“2nd Annual Vintage Bicycle Film Fest” June 12, 2010

Event: “2nd Annual Vintage Bicycle Film Fest”. Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of vintage films on bicycle safety, history and more. Highlights include: the early 60’s cult favorite “One Got Fat”; the real monkey business of “Monkey Tale”; “Bicycle Rules: Safety First” with Bill Cosby, Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids; “Hike or Bike”, WWII-era gas rationing explosion in walking and cycling; “How To Protect Your Bike”, a hilarious 1970’s look at foiling bike thieves; “I Like Bikes, But…”, dorky 1970s driver ed classic; Jiminy Cricket schools you in “I’m No Fool With a Bicycle”; “Copenhagen: The Bicycle City”; plus vintage commercials and more!
Date: Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Bike_Fest2_PR.pdf
"2nd Annual Vintage
Bicycle Film Fest”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Saturday, June 12, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of vintage bicycle films- bike safety, maintenance, history and more.
Bikes are everywhere these days and gaining in popularity by the minute. Amidst the bicycle revolution taking place in San Francisco and other cities, for some it simply a great and healthy means of transportation; for many, it’s become a way of life. There is now a popular Bicycle Film Fest touring major cities throughout the US featuring all new films about bikes: Oddball is happy to dust off some oldies but goodies from the 50,000+ archive that will appeal to the bike crowd, vintage and camp enthusiasts alike.
Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

One Got Fat (color, 1963)
Bizarre/legendary bike safety film- 10 young cyclists acting like monkeys (wearing masks and tails!) head to a city park for a picnic. 9 out of 10 makes a bonehead mistake and suffers a major accident- all but one, who reaches the park and…
Here’s how a few of the characters meet their demise:
1. Tinkerbell ("Tink") McDillinfiddy forgets to watch out for a stop sign, and is hit by a large truck.
2. Phillip ("Floog") Floogle rides on the left…POW!
3. Mossby Pomegranate’s bike is stolen, police can’t find it because it wasn't registered, as a result of running between one and nine blocks, his feet arches collapse.
4. Slim Jim ("Slim") Maguffny and Trigby Phipps ride double, due to Trigby's lack of vision because of Slim blocking his head, he steers right into an open manhole covering.
Find out Saturday the fate of the others!

Monkey Tale (B+W, 1952)
Produced by the New Zealand National Film Unit for their national Transport Department, this bike safety film features “Marquis the Chimp and Family” as they really monkey around on their bikes!

Hike or Bike (B+W, 1943)
WWII era film made by Paramount focused on walking and biking (as gas and rubber for car tires were in short supply). Lots of great historical footage of early bicycles!

I Like Bikes, But… (Color, 1977)
Super-70s dork fest follows little Lisa as she grows from a pig-tailed young bike rider to feather-haired teen driver. A General Motors driver’s ed film about sharing the road.

How To Protect Your Bike (Color, 1973)
Kooky film by the legendary Sid Davis about protecting your precious chopper from thieves, made with the cooperation of the Santa Monica PD. Filmed on and around the Venice Board Walk in Santa Monica, the wily thief (played by an unknown character actor who’s played the heavy in hundreds of 70s TV shows and movies). Learn all the tricks!

I’m No Fool With a Bicycle (Color, 1956)
Jiminy Cricket accentuates the positive in this classic Technicolor beauty.

Bicycle Rules: Safety First (Color, 1980)
With Bill Cosby, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. When Weird Harold's uncle lends Harold his racing bicycle, Harold breaks all the rules, until he learns that a cyclist who ignores the rules is a danger to himself and a threat to others.

Copenhagen: The Bicycle City (B+W, 1955)
Warner Pathé newsreel portrait of the famous bicycle city of Copenhagen- is San Francisco next?

PLUS! Vintage bike commercials and PSA’s, an eccentric inventor and his bump-powered 10 speed and more surprises!

Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, 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.