C. Larry Roberts' 1975 experimental short "I Was a Teenage Travelogue"

Utah filmmaker C. Larry Roberts passed away in 1988 at the age of 43, a talented life cut short after directing a documentary on Steven C. Stewart, the writer and star of Crispin Glover's IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE.  Roberts' little-seen 1975 short film, now on YouTube, is an endearingly bizarre, trippy ride filled with stock footage, shots of '70s Utah and psychedelic sequences, and delivered with great tongue-in-cheek narration.  

Evening Entertainment: The 1975 animated TV special "The Tiny Tree"

Featuring the vocal talents of Buddy Ebson and music by Roberta Flack, the DePate-Freleng production about a group of forest animals that attempt to make a holiday great for a little girl is strangely obscure, having never been released to VHS or DVD, but it's a charming little special.  Maybe it's because there aren't any recognizable characters?  In any case, here it is, and it's got songs that will stick in your head for days -- not surprisingly, as they're written by Johnny Marks, who wrote the music for "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

1975's THE SANTA TAPES takes a behind the scenes look at a department store Santa

Scott Jacobs' timepiece is a great, if downbeat, documentary/interview on Art Baldwin, an Chicago Marshall Fields' Santa in which he talks about his career, the kids he deals with and lack of decent pension, all with barely a hint of holiday cheer.

Trailer: Craig Denney's insane THE ASTROLOGER (1975)

Written, directed, produced by and starring Craig Denney, THE ASTROLOGER is a maddeningly wild film released originally in 1975 that was thought lost for years.  It's recently been found, and the strange, remarkable film tells the story of a carnival worker who becomes a world-famous astrologer after taking detours as a Kenyan drug runner.  It's a one-of-a-kind ego project (the closest comparison I can come up with are the films of Duke Mitchell) that no plot synopsis can hope to live up to, and the American Genre Film Archive has done a fine job at taking it on as their first project to restore a 35mm film print.  Here's the trailer, and watch for the film hitting midnight shows and DVD soon. 



Craig Denney's THE ASTROLOGER (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

1975 animated short for kids explains the slang term "Oreo"

Are you hep?  Let's rap about words with this (barely) animated short about the lingo that has its origins in black American culture that aired as part of the PBS kids' show "Vegetable Soup" around 1975. Don't get all hung up, man, everything's groovy!

Watch This Thing - 1978 Student film mini-documentary on THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW at the Biograph Theater in Chicago

If you lined up all of the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW documentaries end to end, you'd have a, well, a very lengthy thing indeed.  But this particular 5-minute doc is one of the earliest, made by Columbia College student Jim Doherty in 1978, emphasizing the RHPS fandom at Chicago's Biograph theater, and is certainly a fascinating time piece of midnight movie fandom in the Chicago area.  The Biograph is notable as the theater in which Dillinger was shot in 1934, and is no longer showing films today.  (I do, however, have great memories of seeing the likes of Jack Hill, John Waters and Doris Wishman there for screenings.)

Watch This Thing - "Cracks," a rare 1975 animated short from "Sesame Street"

"Cracks" (or "Crack Master") is one of the most sought-out of "Sesame Street" shorts, and its notoriety became almost legendary over the years.  The tale of a youngster who images the cracks in his walls are creatures is still pretty great (especially if you can watch it unironically, though that may be tough with those who giggle at the thought of "crack" being every fifth word), and you can read about the history of this oddity here, and you can just watch it below:

Watch This Vote - Linda Lovelace for President (1975)

Produced by choreographer-turned-exploitation mogul David Winters, this high-pitched political "satire" stars the titular adult film star in a presidential bid, with the likes of Micky Dolenz, Scatman Crothers, Chuck McGann and Joe E. Ross along for the ride.  It's not good!  The trailer is probably just offensive enough to suit your tastes, however.  (SFW)