Co-Directed by Chuck Jones and Tex Avery

February 21, 2006 4:40 PM

It Only Takes A Second is the name of this 1996 industrial film from Federated Mutual Insurance. Essentially 3 straight minutes of chaotic on the job accidents geared towards terrifying the customers into being more careful (and thus more profitable), it may be my favorite industrial film ever. link goes to embedded QT video
posted by jonson (64 comments total)

There's no way it can be funnier than this.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:51 PM on February 21, 2006

That car explosion ruled!! Though that German forklift safety video will always be my favorite :)
posted by starscream at 4:52 PM on February 21, 2006

-Great hair
-Hot chicks with eye patches
-Physical Comedy
-Escalating Gruesomeness

Was this directed by John Waters?
posted by eisbaer at 4:53 PM on February 21, 2006

I was just about to put a link to the forklift safety video myself. Anyway, as for that other video, something about the cars and the hair makes me think it was filmed much earlier than 1996. Early to mid 80s?
posted by bobo123 at 4:56 PM on February 21, 2006

Not only does the guy fall off a crane for being stupid, but the punchline is that he falls into a box of jagged metal.

That was hilarious. Thanks, jonson.
posted by interrobang at 4:59 PM on February 21, 2006

Jeezus, some of that's just gruesome.
posted by darkstar at 5:00 PM on February 21, 2006

It's like a speeded-up, Cliff Notes version of "Days of Our Years."
posted by Otis at 5:02 PM on February 21, 2006

I have been on crutches now for nearly a month navigating the streets and subways of NYC -- and you post something like this for laughs. Crap, vile FPP*. OK, well, acutally, I haven't laughed this hard since 2005. Excellent pratfall music too.

Now does the same man who hits his head on the filing cabinet, plunge from industrial shelving, get rolled through large machinery, and tumble off a crane. I smell insurance fraud.

* Always wanted to complain about a post, even facetiously.
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 5:04 PM on February 21, 2006

That ruled. I loved how the accidentees seemed to get increasingly fuckwitted as the thing went on.
posted by Cyrano at 5:07 PM on February 21, 2006

Oh god. The foot under the lawn mower did it for me...
posted by 327.ca at 5:07 PM on February 21, 2006

Awesome, and so many great, touching moments: foot in the lawn mower, the car rollover, guy crushed in the machine, hand in the blades, falling into the box of stuff and the exploding car. Hollywood horror movies should just stop trying to have stories and adopt this quick-action setup.
posted by Vaska at 5:12 PM on February 21, 2006

I believe this was part of the Found Footage Festival programme.
posted by beerbajay at 5:22 PM on February 21, 2006

Two lessons I have learned from this video:

-Chicks with eyepatches are hot
-Don't order the exploding pizza
posted by Fontbone at 5:28 PM on February 21, 2006

Was this directed by John Waters?
I was thinking George Romero but boy was that over the top.
posted by octothorpe at 5:34 PM on February 21, 2006

Fontbone writes "Chicks with eyepatches are hot"

You didn't know that before? Duh.

I think what really make this clip are the somber, blue-tinted cutaways of people in wheelchairs. They look like reenactments from E! True Hollywood Stories.
posted by brundlefly at 5:35 PM on February 21, 2006

I don't know which was better, the kid getting hit by the car or the guy sticking his hand in the saw. Laugh riot!
posted by puke & cry at 5:46 PM on February 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

That's so funny — my husband has to watch this every year at work (he's a marine engineer).

At the shipyard in Korea where he works, there is a literal museum of photos of mangled body parts and crushed safety helmets, broken machinery, an archive of accidents. It's pretty effing scary.
posted by Brittanie at 5:50 PM on February 21, 2006

Wow. Just wow. Those were some of the best films I have ever seen. Wow.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:51 PM on February 21, 2006

No one fell into a combine. How sad.
posted by 517 at 5:58 PM on February 21, 2006

Why do American cars explode all the time? What are the designers thinking? "Well, gee, the Pinto was such a great hit, let's do the same thing with the K car too. Cut down on some soccer moms and bratty kids."

"If you work with stupid people, your odds of dying/getting mangled increase exponentially with time exposed."

Also, pirate chicks. *rawr*.

Also, good post.
posted by Zack_Replica at 6:02 PM on February 21, 2006

nono. pirate chicks. *arrr*.
posted by beerbajay at 6:04 PM on February 21, 2006

lol beerbajay! And yes, it was indeed part of the found film festival.
posted by jonson at 6:10 PM on February 21, 2006

Just to clear this up... from the "Talk like a Pirate" web site:

"Arrr! - This one is often confused with arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin. "Arrr!" can mean, variously, "yes," "I agree," "I'm happy," "I'm enjoying this beer," "My team is going to win it all," "I saw that television show, it sucked!" and "That was a clever remark you or I just made." And those are just a few of the myriad possibilities of Arrr!"

beerbajay wins...
posted by HuronBob at 6:15 PM on February 21, 2006

That guy could so easily have avoided being crushed.
posted by tellurian at 6:21 PM on February 21, 2006

If you want the best of Found footage try 5 Minutes to Live's Lost & Found Video Night. (scroll down past all the other awesomeness.) Start with Vol. 1
posted by Sellersburg/Speed at 6:23 PM on February 21, 2006

Oh man! it just keeps getting worse! what was the kid squealing before her mom blew up the car? was it "let me open the pizza"? stupid kid - but she's dead, so...
posted by wumpus at 6:43 PM on February 21, 2006

I stopped watching when the woman cut her hand with the box cutter. That was all I could take, and then it probably got worse!
posted by easternblot at 7:23 PM on February 21, 2006

Teaching workers to prevent accidents ... how greedy of the insurance company.
posted by jayder at 7:28 PM on February 21, 2006

jayder... no one is saying that, where do you get that from?
posted by jonson at 7:29 PM on February 21, 2006

I'm just kidding around ... but it does seem to be a subtext of the original post.
posted by jayder at 7:30 PM on February 21, 2006

beerbajay - nice catch! I feel particularly ashamed of not getting that as I've just got back from a vacation in the Caribbean. The evils of rum, and all that.
posted by Zack_Replica at 7:34 PM on February 21, 2006

It looked like the parked car actually exploded before it got hit. It's like it panicked and committed suicide.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:37 PM on February 21, 2006

I thought the Lazy Muncie thing a few clips down was funnier.
posted by The Monkey at 7:57 PM on February 21, 2006

If anyone has a non-streaming QT version of this, I'd love you forever.
posted by moonbird at 8:23 PM on February 21, 2006

Seriously, folks, you too can prevent digital signal loss with the SawStop Table Saw. It works by detecting the electrical conductivity of human flesh (compared to wood) and stops the blade within five milliseconds: see the video demo links on the left side of the home page.

The device has to be built into saws at the factory, so the inventor tried at first to license the technology to power tool manufacturers. However, nobody was interested:

"Having heard all of the various reasons put forth by the manufacturers for not doing anything, I firmly believe it simply comes down to money," says Gass. "They cannot figure out how to make more money by adding SawStop. They are not paying for the injuries that occur now, so why should they spend money to change their product to eliminate a cost they aren't bearing?"

Better a small nick than picking your finger up off the floor...
posted by cenoxo at 8:51 PM on February 21, 2006

If I were a saw company, I'd be worried about people assuming it worked and being way less cautious. And then, when it doesn't work that one time, they'd get sued.
posted by delmoi at 9:11 PM on February 21, 2006

If you just listen to the audio, it sounds like a really bad porn flick.
posted by leftcoastbob at 9:21 PM on February 21, 2006

It looked like the parked car actually exploded before it got hit. It's like it panicked and committed suicide.



Good catch. Makes it even funnier.
posted by thethirdman at 9:39 PM on February 21, 2006

Delmoi said: I'd be worried about people assuming it worked and being way less cautious.

True, increased user carelessness is always a tradeoff for any safety measure. However, unforeseen accidents still happen even to the most experienced users, and devices like SawStop decrease the overall risk of injury. This Woodweb discussion brings up some of its pros and cons.
posted by cenoxo at 9:58 PM on February 21, 2006

Sitting here laughing my ass off at the suicidal car.

I gotta give it to those actors, though, they did some damn good screaming and flailing in ridiculous situations. Except for the getting-crushed guy, he needed no acting - I'd scream like hell if they so much as tried to get me to take on that role.
posted by anjamu at 9:58 PM on February 21, 2006

LOOK AT MY PIZZA!
posted by sklero at 10:06 PM on February 21, 2006

So, I'm not sure what's lamest about me: 1) that I made the first three tags on this post as a sly quote from the lyrics to Mama Said Knock You Out, by LL Cool J, 2) That I keep checking back here to see if anyone caught the stupid joke, or 3) that I'm revealing the stupid joke and acknowledging how lame I am.
posted by jonson at 10:10 PM on February 21, 2006

But I'm leaning towards 3.
posted by jonson at 10:10 PM on February 21, 2006

Does the fact that I hoped these were real accidents make me... evil?

As for that Sawstop gadget, I saw a thing about it and while it is excellent and works, it is expensive to install and maintain - when it fires it essentially breaks the sawblade and damages some component or other, so it may actually be cheaper to pay for accidents every once in a while (or blame them on carelessness - possibly the true cause).
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:02 AM on February 22, 2006

Eek! The lawnmower one hits too close to home. My friend got her foot run over by a lawnmower when she wa younger, mangled couple of does and bloody keds to prove it.

I was halfway between cringing and laughing the whole time.
posted by piratebowling at 2:05 AM on February 22, 2006

I don't know how successful this will be at telling people to, essentially, "not be stupid". I mean, that guy on the elevated platform trying to grasp an out-of-reach chain - he should have climbed down, moved his forklift or whatever a couple of feet to the side and gone up again. This is so painfully obvious that I can't even begin to grasp the concept they're trying to teach: "don't jump from 12 foot onto a box of scrap metal" is not something people should have to learn from a video.
As an aside, leaning over as he did - what would he have done even if he had managed to grasp the chain? He'd be dangling from his outstretched arm, his feet not supporting his weight any more, his hands away from the controls, from the ceiling of that warehouse. And then?
posted by PontifexPrimus at 4:08 AM on February 22, 2006

That has to be the most expensive safety film ever.
posted by pembleton at 6:53 AM on February 22, 2006

Jeez, the lawnmower, yes.

I remember as a teen mowing the lake embankment at my Dad's house. Along one stretch, I had to grab the mower with one hand while allowing the thing to roll down the steep slope, while I was perched precariously on the edge of the embankment, next to his driveway.

With the damp, newly cut grass underfoot, the embankment was a little slippery. Many is the time that I slipped just a bit, narrowling avoiding having my foot going under the mower. Often, I saw grisly images in my head of my toes being removed and cast into the lake for the fishes by the whirring blade. I hated mowing that bank.

Almost as much as I hated swingblading the briarpatch next to the snake-infested culvert where the creek entered the lake.

Teenagers can be fearless stupid.
posted by darkstar at 6:58 AM on February 22, 2006

HEY GUYS!? GUYS? I'M IN HEERE! STOOOOP!
posted by TTIKTDA at 7:01 AM on February 22, 2006

Great stuff! This falls somewhere between a guy getting hit in the nuts with a baseball on America's Funniest Home Videos and Albert Brooks' montage of bad decisions from Defending Your Life.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:02 AM on February 22, 2006

Lawnmowers - dangerous! I accidentally killed a family of baby bunny rabbits in my yard once. I had let the grass grow too tall, and as I was mowing, I saw some bloody, furry bits fly out from underneath the mower. I stopped and lifted the mower and saw several baby bunnies writhing in agony, half-chopped up. I felt so horrible, I had to put them out of their misery by running them over again several times to make sure they were good and dead. Talk about nightmares. It was horrible...
posted by PigAlien at 8:03 AM on February 22, 2006

jeebus, PigAlien, thanks for sharing....
[runs to store to get some bleach for his brain]
posted by lord_wolf at 8:12 AM on February 22, 2006

"I had to put them out of their misery by running them over again several times to make sure they were good and dead"

Yeah, I said that about the guy on the bike, but the cops wouldn't buy it.
posted by NinjaPirate at 8:31 AM on February 22, 2006

running them over again several times to make sure they were good and dead.

See, this is the kind of comment that makes good stories at parties. I do spit-takes at this sort of thing.
posted by thanotopsis at 8:42 AM on February 22, 2006

PigAlien, I'm just gonna pretend you were joking and please don't let me know if I'm pretending wrong.
posted by jonson at 9:35 AM on February 22, 2006

Trust people with security : you are fucked

Build security in procedures and machines :D

Also : arrrrrrrrr matey hawt chix piratey patch shivers me timbers rattle me bonez !
posted by elpapacito at 10:02 AM on February 22, 2006

Reminds me of the rail crossing safety movie Last Clear Chance, easily the funniest 26 minutes in Mystery Science Theater 3000 history: "Ma'am, could you come over here and identify this bucket of your brother?"
posted by Lord Kinbote at 10:08 AM on February 22, 2006

Would love to have a non-streaming version of this so that I can view it...
posted by five fresh fish at 10:34 AM on February 22, 2006

Note to self: Never get hurt in any way in front of PigAlien.
posted by Zack_Replica at 11:02 AM on February 22, 2006

Why don't they look, Ralph? Why don't they look?
posted by Otis at 11:31 AM on February 22, 2006

Heheh...that IS funny. :)
posted by darkstar at 5:50 AM on February 23, 2006

Direct download link
posted by Monochrome at 7:52 PM on February 23, 2006

Thx, mang!
posted by five fresh fish at 10:16 AM on February 24, 2006

"I regret nothing!!!" :D
posted by darkstar at 10:43 AM on February 24, 2006