Cassette: "Mr. Squirrel" Squirrel Whistle Instruction Tape

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SEEKING SOUND FILMSTRIPS FOR PRESERVATION. Sound filmstrip was a 35mm film-based still image educational media format used in schools and industry. I am the only person on earth preserving American filmstrips. The media format is largely forgotten and very endangered. If you have any American filmstrips, or can rescue any filmstrips from a school, college, business, industry, or elsewhere, please contact me immediately at uncommon.ephemera@gmail.com. Don't know what a filmstrip is? Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmstrip

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NOTES

Hang around long enough in the popular spots on the internet and one will eventually be told that hunting animals is unnecessary; there's already plenty of food at the grocery store. Squirrel hunting, one hopes, is a last resort when hunger is the primary concern; after all, any hunter will tell you there are so many deer it's more ethical to kill and eat them than to let them starve to death during harsh, long winters. But here at Uncommon Ephemera, we make it a point not to take sides in modern cultural, social, political, or religious issues; we don't judge, we just preserve. And we've preserved a winner here; another perfect storm that promises to be another crown jewel in the collection.

First things first, for those who only hunt at Whole Foods: The "Mr. Squirrel" squirrel whistle is a "call," a noisemaker used by hunters to attract a specific animal to their location, for the obvious reason. The owner of a Mr. Squirrel whistle could purchase this tape for instructions and a demonstration of its use.

As for the tape itself, it's a dumpster fire of awesome awfulness: unless you're a full-time professional squirrel hunter with absolutely no sense of humor, there's something here for you. A professional-sounding announcer guy leads an interview with the two inventors of the Mr. Squirrel whistle. They have absolutely cartoonish Alabama accents. They sound like they're reading from a script they've never seen before. They quickly explain the Mr. Squirrel whistle simulates "the distress cry of a baby squirrel, like a predator such as a hawk or a [sic] owl has caught the little squirrel and is killin' it." Instinctively programmed to protect their young, adult squirrels come running to the cry, chattering loudly, where they can be shot.

It continues. The whistle is not blown, it is sucked on. Because of course it is. The inventors, likely beseeched by their attorney, advise the listener to immediately attach the whistle to the provided lanyard, so there is no risk of swallowing the whistle if one sucks too vigorously. The whistle is then demonstrated. Between the sound of the whistle and the mental image of the dying baby squirrel previously injected into the listener's head, it's difficult not to bask in the accuracy of the sound. The inventors continue to drawl about the whistle in excruciating detail. They suggest that the hunter also slap a handful of brush against the ground while blow— er, sucking the whistle to simulate the predator flapping its wings to keep its balance while killin' the crying little baby squirrel. Demonstrations with the brush added commence.

Then the announcer implores us to play the other side of the tape, which contains audio of "an actual squirrel hunt." And it sure does. We're now in a forest with the inventors, though it seems the announcer has stayed back at the studio to drop in a voiceover where necessary. (Must be a city boy.) Throughout several demonstrations, we hear the tranquil stillness of the forest, punctuated in an almost Monty Python-esque way by the whistle... and the ensuing gunshots.

Legal? Yep. Effective? Probably. Unintentionally hilarious? Boom, headshot.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Ephemeral films

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

P.S.T. Manufacturing Company

Language

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed