Junior Rodeo Daredevils (1949)

Usually these shorts from the 40's and 50's do one of two things. They tell the audience about problems and how to solve them or they advertise some sort of great product. Still others are cartoons and things like that which had to be the best of the stuff that proceeded a film. This one seems to be none of the above as old timer Billy Slater quickly reels in the children of his town and has a junior rodeo where a child could be horribly crippled or maimed. I laugh at the thought of something like this in the city where people sue when their child falls off a playground slide or something and breaks their arm. Here they could be paralyzed, I am quite sure the one girl who flew off the one animal and was walking very gingerly back to the sides was very hurt. So from what I saw this short was showing the great fun a town can have at a junior rodeo, well to each his own, but this did not look fun at all. Probably over 90 degrees outside and the smell of animals and their waste in the air, getting thrown violently to the ground if participating. Just nothing I see as a fun event and this short did not help the cause.

Man, how times have changed! If you believe what you see in Junior Rodeo Daredevils, it seems that in the 1940s, any crazy stranger could take your kid, strap him/her to some sort of livestock, and watch them get thrown to the hard ground. Oh what fun - child abuse as entertainment! What parent wouldn't want a broken neck or a ruptured spleen for their child? Instead of being brought up on charges, Old-Timer Billy Slater gets to sit back and enjoy the sight of children having their necks snapped. It did my heart good to see this crazy old coot laugh like a hyena as one child after the next received severe head trauma. Yes, Junior Rodeo Daredevils is certainly one of the most demented sights I've ever seen.Mystery Science Theater 3000 did a wonderful job with this short. The riffing possibilities were abundant and the guys took full advantage. Much of it is laugh-out-loud funny. On my MST3K rating scale, Junior Rodeo Daredevils gets a 4/5.

Actually a big shame on you to Encyclpedia Brittanica for releasing this piece of propaganda. Well maybe not cause luckily MST got a hold of this and have a lot of fun with it. Demented Billy Slater, who himself looks like the town drunkard who's been whacked too many times in the head by bucking broncos, catches a couple of his grandkids fooling around with his favorite mare (don't ask why it's his favorite) He convinces the kids to organize their own rodeo. Since the good folk of Wickenburg AZ had not much else to do (I know it's Wickenburg cause there's a sign in the short that says Wickenburg) back in the late 40's except go to Phoenix on the weekends to see the big city. Anyway back the short, little kids learn the meaning of pain, broken bones and what their health insurance will and won't cover at the hospital. Possible deaths may have occurred since nowhere in the short do they say "nobody or any animals were harmed in the making of this film". But anyway MST do have fun with it and now we can all laugh at the expense of these numb-skull cowpokes.

Well, another short torn to pieces by Mike, er, sorry, Joel and the Bots, this being one of their better works. Plot involves some old hick rancher forcing two mischievious kids to organize a junior rodeo ("We're doomed!" says Crow). Eventually, the whole town shows up just to get kicked, gored, and thrown to the ground by horses and bulls, while a narrator who sounds suspiciously like Henry Fonda (though fortunately isn't) muses over how fun it must be to be pummeled by these 1,000+ pound beasts (except the calves, of course). Ouch. I find it kind of hard to criticize many MST3K shorts, since they tend to be educational films that, while corny, if nothing else show you a good depiction of what they're supposed to be telling you about. (Not to say the MST3K versions aren't funny . . .) This one, however, apparently was made for "entertainment" purposes, and should be missed - unless the SOL crew are doing it. I'm not going to rate the short itself, for the sole reason that I don't think I can. Ah, hell, let's give it 2/10. Nine stars for the hilarious MSTing, though.