Scary British public information films from the 1970s

The hooded, death-dealing "spirit of dark and lonely water" who stars in the first video on this medley of British safety PSA's is plenty creepy, but he's no match for the horrific hairstyle sported by the gent at 1:38 in the video.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Matt Staggs

If that guy had red eyes he’d be a shoo-in for Elric of Melnibone in one of his various Multiverse incarnations.
lupino

allegedly the father of modern two-deck DJ’ing

More than that, he invented the nightclub as we know it – before his Grand Records Ball, no one had thought of combining a dancefloor with recorded music. (Though I prefer to credit the true invention of the nightclub to Dave Mancuso: he might’ve been twenty-odd years later than Sir Jimmy, but he had much better motives!)
Scary_UK

The man at 1:38 is the eccentric DJ, TV presenter and charity fundraiser, Jimmy Saville
greffless

i wonder how many kids actually remembered what splink stood for when they crossed the street.
Gemma

#2….. and his hair’s still like that!
Scary_UK

What these are missing is the serious sounding continuity announcer voicing over the freeze at the end with ‘That was a public information film’
mutikonka

I remember all these – and they worked!I was s### scared of roads, ponds and electricity sub stations.
Love the Young Ones parody of the Think Once, Think Twice, Think Bike campaign .. “Imagine this squashy ripe tomato is a young girl crossing the road and this cricket bat is a big truck …”

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aiVuHEv2VZ4
BennyP

About 3 mins in is a bit about driving and motorcycles.
The Young Ones did a satire of this series- “Think once. Think twice. Think don’t drive on the pavement!”
Anonymous

The gentleman – more accurately “knight of the realm” – with the unfortunate barnet is none other than Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, KCSG with whom Louis Theroux spent a Weird Weekend: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=louis+theroux+weird+weekends#q=louis%20theroux%20jimmy&emb=0
Anonymous

The scariest one I recall is of a group of young boys arriving at a freinds house. After saying ‘Wotcha’ they trash the house. I remember thinking what what excellent role models! Nobody took it seriously because ‘Wotcha’ was never used in real life.
artoodetoo

Awesome. Thanks for sharing, I remember most of these from my childhood, especially the frisbee one and the Green Cross Man.

I just realised that they’d dubbed David Prowse who played the Green Cross Man, which is ironic as they did the same to him when he played Vader. In reality he has a very thick Bristol/Cornish accident.
avraamov

JIMMIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!
Dave Rattigan

I don’t know what was scarier – Jimmy Saville or the woman with the rearranged face.

The chap at the 3m 10s mark is the actor Edward Judd, best-known as the star of ’60s sci-fi films like The First Men in the Moon and The Day the Earth Caught Fire.

I remember the one with the frisbee from my schooldays! The other one that remains etched on my memory featured a youngish Duncan Preston as a child predator. Anyone remember that one?

And anyone know who did the voiceover in the first film? Very creepy.
sammich

They didn’t even let David Prowse keep his own voice as the Green Cross Code man, in real life, I clearly remember, he has a distinct West Country accent.
Crubellier

The voiceover for the Spirit of Dark And Lonely Waters was provided by Donald Pleasance, of course…

And I’ll see your classic public information films and raise you Northern Irish road safety ads. These are pretty rough:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F0z94AxRbZU
but this is in a whole league of its own IMHO:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KQ5ovDMh0

During The Troublesâ„¢ the local police, the RUC, used to run ads for a confidential telephone line they operated for people to supply information on terrorism; when things started getting really crazy in the early 1990s, these turned into bizarre little Scarface-style mini-epics full of slow-motion machine-gun massacres in pubs. Can’t seem to find them on Youtube, sadly.
Johnny Cat

S P L I N K !

Let’s see, that’s Stop, something about Pavement, Look, um…If, No, then Kross. Okay, confusing mnemonic to be sure.
zuzu

BEEP BEEP Richie! They all float down here. When you’re down here with us, you’ll float too!
nanuq

Wasn’t that Jon Pertwee at the end? One of the best actors that ever played Doctor Who.
sammich

Duncan Preston as the Stranger, Cheggers telling us always to say no…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LOEmOVfdITg
mdh

SPLINK!

To all of you mentioning the Young Ones… thank you for that context. I wouldn’t have drawn the connection without you.
NickD

The substation video has a Boards of Canada-like soundtrack. I like! The lake video would have given me nightmares as a kid. I am the right age to have seen it then, but I am in the US.
sammich

Crubellier @ 11 – your adult 1980s/90s PI films certainly can beat up our kids 1960s/70s PI films.
Are you proud of yourself?
Anonymous

@Lizzle: Ha! Brilliant. I remember being terrified by a doctor who explained that “this man has had to have his leg amputated because of gangrene. From smoking!” I was convinced both my parents would end up with only two legs between them.
They must have sorted out a cure, you never hear about this happening nowadays.
James Cx

@ #11 This is the only Confidential Telephone ad that I seem to remember, I’m sure there were plenty of others though… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN0mRJGLcpM
bobhughes

i think i saw the spirit of dark & lonely water vid at Fazed a year or two ago. apparently it didn’t get the coverage it deserved
Nelson.C

Dave @9: The voice-over in the first is the amiable Donald Pleasence, who you may know from his Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice and many other cheerful roles.

Recent public info films in the UK are getting creepy in a different way. The one reminding drivers to pay their ~Â£100 annual road tax features a threatening black monolith following the tax dodger, getting closer and closer….
Jasonclock

Splink!! Ah, hahaa! Hilarious!
Kobie

Excellent! Irish t.v. didn’t have Dr Who or Darth Vader to help us across the road, but we did have some rockin’ country tunes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEssgMQ1O_k
sammich

Nelson C @ 19 …and the TV licence ads telling us that we can’t escape from their database…
sammich

TV licence ad – http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/mediaandcommunity/mediatvcs.jsp
dros

@ #29
“More than that, he invented the nightclub as we know it – before his Grand Records Ball, no one had thought of combining a dancefloor with recorded music. ”

Much as i’d love to credit sir jimmy with the invention of many things, including the marathon: i can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but record dances have been going on since c. 1918, either using a gramophone or pianola (or various other bits and bobs). can we settle for ‘inventing the light-up dancefloor’?
Lau

Splendid stuff. The one I’d really love to find is the one about where a promising young footballer tries to retrieve his football boots that have been thrown over the railway overhead wires. Cue much electricity and a shot of his boots hanging on the bedroom door, never to be used again…

Anyone seen this anywhere out there on the interwebs?
Bottlekid

The really terrifying bit was the wallpaper at 2:55 and 3:05.
SpinningAround

Wow, Jon Pertwee, Donald Pleasance, and of course Sir Jimmy Savile, who is allegedly the father of modern two-deck DJ’ing and still sports the same haircut (and his trademark cigar)

I particularly like the fact that the kids nearly get splattered by the car that defines British Leyland in the 70′s – the Austin Allegro

I think I am getting old. I remember the Green Cross ads with the superhero-typed guy.
Pablissimo

The spirit of the water one is amazing.
Charlie Says…, anyone?

[youtube]
sammich

spinning around @ 23 … and may you continue to get older :) – do you remember the kevin keegan green cross code PI films?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JE8Lk2kSCDo
Pablissimo

[html fail]

that should be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVPcoZ3Mxhs (youtube)
sammich

Charlie sez …
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eKLHlNvOQyQ et al
… charlie voiced by kenny everett!
Sekonda

SHAWADDY WADDY!!
Adam Weiss

“And it’s going to happen to a lot of you ladies.”

HAHAHAHAHA FWAHAHAHAHA…

SPLINK!
Irregular Shed

Whilst all these YouTube links are convenient, the connoisseur of Public Information Films will head to the National Archives website:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/

… and then drink in the absolutely incredible atmospheric cold-war fear-fest that is Protect And Survive.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/1964to1979/filmpage_casualties.htm

Kids these days have it too easy – from a young age we were taught that Russia could kill us all at the press of a button – that put us in our place. I still remember the air-raid sirens being tested at the police houses in our neighbourhood every other Sunday morning in the early 80s… Terrorists are for pussies in comparison with the Big Bad we had then.
macrumpton

That dark and lonely water bit was so wonderfully Gothic, evoking Poe’s “Telltale Heart” or maybe a mournful Dylan Thomas ode. I think they could have made it a TV series in the same vein as “The Fugitive” or “The Incredible Hulk”, with each suspenseful (yet repetitive) episode revolving around who would get (or not get) drowned this week.
I never would have missed an episode…
Lizzle

I still have occasional nightmares about JIMMMIEEEEE! and his exploding trousers – that ad was a real low-point of my early childhood, when my family lived next door to a small electricity sub-station.

There were some other awesomely terrifying Public Information films in the 70s – I remember one particularly horrific one where a mother dies through slipping on a rug she’s placed on an over-polished floor, cracking her head open. I used to beg my Mum not to clean the lino in the hallway, and it’s doubtless contributed to my own sluttish attitude to housekeeping now I’ve grown up.
argentq

Had seen some of these sent up on Russell Brands excellent “Ponderland” episode on children, esp ‘Spirit of Dark And Lonely Waters’, and with the even more creepy “Mac and Hat” man..

After watching that,I’m not so much afraid of water,I’m afraid of television