The Fun of Being Thoughtful.

No kidding, that’s the name of this “educational” film that is part of the Internet Archives (a fun site to visit for ephemeral films) Ernest M. Ligon, Ph.D, author of The Psychology of Christian Personality (published 1938) was the educational collaborator. This short film from 1950 is about the Proctors, a family that seems to be on Prozac, or maybe that’s Xanax. Scary, this one is.

It demonstrates how the perfect family behaves, thoughtfully (oh, gag me now). They have no real emotional stress. Problems are resolved with a double date (more like cheating on the girlfriend and supported by the sister) and talking to dad and mom about sensitive issues. They’ve got to be kidding. This genre of films were shown right through the early 70s in high schools, until someone got smart and realized, Zombies!

I try to be thoughtful, but not as dramatically moody as Eddie, when I make cold calls to people I hardly know (sorry to all the art buyers). Behavior like this today would be considered psychopathic and the Proctor family may go berserk at any moment with their repressed anger.