Learn your Lesson about Puberty - A Hormonal Shockucation - Fri. July 24th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...About Puberty: A Hormonal Shockucation, the 28th in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, we're finally devoting a whole night to the horrible onslaught of puberty and all the awkward terror it encompasses! To start the evening, there's nothing better than Kotex and Di$ney's dreamily animated Story of Menstruation (1945).  For the first time ever, we will be distributing copies of the companion pamphlet that originally accompanied the film - Very Personally Yours  (while supplies last, so show up early!) so the whole class can follow along. Then, we'll be screening two sets of companion films that would have been originally shown in separate rooms for the boys and girls - two will be screened individually back to back and two will be screened simultaneously, side by side with live-sound mixing. Learn all about your first period and making out with smiley-faced pillows with the most awkward pubescent heroine of the 80s in Dear Diary: A Film about Female Puberty (1981). Then, for the gents; find out more about wet dreams and unexpected hard-ons than you ever wanted to know in the companion piece Am I Normal? A Film about Male Puberty (1979). Celebrity hosts Marlo Thomas and Ken Howard (and the pubescent kids they're spending the night with) will battle for your attention as we double project the uncomfortable camping trip and weenie roast of The Body Human: The Facts for Boys (1981) and the slumber party of young girls gabbing about their changing bodies, lip-syncing terribly and other girlie stuff in The Body Human: The Facts for Girls (1980). Snicker at the similarities, mock the differences, and finally get a glimpse into the other half of the class. Plus, a couple of secret surprises and more menstrutainment for the early birds, it's a great night to learn your lesson.

Date: Friday, July 24th, 2015 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

 Dear Diary, a film about female puberty (Color, 1981)
The Welcome to the Dollhouse of puberty primers! The exaggerated characterizations and embarrassing situations experienced by the film's incredibly awkward thirteen-year-old protagonist are humorously combined to provide answers to female adolescents' questions about their changing bodies. The young girl encounters peer pressure from her boy-crazy friends, changing sex roles, and a pillow with smiley face. Keep your eyes peeled for the animated menstruation cycle. 

 Am I Normal? A Film about Male Puberty (Color, 1979)
"In this job I see a lot of penises"
It's the companion piece to Oddball favorite "Dear Diary: A Film about Female Puberty", but this one if all for the boys!  Is it normal to think about sex all the time? Are these inexplicable hard-ons and nocturnal emissions just part of puberty, or are you some kind of freak?  Are the other boys going through these same kinds of changes? Can you learn anything important from a book titled "Great Moments in Sex"?   Find out all that and more when one pubescent boy dares ask every adult he knows "Am I Normal?"  Well, Billy, the answer is yes and no...

The Body Human - The Facts for Girls (Color, 1980)
"Being a girl is very special.  I know... I remember"
TV's That Girl Marlo Thomas, the mastermind behind Free to be...You and Me, gabs with three young girls about the facts of life, their changing bodies and more awkward topics. With a jammin' slumber party, crowd surfing, chats about Billy Jean King's period and a soundtrack that includes The Bee-Gees, Donna Summer and the Righteous Brothers, The Facts for Girls really delivers!

 Double Projected With:
The Body Human - The Facts for Boys (Color, 1980)
“Changing from a boy to a man is a one way trip.  I’m Ken Howard and I’ve been through it all and I’d like to share the experience with you.”  Actor Ken Howard, in the middle of his stint as the White Shadow, decided to take three young boys, Li’l Billy Warner, Shane Hankins and Kade Lyons on an unsupervised camping trip to shoot the shit about wet dreams and unwanted pregnancies over wiener roasting and s’mores.  With a dynamite soundtrack that includes hits by Rod Stewart, Blondie, The Eagles and Willie Nelson.
The Story of Menstruation (Color, 1945)
A Walt D*sney Production, The Story of Menstruation is an animated short film produced for American schools detailing the menstrual cycle. Rumored to be the first film with the word “vagina” in it’s screenplay, this vintage gem is both matter of fact and dreamily flowery. A large-headed girl takes you through the dos and don’ts of menses while helpful diagrams guide us all to better understanding. And for the first time ever, follow along with the recommendations in Kotex's companion pamphlet Very Personally Yours, recently discovered at an estate sale by the curator. Copies will be limited, so arrive early enough to take home a fascinating piece of replicated Di$ney ephemera!

 Curator’s Biography
Kat Shuchter is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, artist and esoteric film hoarder. She has helped program shows at the PFA, The Nuart and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater and was crowned “Found Footage Queen” of Los Angeles, 2009. She has programmed over 150 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.
About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.