Junior Rodeo Daredevils (1949) User Reviews

Abyssmal.

[Jordan_Haelend · 2/10 · 8 March 2003]

When I was a kid I put on my white cowboy hat, jeans, jean jacket, work shirt, bandana and boots and attended things like this. Yeehaw! At the time I wasn't fully aware of the cruelty that went into this so-called sport. Once I turned 15 I swore that I wouldn't be caught dead at one of these disgusting things, Junior or otherwise, ever again. I've kept that promise to myself.

This short is itself predictable and boring. One thing I can't understand is why it was made, since most short films from its era were intended to be instructional (cf. "Cheating" and "Body Care & Grooming.") I guess it had appeal to the kids of the era.

MST3K makes this one fun. Under no circumstances should ANYONE waste time on this without it.

Child abuse as entertainment

[bensonmum2 · 2/10 · 6 July 2007]

Man, how times have changed! If you believe what you see in Junior Rodeo Daredevils, it seems that in the 1940s, any crazy stranger could take your kid, strap him/her to some sort of livestock, and watch them get thrown to the hard ground. Oh what fun - child abuse as entertainment! What parent wouldn't want a broken neck or a ruptured spleen for their child? Instead of being brought up on charges, Old-Timer Billy Slater gets to sit back and enjoy the sight of children having their necks snapped. It did my heart good to see this crazy old coot laugh like a hyena as one child after the next received severe head trauma. Yes, Junior Rodeo Daredevils is certainly one of the most demented sights I've ever seen.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 did a wonderful job with this short. The riffing possibilities were abundant and the guys took full advantage. Much of it is laugh-out-loud funny. On my MST3K rating scale, Junior Rodeo Daredevils gets a 4/5.

"Fortunately, Billy didn't need his spine....!"

[lemon_magic · 4/10 · 18 February 2007]

This is a very odd piece of pop culture detritus from the Encyclopedia Brittanica group. I'm not sure what the 'educational content' of this the film makers meant for us to draw from this short.Um...Rodeos are fun? Tying cans onto horses' tails results in punishment swift and certain? Old cowboys in Texas have too much time on their hands? Life in rural Texas is so desperately dull and suffocating that even an amateur rodeo looks good after a while? Being an orthopedic surgeon in a rodeo town is the surest path to riches?

It isn't really all that bad, of course; it's just meandering and goofy. But you couldn't get kids in a modern classroom to watch something like this unless you swacked them into a low level hypnotic state with Thorazine beforehand. MST3K does a great job making fun of it, of course, and their version is probably the best for modern audiences to see.

Junior Rodeo DaredEVILs

[zmaturin · 1/10 · 16 December 2002]

In this disturbing cautionary tale, a demented old man (Old Timer Billy Slater) catches two youngsters molesting his horse and sentences them to the worse punishment of all- a junior rodeo. Old Timer Billy Slater laughs in hideous glee as children are repeatedly thrown to the cold, cold ground from the backs of bucking broncos. What kind of Hell is this, where children suffer the sins of man? What kind of grinning gargoyle is this Old Timer Billy Slater? Why has he forsaken us? Why, why, why??!??!

This pukey short also features a horrid, repetitive banjo score which will compel you to rip your own head clean off.

Smothered in mediocrity, Western Style...

[icehole4 · 1/10 · 16 January 2002]

This short film is based on a junior rodeo that two kids and an old man organize. They show scenes of several young people doing rodeo activities, like calf riding, calf roping, bull riding, and the like. These days, it would be called child endangerment.

Avoid this unless you're watching the MST3K version. Joel and the bots make this turkey watchable.

nine minutes of your life you will never get back... (SPOILERS!)

[zardoz12 · 25 March 2003]

I have the feeling that "Junior Rodeo Daredevils" was a freebie when grade school districts purchased Encyclopedia Britannica sets, which meant it went into the A-V closet and was never heard from again, or maybe only shown when an educational film was too short. In any case, this half-reeler revolves around some ranch town in the southwest where geezer Billy Slater finds two small boys tying a can on his horses' tail. Instead of beating them with a strap, he decides to run a junior rodeo on his flyspeck ranch and give out prizes that look like they were fished out of the town dump. The boys make cheapo posters and tack them up all over town, attracting every "child" from 5 to 15, though I suspect some of the contestants were midgets. Soon the all-white rodeo begins, with stumpy toddlers being thrown from greased pigs, skinny girls flying off ponies, and this lanky 7th grader riding a bucking mule for at least 10 seconds. The "prizes" are handed out, all while the old coot smiles and displays his perfect set of teeth, as true a sign as any that he was a Hollywood cowboy. We may cry child endangerment now, but it is obvious that semiprofessionals were featured. In any case, the MST3K version was a laugh riot, and this short is as funny or funnier than "The Days of Our Years" or that Ma Bell promotional where the woman sings about telephones while her musician husband plays "Kung Fu Fighting" on the piano.

Mr. William Slater, shame on you!!

[ticklemetorgo · 1/10 · 17 September 2005]

Actually a big shame on you to Encyclpedia Brittanica for releasing this piece of propaganda. Well maybe not cause luckily MST got a hold of this and have a lot of fun with it. Demented Billy Slater, who himself looks like the town drunkard who's been whacked too many times in the head by bucking broncos, catches a couple of his grandkids fooling around with his favorite mare (don't ask why it's his favorite) He convinces the kids to organize their own rodeo. Since the good folk of Wickenburg AZ had not much else to do (I know it's Wickenburg cause there's a sign in the short that says Wickenburg) back in the late 40's except go to Phoenix on the weekends to see the big city. Anyway back the short, little kids learn the meaning of pain, broken bones and what their health insurance will and won't cover at the hospital. Possible deaths may have occurred since nowhere in the short do they say "nobody or any animals were harmed in the making of this film". But anyway MST do have fun with it and now we can all laugh at the expense of these numb-skull cowpokes.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?

[lee_eisenberg · 1/10 · 25 September 2013]

Most of the shorts that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" heckled are very dated but not necessarily creepy. Not so with "Junior Rodeo Daredevils". Less a look at a subculture than an excuse to put children and animals through hell, it's the sort of thing that probably couldn't have gotten filmed after the '60s (at least not in any country with animal welfare laws). It's enough to make anyone NOT want to attend a rodeo. This is just a horrendous disgusting movie.

Sure enough, the Satellite of Love Crew has fun with it. Their narration DOES give an idea of what people would probably think if experiencing the events of the movie. It's the only way to enjoy this awful movie.

And parents today go berserk over slides and see-saws at the local park.

[Aaron1375 · 2/10 · 1 March 2012]

Usually these shorts from the 40's and 50's do one of two things. They tell the audience about problems and how to solve them or they advertise some sort of great product. Still others are cartoons and things like that which had to be the best of the stuff that proceeded a film. This one seems to be none of the above as old timer Billy Slater quickly reels in the children of his town and has a junior rodeo where a child could be horribly crippled or maimed. I laugh at the thought of something like this in the city where people sue when their child falls off a playground slide or something and breaks their arm. Here they could be paralyzed, I am quite sure the one girl who flew off the one animal and was walking very gingerly back to the sides was very hurt. So from what I saw this short was showing the great fun a town can have at a junior rodeo, well to each his own, but this did not look fun at all. Probably over 90 degrees outside and the smell of animals and their waste in the air, getting thrown violently to the ground if participating. Just nothing I see as a fun event and this short did not help the cause.

Rodeo In Dearborn

[boblipton · 3/10 · 10 April 2024]

The city of Dearborn, Michigan, having solved all the problems of an industrial suburb of Detroit, decided that the best thing to do with their resources was to sponsor the movie about a rodeo for kids produced by the Encyclopedia Britannica. After all, they must have reasoned, when you think of Dearborn, you think of cowpokes, fiddle music, bull riding, and some geezer named Billy Slater.

I suppose if you are interested in rodeos, a film about them makes sense, and rodeo stars probably get their starts young; a junior rodeo sounds like just the thing. What any of this has to do with Dearborn or the Britannica's film division is beyond me.

I dont understand all the negative reviews

[jim_85258 · 8/10 · 6 December 2019]

Its a 1949 short on kids in a rodeo. What does everyone expect. The Misfits???? It took place in Wickenburg Arizona. I grew up in Scottsdale AZ in the 60s and remember the rodeo stadium in Old Town Scottsdale. It was all wood with lots of seating but old even back then which is probably why they tore it down in the early 70s. I grew up around ranches and didn't see anything wrong with this film. I watched a lot of these western shorts in elementary school. I liked the Valley National Bank scene in the beginning of the film. That was the biggest bank in AZ back then. Anyways I enjoyed it.

For those who enjoy seeing children thrown from the backs of raging broncos.

[Kojiro Abe · 20 July 2002]

This is a pretty darn creepy late 40s short taking place in the West (apparantly Texas) in the late 1940s. I'm really not sure if this is staged or faked, but a showing of it today would anger both animal and children's right activists. It begins with a couple of mischevious youngsters trying to prank a local psycho named Billy Slater by tying a tin can to his horse's tail. Billy catches them, lassos them, and is just about to hang them, but he has a last moment change of heart and decides to spare their lives and instead have them organize a junior rodeo, which is really far more sadistic. He has the kids make posters and then the whole town comes. It is a ghastly freakshow, as poor, innocent kids are thrown from the backs of raging broncos, trampled, maimed, and just plain humilated. It's just as bad for the poor animals as well, who are all humilated and tortured (especially the poor calves). Like Catching Trouble, another vaguely similar short (that also showed on MST3K) it was totally acceptable in it's time, but today would draw outraged crys from both the PETA and the children's rights groups. It was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and is lampooned quite hilariously. Along with Catching Trouble and Days of Our Years, this is one of the more disturbing of MST3K shorts.

Animals are to be bred and SLAUGHTERED!!!!!!*spoilers*

[Hancock_the_Superb · 26 May 2003]

Well, another short torn to pieces by Mike, er, sorry, Joel and the Bots, this being one of their better works.

Plot involves some old hick rancher forcing two mischievious kids to organize a junior rodeo ("We're doomed!" says Crow). Eventually, the whole town shows up just to get kicked, gored, and thrown to the ground by horses and bulls, while a narrator who sounds suspiciously like Henry Fonda (though fortunately isn't) muses over how fun it must be to be pummeled by these 1,000+ pound beasts (except the calves, of course). Ouch.

I find it kind of hard to criticize many MST3K shorts, since they tend to be educational films that, while corny, if nothing else show you a good depiction of what they're supposed to be telling you about. (Not to say the MST3K versions aren't funny . . .) This one, however, apparently was made for "entertainment" purposes, and should be missed - unless the SOL crew are doing it.

I'm not going to rate the short itself, for the sole reason that I don't think I can. Ah, hell, let's give it 2/10. Nine stars for the hilarious MSTing, though.