Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Looking For An Old Friend

This morning, I spent a little time looking for an old friend on the 'net: Primitive Pete.

Many of you who attended high school in the 1970's like I did will remember this guy from your shop classes. Primitive Pete was the main character in a safety film that Disney produced for General Motors in the 1940's, "The ABC's of Hand Tools."

Every year, we looked forward to the annual showing of the movie-- I mean a movie, on a projector. We didn't have none of them stinkin' vcr's and dvd's! It was required showing in each shop class. And of course, the movie was untintentionally hilarous.

I searched Youtube in vain for the movie, so me and my fellow forty-somethings will have to content ourselves with these links:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/old-brew/disneys-abcs-of-hand-tools

http://www.bobsokol.com/PrimitivePete/

The Bob Sokol site has a link to a PDF of the accompanying book. Enjoy!

7 comments:

kim said...

Good God, you really do have to find a new job.

Very cute; this is how I pictured you as a construction worker.

Maybe if I bribe you you could put on some cut-offs?

Anonymous said...

Obviously this is where you acquired a good deal of your mechanical skills. It takes a very special mechanical luddite like yourself to short out an entire building while trying to put up Christmas Lights ....

GETkristiLOVE said...

I've never heard of it, but then again, I come from the generation where girls took cooking/sewing while the boys got to take shop. Of course, I'd rather had taken shop.

Johnny Yen said...

Kim-
I look like I belong on Belmont and Broadway when I wear cutoffs.

Elk-
No, it just took a bunch of beer, and 20 year old Christmas lights I bought at a garage sale.

Johnny Yen said...

Kristi-
Yeah, unfortuately those were segregated days.

SkylersDad said...

I remember Pete! And I remember projectors, and the film jamming, and the single frame that was in front of the lamp burning...

Ah yes, the high tech world of the 70's.

Johnny Yen said...

Yes, I remember that-- how hopelessly lost teachers were trying to thread the projectors, and when the projectors (and the film) melted down!

When I was setting up my classroom at the beginning of the year, I came across an old filmstrip machine. It brought back memories of 6th grade.