Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

lemon_magic This is a very odd piece of pop culture detritus from the Encyclopedia Brittanica group. I'm not sure what the 'educational content' of this the film makers meant for us to draw from this short.Um...Rodeos are fun? Tying cans onto horses' tails results in punishment swift and certain? Old cowboys in Texas have too much time on their hands? Life in rural Texas is so desperately dull and suffocating that even an amateur rodeo looks good after a while? Being an orthopedic surgeon in a rodeo town is the surest path to riches? It isn't really all that bad, of course; it's just meandering and goofy. But you couldn't get kids in a modern classroom to watch something like this unless you swacked them into a low level hypnotic state with Thorazine beforehand. MST3K does a great job making fun of it, of course, and their version is probably the best for modern audiences to see.

zardoz12 I have the feeling that "Junior Rodeo Daredevils" was a freebie when grade school districts purchased Encyclopedia Britannica sets, which meant it went into the A-V closet and was never heard from again, or maybe only shown when an educational film was too short. In any case, this half-reeler revolves around some ranch town in the southwest where geezer Billy Slater finds two small boys tying a can on his horses' tail. Instead of beating them with a strap, he decides to run a junior rodeo on his flyspeck ranch and give out prizes that look like they were fished out of the town dump. The boys make cheapo posters and tack them up all over town, attracting every "child" from 5 to 15, though I suspect some of the contestants were midgets. Soon the all-white rodeo begins, with stumpy toddlers being thrown from greased pigs, skinny girls flying off ponies, and this lanky 7th grader riding a bucking mule for at least 10 seconds. The "prizes" are handed out, all while the old coot smiles and displays his perfect set of teeth, as true a sign as any that he was a Hollywood cowboy. We may cry child endangerment now, but it is obvious that semiprofessionals were featured. In any case, the MST3K version was a laugh riot, and this short is as funny or funnier than "The Days of Our Years" or that Ma Bell promotional where the woman sings about telephones while her musician husband plays "Kung Fu Fighting" on the piano.

Jordan_Haelend When I was a kid I put on my white cowboy hat, jeans, jean jacket, work shirt, bandana and boots and attended things like this. Yeehaw! At the time I wasn't fully aware of the cruelty that went into this so-called sport. Once I turned 15 I swore that I wouldn't be caught dead at one of these disgusting things, Junior or otherwise, ever again. I've kept that promise to myself.This short is itself predictable and boring. One thing I can't understand is why it was made, since most short films from its era were intended to be instructional (cf. "Cheating" and "Body Care & Grooming.") I guess it had appeal to the kids of the era.MST3K makes this one fun. Under no circumstances should ANYONE waste time on this without it.

Kojiro Abe This is a pretty darn creepy late 40s short taking place in the West (apparantly Texas) in the late 1940s. I'm really not sure if this is staged or faked, but a showing of it today would anger both animal and children's right activists. It begins with a couple of mischevious youngsters trying to prank a local psycho named Billy Slater by tying a tin can to his horse's tail. Billy catches them, lassos them, and is just about to hang them, but he has a last moment change of heart and decides to spare their lives and instead have them organize a junior rodeo, which is really far more sadistic. He has the kids make posters and then the whole town comes. It is a ghastly freakshow, as poor, innocent kids are thrown from the backs of raging broncos, trampled, maimed, and just plain humilated. It's just as bad for the poor animals as well, who are all humilated and tortured (especially the poor calves). Like Catching Trouble, another vaguely similar short (that also showed on MST3K) it was totally acceptable in it's time, but today would draw outraged crys from both the PETA and the children's rights groups. It was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and is lampooned quite hilariously. Along with Catching Trouble and Days of Our Years, this is one of the more disturbing of MST3K shorts.