KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Aaron1375 Usually these shorts from the 40's and 50's do one of two things. They tell the audience about problems and how to solve them or they advertise some sort of great product. Still others are cartoons and things like that which had to be the best of the stuff that proceeded a film. This one seems to be none of the above as old timer Billy Slater quickly reels in the children of his town and has a junior rodeo where a child could be horribly crippled or maimed. I laugh at the thought of something like this in the city where people sue when their child falls off a playground slide or something and breaks their arm. Here they could be paralyzed, I am quite sure the one girl who flew off the one animal and was walking very gingerly back to the sides was very hurt. So from what I saw this short was showing the great fun a town can have at a junior rodeo, well to each his own, but this did not look fun at all. Probably over 90 degrees outside and the smell of animals and their waste in the air, getting thrown violently to the ground if participating. Just nothing I see as a fun event and this short did not help the cause.

Michael H Actually a big shame on you to Encyclpedia Brittanica for releasing this piece of propaganda. Well maybe not cause luckily MST got a hold of this and have a lot of fun with it. Demented Billy Slater, who himself looks like the town drunkard who's been whacked too many times in the head by bucking broncos, catches a couple of his grandkids fooling around with his favorite mare (don't ask why it's his favorite) He convinces the kids to organize their own rodeo. Since the good folk of Wickenburg AZ had not much else to do (I know it's Wickenburg cause there's a sign in the short that says Wickenburg) back in the late 40's except go to Phoenix on the weekends to see the big city. Anyway back the short, little kids learn the meaning of pain, broken bones and what their health insurance will and won't cover at the hospital. Possible deaths may have occurred since nowhere in the short do they say "nobody or any animals were harmed in the making of this film". But anyway MST do have fun with it and now we can all laugh at the expense of these numb-skull cowpokes.

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.

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.