In between meeting deadlines at work and watching football well into the early mornings, I have been thinking a lot about the Atomic Sunset game concept and where I want to take it. Andrew and Greg have been helping me build a clearer picture of the idea in my mind and define the sorts of stories I want the game to tell. To get back into the feel of the postwar era, I have been busy watching some of the amazing Civil Defense educational movies that were made back in those days. The absolute epitome of the era was the Duck and Cover film, starring Bert the Turtle.
I got to thinking about what other threats Bert might be called upon to give us some useful survival tips for. What about Giant Mutant Ants?
So here’s the first draft poster I made up this evening. I expect to rework this when I get a little time to spare:
I think hiding under the picnic table cloth was the highlight! Truly extraordinary…. and also that a generation were being taught to live in fear every day of the bomb being dropped. cheers greg
The thing to remember with these type of videos is that they pre-date the hydrogen bomb. The Atomic Bomb was powerful weapon certainly, much greater than any other weapon of the time, but it was a popgun compared to the thermonuclear weapons of the 1960s and later – the weapons that we grew up with.
In 1951, military and scientific opinion was that an atomic bomb attack was survivable, so long as you were not within a mile or so of ground zero. And the whole idea behind these training films was to show people how to come through it and a little of what to expect in the aftermath. But most importantly, it attempted to address a significant cause of the high mortality rate at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that was the fact that the blast was so unexpected and the survivors were so traumatised that they didn’t help each other very much – so many people died from their wounds when they might have otherwise survived had help been offered earlier.
But there’s a great feeling of innocence and naivity with these films that I want Atomic Sunset to draw from. It’s still a laugh to see a dopey old turtle with a bow-tie walking along sniffing flowers being attacked with a firecracker (that blows up the attacker). Ah we’re such a peace loving nation of slow folks ain’t we. It’s those nasty monkeys we need to worry about!