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Purely Joyful Movie!

Fresh and Exciting

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Kurt Vonnegut is supposed to have suggested to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys that even people who work hard to make a bad movie deserve some respect. As much as I love MST3k, I'm inclined to agree...except in the case of the industrial/educational shorts from the 40's and 50's. Centron, Jam Handy and Union Pacific can bust a gut putting out the best product they're capable of, but when their aim is to educate rather than entertain, they risk veering into the insultingly pedantic. This where you feel someone really needed to push back, and MST3k is up for the job.Hygiene films are the worst. Most of the other shorts MST3k has skewered deal with topics that, for all their ridiculous presentation, give a fairly benign and inoffensive take on an issue: "Cheating" (it's bad), "Last Clear Chance" and "Days of Our Years" (don't muck about with safety or you'll get killed), "Mr. B Natural" (playing a musical instrument is enriching), "Chicken of Tomorrow" (eat 'em), and so on. However, shorts like "Body Care and Grooming" (and its kiddie version, "Keeping Neat and Clean") make the very plain statement that your personal and social worth are inextricably tied to the degree to which you keep to a certain ideal.In this short, we're taught the importance of showering, washing hands, keeping our clothing nice, and many other things that really don't need to be explained in a developed society. What they're really saying is that not doing these things will prevent you from being happy, productive, and acceptable. I suspect it was exactly this point of view that led to the development of scruffy, unwashed counterculture types a generation later. The filmmakers must have anticipated just such a movement and, in their efforts to stave it off, ended up fulfilling their own prophecy.

Body Care and Grooming (1946) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Another educational short, this one dealing with college kids and how they should keep their bodies clean. There are a few funny moments and this here comes off interesting whereas the others have been pretty boring. Did you know in 1946 it was thought that you should only wash your hair once every two weeks? Yeah.Getting Along with Parents (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Extremely lazy educational short explains why some parents won't let their teens do anything they want when it comes to spending money. Horrible acting, silly stories and just an all around bad film.

(r#19)Having watched Body Care and Grooming, I'm not quite sure what to believe anymore. It's like the entire world has been turned up-side-down. Until this day, I was convinced that nothing was more important in my life than keeping a good posture. Now I've seen this short film and suddenly it's washing my face that I should worry about? I better keep doing the knee test, just in case.This 40's short (oh, what a great period for "life for dummies" short films this was!) teaches us that if you're not good-looking, you might as well blow your brains out because you're never going to be of any use, ever, to anyone, and no one will ever like you. Having spread this uplifting message, a narrator with all the charm of a greasy McDonalds worker teaches us how skin works, why we sweat, and how to stay clean. It's stupid, shallow and dated as hell, but also pretty amusing for all the wrong reasons.Remember: socks that have slid down your ankles a bit might mean the end of your social life! So be careful.

This short film, like many of its time, is quite dated and pretty boring. It shows one how to properly groom oneself every day. The thing that shoots it down is some pretty bad acting from all involved, and a narrator who is both annoying, boring, and obscenely cheerful at the same time.Avoid unless you're watching MST3K.Lookie ma! Another #1!