It the 4th of July — Independence Day — and here in these United States of ‘Murica, that means fireworks. And the annual intentionally disturbing, unintentionally funny safety video from the CPSC, short for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The folks at Gizmodo have taken the most visually arresting bits from the CPSC video and turned it into 1-minute, 29-second “highlight reel”, complete with an added Muzak soundtrack:
I can imagine the planning meeting for the video:
CPSC official 1: We need to demonstrate how a bottle rocket can take someone’s eye out in a way that’s presentable to the public, yet gruesome at the same time, and doable with homemade special effects.
CPSC official 2: How about we use some twine or fishing line to guide the bottle rocket to a mannequin’s eye?
CPSC official 1: That’s a good start, but I need more gore. Tasteful gore.
CPSC official 3: I’ve got it! We scoop out one of the mannequin’s eyes…
CPSC official 1 (sitting forward in chair): I’m listening…
CPSC official 3: …and we put a raw egg in the resulting eye-socket!
CPSC official 1: GENIUS! Make it happen! Now remember that we’ve only got an afternoon to do it, and our budget is twenty bucks.
If you’d much rather watch the official video, complete with English and Spanish soundbites from official-looking people and “B-roll” for news organizations who need some additional video shots, here it is: