One of the earliest films ever made is a silent movie from the 1890s about a child playing a trick on a gardener. Since then, children and young people have been the subjects of a wide spectrum of films – serious social dramas, heartbreaking tragedies, heroic adventures, and hilarious comedies. The pieces in this section reflect the complicated history of children on film.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Buster-Keaton.mp3 Author Kevin Shortsleeve Air Date 10/4/2001 Buster Keaton Transcript In the early days of cinema, when the only sound that came with a movie was provided by a live piano player, Buster Keaton’s films played to the amusement of all ages. For children, Keaton tumbled and crashed through rip-roaring […]
It’s the anniversary this week of the premiere of Disney’s animated musical Mary Poppins, and Kevin Shortsleeve has some thoughts about the brothers who composed the score for that film.
John Cech explores how Steven Spielberg’s new film, AI, taps into primal themes of children’s literature.
Here’s Kevin Shortsleeve to celebrate the birthday of a great, early animator: Rudolf Ising.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Blake-Edwards-and-the-Pink-Panther.mp3 Author Kevin Shortsleeve Air Date 7/25/2001 Blake Edwards and the Pink Panther Transcript In 1963 Edwards was directing a live-action film about a diamond called The Pink Panther, so named for a distinctive flaw in the center of the stone. This was the first of the film series involving […]
Author Kevin Shortsleeve Air Date 6/14/2001 Burl Ives Transcript If Burl Ives were alive today, he would be celebrating his ninety-second birthday – but the thing about Burl Ives, is that he possessed an ageless quality – he was a sort of perpetual jolly uncle; timeless, and forever fun-loving. Though his career was widely varied […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Balloons-and-the-Baron.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 6/6/2001 Balloons Transcript Yesterday, in 1783, the Montgolfier brothers in France launched the first balloon into the air. It floated up a quarter of a mile, and was carried by the wind for a mile, and before it landed, ten minutes later, it had […]
Author John Cech (read by Fiona Barnes) Air Date 6/5/2001 Wonderland on the Auction Block Transcript Tomorrow, Sotheby’s in London will be auctioning off nothing less than …. Wonderland itself — a unique copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (the title of the story before it became Alice in Wonderland), inscribed by its author, Lewis […]
Author Kevin Shortsleeve Air Date 5/29/2001 Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Transcript Most people recognize the name Ian Fleming as the author of the original fourteen James Bond novels. But Fleming is also remembered for another work, the well-known children s book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In 1921, when Fleming was twelve years old, […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/George-Washingtons-Mother.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 2/22/2001 George Washington’s Mother Transcript Today is George Washington’s birthday, an appropriate time to remember that the father of our country also had a mother — Mary Ball Washington. Her rather unconventional, and at times eccentric character is the subject of a new video […]