans would (and should) do, as regards to riding one's bike. The masks, however, lend a slightly Clockwork Orange-esque tone to proceedings, compounded by the fact that as their short nine-block long journey to a picnic progresses, each child is picked off one by one (into death? permanent paralysis?) by various accidents - until only one is left. This lone picnicker is the safety-conscious Orville, who is left with everyone's lunches (hence the "One Got Fat" of the title), and who is revealed at the very end to be the only one not wearing a mask. The odd film is narrated brilliantly throughout by Edward Everett Horton, with his slightly ominous catchphrase: "Right? Right".