The directorial debut and to date only directorial project
of scriptwriter/director Jamie Donahue, seen below, a woman generally seen on
the screen in low-budget independent productions like Cellblock Sisters:
Banished behind Bars (1995 / trailer),
Stop It, You're Killing Me (2000 / trailer) and
the abysmal The Dead Hate the Living!
(2000 / trailer).
Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer premiered at Sundance and went
on to tour the world before, like so many short films, falling off the face of
the earth. A persiflage of the ancient educational flicks our teachers used to
kill time when they were too hungover to teach — see One Got Fat: Bicycle Safety (USA, 1963),
the Short Film of the Month for June 2012; A Day in the Death of Donny B. (USA,
1969 — starring an uncredited Jim Kelly), the Short Film of the Month for February 2012;
and Boys Beware (USA, 1961),
the Short Film of the Month for September 2013, for three notable and real examples
— Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer takes a look at the 1950s family life of young Billy
(Spencer Daniels, of The Midnight Game [2013 / trailer],
California Scheming [2014 / trailer] and Wolves at the Door [2016 / trailer]).
Given the homework assignment of writing about what he wants to be when he
grows up, young Billy turns his eye to the world around him.
As Gay Celluloid
puts it, the short is "laced with more double entendres than a host of Carry
On films and […] proudly proclaims that Billy's dad (Robert Gant of Teaching
Mrs. Tingle [1999 / trailer]
and The Thinning [2016 / trailer])
is a fudge-packer! […] Yes you've guessed it, for this parody of the
educational films of the period has clichéd jokes abounding left, right and centre.
All of which works well, given it is but a send-up of the wholesome image of
the traditional '50s family unit and in particular the view as was then, of a
woman's place in society. Thankfully the cast play the whole scenario
'nudge-nudge, wink-wink' style, lapping up the seemingly endless series of
sexual innuendoes and visual gags. Politically correct or incorrect — you
decide […]."
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