Terrifying PSAs

[reasonsfordefyingreason]

Did anyone else here have to watch something really mind scarring in the name of education?

The one stuck in my head most vividly is one about saftey around electrical plants. A group of boys vandalise one while suspensful music plays. Then another boy walks past and notices the damage. He goes to investigate, the metal chain on his trousers connects with something and BOOM! Cut to close up of his horrificlly burnt face. He gets rushed to hospital and one of the vandles from earlier tries to see him and is turned away because the patient's condition is too serious. A local reporter investigates what happened and talkes to a paramedic who tells her various things about electrical safety,injuries and the boy's condition. This leads to one of the most disturbing exchanges I heared in the first 10 years of my life:

Reporter-<shaken> He'll be lucky to survive that

Paramedic-<indifferently> I wouldn't call that lucky

It ends with the boy dying off screen and the vandal from earlier reveals he's his brother. Our entire P5 class needed a breather after that one.

When I was in secodary school I had to see a truely horrifying firework safety presentation-TWICE! One short film shows the true story of a bunch of bored teens who dropped a firework down their tennement's rubbish chute to see what would happen. Meanwhile an innocent looking teen was taking out the garbage for his mother. The gang eagerly run downstairs to see if they damaged the chute and are confronted with the boy's corpse with a burning hole in his throat. All the while the teens narrate about how they wish they had never done it and how they wish they could turn the clock back. After the film ended the presenter remarked "of course they're all in juvie right now" He also showed us a real life photo of a toddler's arm that had been severly burned when she was left alone with a sparkler, a news report about a man who had disfigured his face with fireworks and another short film about a thug who had tossed a firework in a boy's face for fun. It's done in a deliberatly disorientating style and you can just barely see a bloodied teen groaning and clutching his face and a girl sauntering off giggling. I STILL can't go out on bonfire night.

When I was in primary 5 we went on a trip to castle <name> that was all about saftey. Most of it was fun and non threatining but there were two sections that were just . One was a presentation on railway saftey done by a policeman. It was done in a room that was completly empty exept a screen and a model of a railway track. We were left there for a few minutes alone and we were suddenly confronted with the sight and sound of a massive train coming at us out of nowhere. Then we had the actual presentation. We were shown photographs of an amputee who was messing around on a bridge and streched up his hand to touch the wires and another guy with a burnt face who had been hit with a downed wire. The guy also told us that the worst part of his job wasn't scaping them up from the tracks, it was calling their relatives afterwords. The final presentation of the trip was a nurse who taught us the recovery position and not to make false 999 calls. She pointed out that other children probably would so if , for example, we found our mother collapsed and phoned an ambulance it may still be too late by the time an ambulance arrived.

I also had a 2nd year science teacher who told us two stories about alkalis. One was from when he was working in a factory and got some in his eye. He cheerily told us about him crying with pain, being rushed to the eye hospital, having to have surgery while consious, the doctor being called away half-way through for a more urgent case and trying to resume AFTER THE ANESTHETIC HAD WORN OFF. The other was about a man who worked in the same place. He fell into a vat of alkail and another worker saw him. He realised that if the man was rescued then he would end up lying in agony on a hospital bed for a day or so before dying so he held him under till he died. Our teacher was present when they drained the stuff away and all that was left was the man's belt buckle. Why did you tell us this?! I would of worn the damn goggles without hearing that!

Why must they keep traumatising children out of doing things they wern't going to do in the first place!? THOSE IMAGES ARE STUCK IN MY HEAD FOREVER!

[Mairzy Doats]

Ah man those are fun...

The one I remember from my childhood is about "snorting" household products. It has a girl in her room that's filling up with water, and she's swimming around trying to get her windows to open before she drowns. Not sure what it has to do with snorting but it did scare the tar out of me at that age.

Later I found

which is just kind of a fascinating film to watch...Not for the faint of heart, guys! There are some very graphic child deaths here.

[Filistata]

I know how you feel, we watched a video about train safety in elementary school, and trains still freak me out even now.

We watched the video about ten years ago, so all I can remember from it was that kids were playing on the train when it started moving and some of them were killed. There was also one of a guy who walked onto the tracks without noticing the train, and it showed the panic of the driver who was freaking out and trying to get the guy to move, then cut to the narrator of the video walking amongst the wreckage of a dummy, spread all over the tracks.

It also talked about the dangers of people putting things, like pennies, on the tracks and how they can kill people, and how you can get sucked under the train if you stand too close.

Though I don't entirely disagree with them or anything, they're scaring kids into avoiding dangerous situations. It worked for me at least.

[Guest member31022]

I don't have much to say, since I don't remember seeing a lot of them, except - I REMEMBER THAT FIRST ONE. It traumatised me so much as a child (I had nightmares about it and everything)!

[SorryNotSorry]

When I was about 10 or so, I vaguely remember a PSA about household fire safety. Amid the smoldering ruins of a house they show a baby-shaped thing from the waist up made of grey ashes, complete with hollow eye sockets and little arms sticking out in front of it, poking up out of the charred timbers like a weed on a lawn.

Judging from the posts I've seen in this thread, the sight of severe burns is to the juvenile mind what a red-hot branding iron is to a cow's behind.

About 20 years ago, there was another fire-related PSA warning against careless smoking. A woman holds up a big photo of herself and her dead husband in front of her face and says he died from smoking in bed and setting their house on fire. Then the woman moves the photo away to reveal her melted face and says, "I guess you could say I was the lucky one". My mother was especially upset by that PSA.

About 30 years ago, they used to show a whole series of PSAs from 5 to 6 in the morning before cartoons, and I used to watch them because I got up early (I was one of those kids who was never allowed to stay up late). In one, a guy in a suit repeatedly warned us "do NOT clip or file down the wide prong of a polarized wall plug", and in another, a beautiful brown-haired woman in a yellow skirt daydreams about a recent skiing trip while driving a car that looked like an old Chevy Vega or Buick Skylark right onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Allofasudden the conductor sounds a blast from the train's horn and the startled woman turns to look---we aren't shown the results. Yet another PSA from the same series warned about keeping unattended kids away from pools. We are shown a somewhat neurotic-acting woman who looks like a mod spying a boy who looks about 3 years old dressed like a little farmer facedown in the bottom of a pool, and she leaps in to pull him out---never mind that a real kid would in all probability have been dead, nor would it be likely the woman wouldn't have had a major spaz attack before leaping into the pool.

[reasonsfordefyingreason]

Ah man those are fun...

The one I remember from my childhood is about "snorting" household products. It has a girl in her room that's filling up with water, and she's swimming around trying to get her windows to open before she drowns. Not sure what it has to do with snorting but it did scare the tar out of me at that age.

Later I found

which is just kind of a fascinating film to watch...Not for the faint of heart, guys! There are some very graphic child deaths here.

I remember that one. It's meant to show that the effects of solvent abuse on the brain are the same as the effects of drowning. I've heard of the infamous Apaches but have yet to get around to watching it. Next time I hear someone complain about how violent kiddie things are these days I'll show them it.

[RandomGirlK]

We were shown a fire one when I was a kid and for weeks I was scared to sleep in case the house set on fire.

[Great Thief Yatagarasu]

Ah man those are fun...

The one I remember from my childhood is about "snorting" household products. It has a girl in her room that's filling up with water, and she's swimming around trying to get her windows to open before she drowns. Not sure what it has to do with snorting but it did scare the tar out of me at that age.

Later I found

which is just kind of a fascinating film to watch...Not for the faint of heart, guys! There are some very graphic child deaths here.

Apaches is fucking HILARIOUS. The only death in that entire film that was actually creepy was the girl - the other ones are just funny once you stop to think this brilliant question: Why do they keep going back to that farm to play in?! They should KNOW BETTER BY NOW, after repeatedly losing their friends in horrible farm accidents! And who runs that farm?! You see people working on it, so it can't be abandoned - what kind of asshole just lets the kids run around and kill themselves?!

The Nostalgia Critic has a list of the best Drug PSA's, and they're SO FUNNY, MY GOD. But I can see why a lot of them would be legitimately scary to young children.

Some PSA's are genuinely scary, though. There were some road safety ones which I really distinctively remember, to this day. One of them was this teenager boy, narrating about how his friends have started to ignore him, and how his parents are arguing more often, and hey, that's his girlfriend over there, what's she doing with that other guy? So he jogs across the road to see her, and you see a car speed towards him...only to find that it goes straight through him, and he tell the audience that that happened to him not long ago, except it hurt more the first time. :( A different one is of this pretty twenty-something old women who's taking us around her expensive house, telling us about her music deal and how she was discovered and signed up to do an album when she was messing around with her friends one day after school one day - only to cut to this pretty teenager lying lifeless in the road, and a message about how you shouldn't let an accident steal your future. I know those two made me sad. Another one was an anti-smoking ad where they had this dead guy's arteries, and this guy comes up and squeezes it like a toothpaste tube, and all this disgusting yellow fatty stuff comes out of it. EWWW.

This ones is a really, really old one, but it scares me to think that people ACTUALLY USED TO THINK LIKE THIS. I mean, it has THIS as some of its dialogue: "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious; a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual, a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex." ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

[P is for...]

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please, please say it's time to post this again.

[Great Thief Yatagarasu]

Ah man those are fun...

The one I remember from my childhood is about "snorting" household products. It has a girl in her room that's filling up with water, and she's swimming around trying to get her windows to open before she drowns. Not sure what it has to do with snorting but it did scare the tar out of me at that age.

Later I found

which is just kind of a fascinating film to watch...Not for the faint of heart, guys! There are some very graphic child deaths here.

I remember that one. It's meant to show that the effects of solvent abuse on the brain are the same as the effects of drowning. I've heard of the infamous Apaches but have yet to get around to watching it. Next time I hear someone complain about how violent kiddie things are these days I'll show them it.

Apaches is about FARM SAFETY. I'm not even joking about this - this same group of kids keep going to this same farm, and they keep dying in these horrible accidents one by one. It becomes quite amusing after a while.

[Great Thief Yatagarasu]

is it time to post this again?

please, please say it's time to post this again.

That is, quite possibly, the best dancing I've ever seen.

[Winter Hill]

The British ones are the worst. I know it's only the radio, but a few years ago where I come from, the local radio stations all ran these really frightening commercials.

There was this one just a couple of years back, where we were treated, in EVERY commercial break, to thirty seconds of someone screaming, fire sound effects, car crash sound effects, and then silence, followed by a voiceover in which a man told us all in lurid detail how he was watching his girlfriend cough up blood and choke to death, and there was a crushed child half way down the street, and so on. It was to try and stop people drinking and driving, but it drove me to drink with the amount it was played on every station.

Thankfully, the people who put them out, the COI, have reduced their budget for the past couple of years by 90%. I think it's one of the best cuts ever made--we're finally able to listen to the radio without fear of hearing anything scarier than the terrifying offers at Dave's Carpet Megastore. As it should be--commercial radio is for commercials, not government tellings-off.

I like the ones in the USA. They're cheesy and fun. I was there last year, and remember hearing this silly 70s-style voiceover going "cops are everywhere, checking you out! click it, or ticket!". It made you listen, and remember the message, rather than just feel sick and change channel.

[P is for...]

is it time to post this again?

please, please say it's time to post this again.

That is, quite possibly, the best dancing I've ever seen.

I. KNOW.

and deàlradh-- i agree, i was stunned the first time i saw UK PSAs. (i'm not familiar with the radios spots; i'm thinking more of print and TV ads.) many of the most graphic of them would never have seen the light of day in the US. i'm not entirely sure how i feel about that. some of them are just dreadful; but at the same time, i sort of have to respect an ad that goes above and beyond the call of duty to get its point across.

[Næt.]

There was one a few years ago which gave me the pleasure of watching a 12 year old girl get run over. In slow motion. Oh, god the way her neck twisted.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

[Winter Hill]

and deàlradh-- i agree, i was stunned the first time i saw UK PSAs. (i'm not familiar with the radios spots; i'm thinking more of print and TV ads.) many of the most graphic of them would never have seen the light of day in the US. i'm not entirely sure how i feel about that. some of them are just dreadful; but at the same time, i sort of have to respect an ad that goes above and beyond the call of duty to get its point across.

I don't think there's any need for it. Those of us with the brains to not drink and drive, or not drive at 80 past a school, or whatever else they're shouting about, don't do it anyway. The idiots who do it won't listen, no matter how hard you shout. You can only get them by having decent policing, pulling them up on the streets, banning them for the smallest traces of alcohol or drugs. So you've got these commercials that serve to upset right-thinking members of the public, and do little to deter the morons.

The USA, again, has the right idea. They seem to have police everywhere. I mean, seriously, you can't turn around without seeing the police driving around. Every little town seems to have its own police force. I thought the Simpsons with Chief Wiggum was a work of fiction until I visited! It means people don't take as many stupid risks--here, it's really easy to speed, or do a stupid overtake, or whatever, because you know you'll be really unlucky to see a copper.

Off-topic, but I have serious country envy since I visited the US. I was never a great fan of the place (it's pretty fashionable to look upon the USA with anything from quiet disdain to outright abusive hostility here) until a chance trip took me there. I'd love to have grown up there, and live there. It's just so.. wholesome, I guess. I might start a new topic so Americans can tell me how wrong I am ;)

[P is for...]

and deàlradh-- i agree, i was stunned the first time i saw UK PSAs. (i'm not familiar with the radios spots; i'm thinking more of print and TV ads.) many of the most graphic of them would never have seen the light of day in the US. i'm not entirely sure how i feel about that. some of them are just dreadful; but at the same time, i sort of have to respect an ad that goes above and beyond the call of duty to get its point across.

I don't think there's any need for it. Those of us with the brains to not drink and drive, or not drive at 80 past a school, or whatever else they're shouting about, don't do it anyway. The idiots who do it won't listen, no matter how hard you shout. You can only get them by having decent policing, pulling them up on the streets, banning them for the smallest traces of alcohol or drugs. So you've got these commercials that serve to upset right-thinking members of the public, and do little to deter the morons.

The USA, again, has the right idea. They seem to have police everywhere. I mean, seriously, you can't turn around without seeing the police driving around. Every little town seems to have its own police force. I thought the Simpsons with Chief Wiggum was a work of fiction until I visited! It means people don't take as many stupid risks--here, it's really easy to speed, or do a stupid overtake, or whatever, because you know you'll be really unlucky to see a copper.

Off-topic, but I have serious country envy since I visited the US. I was never a great fan of the place (it's pretty fashionable to look upon the USA with anything from quiet disdain to outright abusive hostility here) until a chance trip took me there. I'd love to have grown up there, and live there. It's just so.. wholesome, I guess. I might start a new topic so Americans can tell me how wrong I am ;)

i suppose it's a lot to do with what one has grown up with. in the US, as you've noted, PSAs tend to be rather tame; if you look at the ones people here consider traumatic, they pale laughably against even the more inoffensive British ones. i'm also not sure it's as easy as saying that the smart ones don't need the PSAs. i mean, i'm with you, completely; i've always been one to err on the side of caution and not take absurd chances, because i understand how odds work; and when i go to Vegas, i don't play roulette. but i can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that i was in the minority being that way as a teenager. most of my friends thought they were indestructible, and i had a couple die or do themselves irrevocable damage as a result. sometimes sage words of advice and common sense don't get the message across. that's why i confess i'm a bit ambivalent on the subject of graphic PSAs. i have the suspicion that one or two people i knew might have benefited from them.

and as far as the US being wholesome-- heh. i guess it depends on where you visit. i could show you a thing or two. but i'm not sure you'd want me to. but i'm pretty ambivalent about the US as well. being a US citizen makes some things easier, some things harder. there are a couple of other places i'd live gladly, but not many. who knows, though. i may change my mind after the next election.

[Member4445]

Not sure if it counts, but we did a whole day on the NSPCC and child abuse. To this day, I have refused to hug my parents and fear them yelling or hitting me.

Also, in science watched a video of child birth. My thoughts were who the heck actually lets people video that???

[Schrodingers-Cat]

I remember one which was about an electrical power grid (you know the ones that are around houses and such), where these bullies throw a little boy's camera over the fence into where the generator is, and his tells his friend he'll go get it. So he jumps the fence and grabs the camera, while his friend looks on through a hole in the fence. Then he steps on something to get out and oh it's metal an there's an explosion and his friend gets blown backwards- and it was awful for a seven year old. Then they showed a few bits of his funeral, and the friend with a surgical patch over her eye, and ahhh- I still can't bear to go near those things.

But that's the thing with shock adverts - they really do work!

[Narrow Mullen]

The 90's were a lovely time to frighten youth like me.

http://w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=PJNlfVi6rpc

http://w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=PCIJNiJislo

Edit: Only allowed to post one, you'll need to travel to youtube to see the others!

[accountdeleted]

Not terrifying, but in history we were shown the 'Duck and Cover' advert they used to show schoolkids in the 50's. The most memorable tip was to put a piece of newspaper on your head to shield you from the atomic bomb. It's absolutely brilliant :lol:

[Great Thief Yatagarasu]

Not terrifying, but in history we were shown the 'Duck and Cover' advert they used to show schoolkids in the 50's. The most memorable tip was to put a piece of newspaper on your head to shield you from the atomic bomb. It's absolutely brilliant :lol:

I've seen this one before. I just love that one guy who tackles his girlfriend and slams her against a wall in the name of protecting her from an atom bomb.

[Næt.]

[Chrysanthalis]

I think the scariest only one I ever saw was about smoking. We went on this whole field trip to meet this guy who had lung cancer - they showed us really graphic photographs of the kind of surgery they had to do to put that little hole in the throat so they could breath...and the voice box thing.... *shudders*

I can barely even look at a cigarette now, let alone smoke one! I hold my breath every time I walk past someone smoking on the street. O.o

[Great Thief Yatagarasu]

There was one a few years ago which gave me the pleasure of watching a 12 year old girl get run over. In slow motion. Oh, god the way her neck twisted.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

If that the one where she's battered against a tree, and we see all her bones snap back in place? OH GOD, I HATED THAT ONE.

[Næt.]

There was one a few years ago which gave me the pleasure of watching a 12 year old girl get run over. In slow motion. Oh, god the way her neck twisted.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

If that the one where she's battered against a tree, and we see all her bones snap back in place? OH GOD, I HATED THAT ONE.

This one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5f73EHRhA

I'm thinking of another one. You see the kid being hit and it's horrible.

[Great Thief Yatagarasu]

There was one a few years ago which gave me the pleasure of watching a 12 year old girl get run over. In slow motion. Oh, god the way her neck twisted.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

Drive at 30.

If that the one where she's battered against a tree, and we see all her bones snap back in place? OH GOD, I HATED THAT ONE.

This one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5f73EHRhA

I'm thinking of another one. You see the kid being hit and it's horrible.

YES! FUCK THIS GIRL!!! She used to scare that crap out of me when I was younger. :evil:

[reasonsfordefyingreason]

Incidentally does anyone know what the electric plant one in the first comment is called or if it's on youtube?

[Morphas]

That 30/40 mph one with the girl left an impression on me when it was on TV...

I do remember one from primary school with a kid sticking a metal knife into a toaster and having hallucinations about electrical safety.

Oh, and I got shown this wonderful drink driving one from Ireland a few years before leaving school:

(Though it is GRIM, you've been warned)

(also if someone would tell me how to embed videos without failing, that'd be appreciated).

[accountdeleted]

This one (also not terrifying, sorry!) is the nicest PSA I ever saw.

[reasonsfordefyingreason]

I recently stumbled across a really unnerving one for the British Heart Foundation. It starts whith a man explaining the symptoms of a heart attack to a guy just offscreen then he starts beating the shit out of him to represent the symptoms all the while still talking camly as the poor sod is dying. It may be a cliche but the whole acting/talking politly while doing something horrifyingis always creepy when you do it right.

I've also rediscovered the protect and survive adverts that were to air if we ever fell under nuclear attack.The theame tune. Oh god the theme tune. I've had actual nightmares where I hear that sound. There's even an episode about disposing of the corpses of radiation victims. The most terrifying thing about them is how useless all the advice is. Thank god they never actually aired.