Junior Rodeo Daredevils (1949)

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

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.

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.

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.

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.