Sunday, July 10, 2016

Government Approved! The Films of Warren G. Spaulding

At long last, Travesty Films' award-winning (one award, but still) feature mockumentary, Government Approved! The Films of Warren G. Spaulding, is available on the World Wide Web. This 2002 film, laboriously compiled from decades of actual taxpayer-funded productions now housed at the National Archives in College Park, Md., was almost doomed to the same fate as the many curious works it celebrates. (Well, maybe not "celebrate.") Which is to say, ignored and abandoned.

But Travesty Executive Director in Charge of Actually Getting Things Done, Mr. Rich West, blew the cobwebs off of the digital bits and bytes and, using Internet technology unheard of when Warren G. Spaulding was making all these films [sic], put the damn thing online.

And so America and the world may again witness the hypnotic horror that is our government's idea of informational, instructional, and propaganda filmmaking in such works as Carbon Monoxide, the Unseen Danger; Three Counties Against Syphilis; Your Enemy, the Grasshopper; King Snow Holds Court; A Better Missouri; and too many more.

This is Mr. West's condensed version, carefully edited for the YouTube generation. The full 81-minute film is available in the DVD format should anyone care to purchase a copy. If that would be you, drop a line at warrengspaulding @ gmail dot com, and wait a while for somebody to remember to check the account.

You're welcome. Enjoy.