hyped garbage

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This has to be one of the worst educational films I've ever run across, which of course makes it perfect for Mike and the 'bots.SPOILER ALERT We open on a depressing scene, young men engaged in the futile attempt to make sturdy and efficient furniture. The focus of our story is seen sanding or polishing his latest creation ("it's for the Grand Wizard"). He then proceeds to daydream (while obviously polishing or sanding the wood down to nothing) about the professions open to him if he pursues industrial arts (all of which are equally depressing). Over the course of the film, he tries to convince his friend, a taxicab with its doors wide open, about the merits of taking IA. He cites his mentor, the stiff shop teacher, and gets backed up by the coach ("boys...hey, boys!"). In the end, Big Ears grabs our hero in an uncomfortable way, and we are left with the knowledge that Industrial Arts is the path to a dull and pointless existence.In Mike and the 'bots' hands, of course, the film transcends its crappy premise (and thus the ten-star rating). There's at least a half-dozen zingers in their commentary. This is a gem from the shorts legacy.So why study industrial arts? Because one day you might need to keep your house from sliding downhill, or to construct a desk-set for the local Klan leader. Why else?

How in the name of anything holy can "Why Study Industrial Arts?" claim to be an educational film?! If this is education, then I'd rather be an idiot! Actually, this movie could have only been created by an idiot. The only reason that it's even worth talking about is because "MST3K" once showed this drudgery. As you might imagine, Mike, Servo and Crow had plenty of funny comments.If I ever make an educational film, it will be a promotion of vegetarianism. Here's the plot: in 1950s suburban America, mom and dad are trying to feed little Jimmy meat. Jimmy breaks out into a song (to the tune of "U Can't Touch This") about why he chooses to be a vegetarian. Yeah, that's my kind of educational film.

Herk Harvey and Centron bring us another little instructional piece of fantasy, this time regarding shop class. A bespectacled young man (who looks likes my dad when he was in high school) discusses with his Mickey Mouse-eared friend on why he loves shop class. He narrates about his fantasy through the short, including his career discussion with his shop teacher, who does not resemble any shop teacher I ever had in high school. Anyway the discussion leads to another discussion about shop with the basketball coach, who states that shop never helped him, yet it did since he now has a ready made hobby of building giant recipe card boxes.MST has a field day with this short, I would think 95-100% of anything put out by Centron would be great material for the gang from Best Brains.

This short teaches the merits of, what else? Yup Industrial arts. It has a creepy kid who likes those tools a tad more than a normal sane person would and a coach (Chuck Lacey,who did a great many of these 'educational' shorts) who agrees that that stop would never be useful to him, but how he respects that he learned it none the less. MST3K mocked this short unmercifully of course and it was among the funniest ribbing of a short I've seen from the show. Bought a big smile too my face. This short can be found on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume 1 before the film "The Skydivers" (episode 125) Normal short grade: D MST grade: A+