Traffic Safety/Stranger Danger Film. And no, it's not what Rifftrax would say if it gave Mike his walking papers, but rather an interesting look at a film that attempts to warn us about running out into the street. But somehow also meanders into stranger danger for some curious reason.

Basically the tale starts off at school where the teacher acknowledges a student (Michael) is absent. Rather than tell the class Mike's no more, because apparently children obviously have no concept of death, she stretches it out that Mike's not just coming back, hence the alleged name of the film. Anyway, the kids who were with Michael 'remember' how their classmate met his demise.

Now the funny thing about this safety short (from my memory), is the fact the kids aren't ACTUALLY playing in the streets (as the ones who did in Live and Learn). Instead they're running in a stupor down sidewalks, running across intersections with reckless abandonment, when Mike gets hit by car stock footage (seriously), then is felled (completely clean I might add) where suddenly a crowd forms. Then like magic a cop arrives inquiring what happens.

Cut back to the school, where a sad-eyed girl says the obvious "we were playing in the streets," whereas you're wondering where the hell did the crowd spring from, let alone the cop? But as with most safety films riffed here, they immediately go into the typical safety rules to prevent what happened to poor Michael.

Yet, as I said, the film tends to meander off-topic into stranger danger. Why? Well, in the late 70s, some brilliant producers thought fifteen minutes simply wasn't enough for educating children on life's dangers, so they started extending some films to thirty minutes (oh, rapture!). And the funny thing about this film, like all other stranger danger films, the stranger looks NOTHING like what you should be looking out for, and when they demonstrate, he smiles at a child and says, 'Hello.' Whereas, 'go get an adult' must come off as 'freak out and head for the hills,' because that's what she does.

Hopefully the description can help you locate this short (though 'short' is an understatement with this film), because this one has been long overdue for a good riffing.