4 Great American Propaganda Videos

July 5, 2017 Adam Tod Brown Unpopular Opinion, Videos

Hey! It’s Independence Day weekend! Or week, we suppose, since the holiday falls on a Tuesday. With that in mind, it seemed proper to do something America related.

To that end, let’s talk about propaganda videos. They used to be big business in this country. Well, they probably still are, it’s just that the wing of the government that produced all the best ones got shut down in 1999. It was called the United States Information Agency, and you can hear us talk about it on this week’s Unpopular Opinion podcast…

 

 

…featuring special guest Dave Waite. For your convenience, we’ve posted the videos we talk about on the show in the post below. We’re so nice!

 

School For Assassins

 

 

So, here’s the United States Information Agency’s videos…a lot of them are really good. Or they’re at least better than you’d expect. Take School For Assassins, for example. Not only is the animation cool and trippy in a “Scooby Doo episode on more acid” kind of way, but the story is pretty interesting as well. It’s about a guy whose brother goes to Cuba to learn how to be a terrorist so he can come back and wreck shop here in America.

What’s interesting is how easily this would work as a propaganda video for today’s market. All you’d have to do is throw a turban on Castro and overdub all the Cuba references to be about a country in the Middle East instead. Beyond that, this is pretty standard anti-terror speak from the United States government. The main difference is that, back when this was released, terrorism was a legitimate problem in this country.

Small Town Espionage

 

 

Hey! This is just a video about life in a small town! There’s nothing odd here at all! Sure, it’s weird that the church doors are always locked and that no one in town is under or over the age of 30. But honestly, that’s probably just a coincidence. Or is it?

Chances are, since you already kind of know the premise of these videos in advance, you’ll figure out the twist right away. Or maybe you won’t because you’re not as smart as most people. Don’t feel bad, that will just make the video all the more enjoyable to watch.

One Time Too Often

 

We’re kind of veering off course here, and that’s a super appropriate way to put it because we’re talking about drinking and driving. Well, not really. This video is about moonshine, as opposed to being something military related like everything else on the list. And it’s not exactly about drunk driving, because it sort of predates the time when we finally realized that was a thing we should worry about. No, the villain here is lead poisoning.

All that said, it’s far and away the most entertaining and well-executed video on this list. It’s like an episode of Dragnet with a little bit of The Comedy Central Roast of That Fat Fuck Who Sells Moonshine In the South thrown in for good measure. You remember that roast, right? I think Jeff Ross was on it. Look it up.

Your Job In Germany

 

Alright! The war is over! Time to celebrate and live life! You’d think that would’ve been the sentiment among American soldiers occupying post-WWII Germany. Maybe it was at first, but that would’ve all changed when they watched this training video. It’s about all the reasons you shouldn’t befriend or trust the inhabitants of a country you’ve been tasked with supervising in a war way. That’s especially true if those people are a bunch of bloodthirsty Germans. The video’s words, not ours.
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