A big wholesome slice of 1940's Americana is presented in the guise of this instructional short film on the utility of springs by the good folks at Jam Handy Productions, who were rightly renowned in their day for this sort of thing.
The People of the Conveniently Located Fruit Spreads begin their tale with a frog-faced old coot whose struggles to repair the broken supporting springs on his living room sofa are conflicting with his scheduled tee time. Falling back on a well-weathered instructional short film cliche, our ranine protagonist temeritously shouts to the heavens his wish that springs had never been created. Up pops without delay a snaggle toothed, Grandpa-hillbilly-accented elfin creature who proclaims himself to be Coily the Spring Sprite. "You'll get your wish!" coily croaks testily, and with that word, it is done - springs are no more.
Froggy the Coot, at first delighted that this brave new springless world offers no further obstacle to his putting on silly knee pants and swatting a small white ball around a large well-mown lawn, soon realizes that his foolish words have wrought a veritable dystopia - nothing works! "No springs!" cackles Grandpa Coily every time Old Frog-Face tries to do anything - dial a phone, raise his window shades, keep his front door shut, start his car - and finds himself foiled for want of springs! Reduced to the most wretched and abject repentance, Uncle Froggy is pitied by our springy friend (perhaps Coily pities the coot's odd taste in clothes), who then returns the world to its previous spring-loaded condition with a stern warning: "Don't ever wish for anything like that again!"
The blubberingly grateful frogman then applies himself to proclaiming the Gospel of Springs with the dedication of a zealot. His endless gassing on about springs ruins his friends' golf game, but they are unfortunately too polite to beat him to death with baseball bats.
A cautionary tale, this film makes me apprehensive about wishing (however lightly) for the eradication of any household item, however trivial.
I wonder how this film would have been if the old coot had wished for "No caulking"?
The People of the Conveniently Located Fruit Spreads begin their tale with a frog-faced old coot whose struggles to repair the broken supporting springs on his living room sofa are conflicting with his scheduled tee time. Falling back on a well-weathered instructional short film cliche, our ranine protagonist temeritously shouts to the heavens his wish that springs had never been created. Up pops without delay a snaggle toothed, Grandpa-hillbilly-accented elfin creature who proclaims himself to be Coily the Spring Sprite. "You'll get your wish!" coily croaks testily, and with that word, it is done - springs are no more.
Froggy the Coot, at first delighted that this brave new springless world offers no further obstacle to his putting on silly knee pants and swatting a small white ball around a large well-mown lawn, soon realizes that his foolish words have wrought a veritable dystopia - nothing works! "No springs!" cackles Grandpa Coily every time Old Frog-Face tries to do anything - dial a phone, raise his window shades, keep his front door shut, start his car - and finds himself foiled for want of springs! Reduced to the most wretched and abject repentance, Uncle Froggy is pitied by our springy friend (perhaps Coily pities the coot's odd taste in clothes), who then returns the world to its previous spring-loaded condition with a stern warning: "Don't ever wish for anything like that again!"
The blubberingly grateful frogman then applies himself to proclaiming the Gospel of Springs with the dedication of a zealot. His endless gassing on about springs ruins his friends' golf game, but they are unfortunately too polite to beat him to death with baseball bats.
A cautionary tale, this film makes me apprehensive about wishing (however lightly) for the eradication of any household item, however trivial.
I wonder how this film would have been if the old coot had wished for "No caulking"?