Sumo TV Trailerdrome

Flicking around Sky Digital channels a few weeks ago I stumbled across Sumo TV's Trailerdrome on channel 144. There's no website for the programme itself, the only thing I've found is the Sky.com TV listings page that tells you when it's on:

Featuring the best of obscure film trailers, public information films and newsreels from the last 70 years, when life was more innocent. Or was it?

And it is obscure, but I found it disturbingly compulsive viewing. The only problem is that they seem to show the same trailers on different days.

Among the trailers and public service films I've seen:

• a warning to young girls about "getting yourself in trouble", which contained absolutely no mention of pregnancy or sex, but ended with the girl being put into care for no other reason than being a single teenage mother
• an animated educational film about how capitalism works, and why it makes America great
• coverage of an "Economy Drive" from the 50s/60s, in which teenage drivers aim to follow a long street course using the least amount of fuel. I think the winner managed around 50 miles per gallon per ton.
• a documentary on how to have dinner with your family. Apparently no one person should dominate the conversation, and the girls of the family must help their mother prepare the meal.
• a short film about divorce, that only mentioned the word once, covered none of the legal side of actual proceedings, and which only really showed the beginning of a couple's relationship in which the woman said she could change the man to suit her own needs.
• far too many more to list here.
  

One of the great things though is that there seems to be no real adverts for the duration of the programme, which runs for about two hours. There are actually adverts, but they are old ones from the 50s and 60s that clearly aren't on sale now. There's a crazy one for Heinz Pickles that features an old lady beating up the waiting staff in a restaurant because the pickle she was served wasn't good enough.

So if you find yourself channel surfing and you happen across something in black and white that usually has a very condescending voice over on top then you've probably stumbled across Trailerdrome. Give it a go, it's a laugh.