February 20, 2005

Your seat is also a flotation device

Why not just say "go to the light...to the light"?

The safety films on aircrafts always explain last that you should not inflate your flotation device until you are outside the plane. It then shows the emergency exit as a white, glowing light, towards which the camera (in place of the imagined you, exiting) is moving as if what? what is that white light? where are we all supposed to be going? why is the theme music so cheerful? do they know something we don't? think happy thoughts think happy thoughts...

There is a famous NFB cartoon called "the Big Snit" (made by Winnipeger Richard Condie) which features an older couple and some of the things that drive them crazy about each other. Famous scenes include the husband complaining of a wife during a scrabble game "stop shaking your eyes (she does take her eyes off and shakes them - they occaisionally get stuck the way a toy's eyes do from time to time) -" you shake them over here you shake them over there"

She retorts that he is always sawing. His favorite TV show is sawing and when watching he gets out his saw and saws along - sawing the furniture as soon as the show announcer says "begin to saw"

This inspired a new possible ending for the safety video: in the event of an emergency rather than having oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, and life jackets retrieved, drills would come down on their power cords and passengers would be instructed to "begin to drill" to take the plane apart before it crashed.


Posted by mc at February 20, 2005 01:45 PM