That was an excellent one.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One Got Fat is a bicycle safety video. In the short, a group of "kids" plan to ride their bikes nine blocks for a picnic. One kid has a large basket – big enough to hold everyone's lunch. The title refers to the one kid who actually made it to the picnic without having an accident or something else stop him. He ate all the lunches and got fat. The children who don't make it to the picnic are all dressed in monkey masks. The moral is don't be a monkey – practice safety when riding your bike.One Got Fat is especially creepy and dark. The frozen-face monkey masks are the stuff of nightmares. It doesn't help that just before each child has an accident, their eyes bulge out of the mask. It's quite a sight. As for dark, the whole premise of the video is that nine kids don't make it to the picnic. They're hit by cars, run over by road equipment, slam into pedestrian, or suffer some other horrifying accident. All the while, we hear the bright, chipper voice of Edward Everett Horton narrating events. Horton's melodious style is a stark contrast to the images on the screen. It's a bizarre experience. Was One Got Fat effective? Yes. While it may take it's time getting the message out, I don't think anyone who watches this would forget basic bicycle safety. Was One Got Fat entertaining? In a weird way, it was. It's not a laugh a minute, but it's hard to turn away from the surrealistic images on-screen. I'm giving it an 8/10.

One Got Fat (1963) *** (out of 4) A rather hilarious bicycle-safety film has ten kids going to the park for a picnic but they don't follow the safety rules so one by one they are hit by cars. Yes, a film showing kids being hit by cars so you know it has to be one of those now legendary safety films that contain enough unintentional laughs for ten films. The funniest thing is that the kids have monkey masks on as well as long rat tails so seeing them is funny enough. We then get fifteen straight minutes of one kid after another making a mistake and being ran over. One poor sap gets it from a steam roller. None of the actual crashes are seen as we instead get silly cutaways and sound effects. You really can't judge films like this for acting or directing but instead you just rate them on their entertainment level and this one here is pretty high. The entire thing is full of campy moments and it's creepy enough to make you not want to turn your eyes away.

On a recommendation from Cartoon Brew, I saw this bizarre educational short about bicycle safety, with art direction by Disney artist Ralph Hulett, on Google. Narrated by Edward Everett Horton (best known to modern day viewers for his Fractured Fairly Tales voice-over), One Got Fat has most of the kids in monkey masks and tails suffering one bike accident after another (and not being able to tell the tale) to sound and visual cartoon effects. Only one kid who followed the rules of bike safety was human and he got to eat all his buddies lunches, hence the title...Horton provides amusing commentary especially when he keeps saying, "Right?...Right." Since I'm used to SNL sketches in which characters bleed and die, this short didn't scare me much but I can sympathize with anyone who had nightmares after seeing this in elementary grade school classes for years. Of course, maybe the bland music didn't help...

YES, this film is wacko. The kids have weird names like Rooty Toot. Their ape masks look cheap, but where in the world would you find such a great looking monkey mask today without getting skin cancer? That was no ordinary mask!The title "one got fat" refers to Orv, the hero of the film who is "not a monkey" and knows all about bike safety, unlike the other children who are all killed (!), injured or left behind somehow because of their negligence. See, Orv was the boy carrying everybody's sack lunches in his bike basket to go to the park for a picnic. One all his cycle mates are... removed... he gets everyone's lunch! Hence - "one got fat". If you watch closely, before each child gets hit by a car or what have you, the mask suddenly grows giant eyeballs that bulge out of their sockets in horror.So kids, remember: 1) License your bike or you'll be afoot and your shoes will smolder from running alongside your biking friends. 2) Use reflectors and lights, especially when you ride through a highway tunnel. You are liable to get smashed head-on by oncoming traffic in the pitch black! 3) Ride on the right side of the road or you might flip yourself over a car pulling out of a parking space. 4) Keep your mind on riding and watch the traffic signs or you might miss a stop sign and smash into a semi truck that is crossing the road.5) Use your hand signals or you might get run over. 6) Don't ride on the sidewalk or you might run over a couple of housewives carrying groceries who end up in a tree. 7) Don't ride double or you'll fall down a manhole into the sewer - bike and all! 8) Tune up your bike or your brakes might fail unexpectedly and force you to be squashed by the oncoming steamroller! If you do all these things, you might also get fat though, because you will be forced to eat the lunches of all your dead or hospitalized friends.