Beetrice Teaches About Unions PSA
A very odd and mildly interesting archive item in the form of conceptual storyboards, animatics, and scripts for a poorly planned anti-union advertisement that was made to discourage Bartlebee Brand workers from unionizing, and was meant to be spread to workers across the country in a massive anti-unionization effort. While the final footage has been lost to time, we were provided with an audio recording of the short film which I have edited in time with the storyboards to give you a sense of what it would have looked like. Unfortunately, the audio seems to be corrupted in some places, but hopefully it’s not too terrible to listen to.
This PSA was a live action production featuring the Strawbetty and Seamore Taffadore puppets, with Beetrice being animated over top. Like most artists and performers who worked under Bartlebee Brands the actors, puppeteers and animators for this film were never officially credited. However we were contacted by one of the actors Bill Pynes, who played the role of a union worker for this film, and he was able to give us some insight on how the production went.
According to him, this was the first time he’d ever worked with puppets as co-stars, and he and the other human actors found it a little difficult to take them seriously due to how silly and cute they looked. The puppeteers for Seamore and Strawbetty (who Bill has sadly forgotten the names of) had a habit of staying in character on set even when the cameras weren't rolling. This seemed to result in the side effect of the actors empathizing and bonding with the puppets to a degree where they felt bad about having to act threatening and be mean to them. Reportedly though, Strawbetty (or rather Strawbettys puppeteer) assured them that "its alright, we're just pretending after all!" While this fact is somewhat cute, it’s also kind of sad the actors felt sympathy for the puppets but not for the human union workers they were helping to defame.
Click image above to download the script
The front page of an old script. The title reads “Bartlebee Brands educational PSA. Beetrice teaches: About Unions.” The date and author have been redacted. Written in pen is the name of actor Bill Pynes.
