Song warning about STDs is catchy, somewhat counterproductive

Meant to be a reminder that being "nice" or "healthy looking" doesn't mean you're immune to the likes of syphilis and gonorrhea, this 1969 public service video ends up making VD look kind of appealing. Like, maybe it's a new kind of soda that will represent our generation and help us spread world peace. Or, perhaps, an option available on the new VW Beetle.

Submitterated by edinblack

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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naufragio

Wait, I’m supposed to be worried about catching VD from a baby (:46)?
- Kosmoid
  
  Infants born to mothers infected with gonorrhea can be affected by any number of sequelae. And these infants can infect health care workers.
Gyrofrog

When I was a kid (late-70s, New York) there was a PSA with a catchy jingle that ended “VD gets around!” At the time I would have had no idea what that meant, so I was never completely sure that was the wording, or I just remembered it that way. If I wasn’t behind the firewall I’d look it up on YouTube.
Anonymous

Man, I remember this ad. I even remember the song. I was around 6 or 7 and had no clue what VD was. And, just to prove the poster’s point, I though this was an ad for something really cool, that you would want to share with everyone. I can’t remember what my parents told me when I asked what VD is. Knowing them, they probably just told me they didn’t know and quickly changed the subject.
Floatationman

It’s kind of like the Valtrex commercials from the early ‘oughts that made me want to take up kickboxing!
Anonymous

Are they selling v.d.? Coz I’m buying!
Anonymous

WTFOver
O_phuk

I still sing this song 40 years later…ruh, roh….
zootboing

Hey, it’s got us talking about it over 40 years later! Believe it or not, that’s the ultimate goal of this kind of thing.
And Miss Cellania- BRILLIANT!! I Love it!! The best kind of PSA: Catchy, tempting to sing loudly to piss off your parents AAAAND educational! (Seriously, I’ve never seen so many STD’s listed all in one place!).
Andrew

I love this. My mother told me that my grandmother walked around singing this song until one of my uncles told her what it was about. I had never seen the actual commercial until now.
Anonymous

I”m concerned about the question of from whom or to whom one is giving VD: woman with horse, man with baby…?
Anonymous

Iâ€™ve known this clip for 20 years, and always wondered if it was written by Leiber & Stoller. Because it sounds so much like Peggy Leeâ€™s â€œIs That All There Is?â€. Not the tune, but the orchestration. And speaking of that, has anyone noticed how much â€œIs That All There Is?â€ sounds like Randy Newmanâ€™s RAGTIME score? It must be the same orchestrator — Jack Hayes. Probably many of the same musicians too!
Anonymous

Isn’t the kid with the violin Michael O’Keefe?
TheMostHorrible

The violinist kid looks to be actor Michael O’Keefe, Danny in caddyshack, married to Bonnie Raitt.
Anonymous

I’m curious AND confused.
weeklyrob

Who’s the girl at 37 seconds, with the plant? She looks familiar.
- angryhippo
  
  Is the girl at :37 Laura Dern?
nickodemus

In the year of ’69.

Back then they did things right.
Miss Cellania

Oh, I well remember these. We kids would sing the jingle at the top of our lungs while walking home from school.
Crispinus211

Nice to see Guiliani hasn’t changed much (:45)!
Anonymous

I personally like STD fury. The language is a bit more adult, but the song itself is super catchy and funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxfZDGiIUrc
VagabondAstronomer

Oh my God, I remember this PSA; think they ran it here through the mid 1970′s…
annoyingmouse

Has anyone here heard of a band called The Four Skins? It was some sort of group of medical students who did an album of medical parodies. Since first hearing their festive song “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Syphilis” I can’t hear the original without thinking about it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the whole album but there was also a version of Walking In A Winter Wonderland called “Isn’t Oral Contraception Grand”. (http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/06/cool_and_strang.html has a compilation with a couple of songs)
sinking_ship

Good news! Much like respect, equality, good jobs and political power, VD isn’t for African American males either. Anybody else notice that?
Geoduck42

And there’s also Tom Lehrer’s classic I Got It From Agnes.
mdh

ahh, the 70′s. When lacy shirts were cool.
Enormo

Wow. That really worked. I totally want an STD now.
angryhippo

On second thought (and checking IMDB) it couldn’t be since she was born in 1967. Doppelganger!
- weeklyrob
  
  That’s exactly who I was thinking about, though. Maybe it’s her mom. Now I have to go check whether her mom was an actress.
dross1260

Poor horse. Didn’t have a chance.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I was wondering how they got Princess Anne to do that ad.
sapere_aude

That’s the second-best song about STDs I’ve ever heard.

(The best, of course, is Monty Python’s “Medical Love Song”.)
- Miss Cellania
  
  My favorite is a Christmas song: The Twelve STIs of Christmas
freshacconci

All I can say is, that first girl, the one in the hat? I’d risk it.

Oh, wait, am I missing the point of this ad? She’s the nice one who needs to watch out for me?
Rider

They would play that ad during cartoons when I was a kid. By the way unless they were playing this thing for decades I don’t think it was made in ’69.