Telezonia (1974)
Four children want to invite their friends to a picnic, but they don't know how to use the telephone. Suddenly, the room goes dark and the phone becomes large enough for them to climb into. They walk through a tunnel and meet a man named Telly, who takes them into the world of Telezonia, where they are shown various kinds of telephones. They meet several costumed characters, such as Question Mark, who teaches them how to answer the phone; Q and Z, who show them how to use the phone book; and Exclamation Point, who teaches them how to place a call. By the time they leave Telezonia, they are full-fledged telephone users.
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Such a frustrating disappointment
Lack of good storyline.
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Just when you think short films from the '70s can't get any weirder, along comes Telezonia. I first heard about this short from FilmThreat's The Bootleg Files. Reading about the short is one thing; watching it is a whole different experience. The film was originally created by Bell Telephone to teach kids how to use the telephone (not the smartphones of today but the rotary dials and coin-operated pay phones of yesteryear), but when you see the four kids in the short, all look about ten years old and should know how to at least pick up the receiver and say "Hello". When the phone kept ringing, I wanted to scream, "Someone pick up the friggin phone! It's not that complicated!" These kids play dumb unconvincingly. Next thing you know, the yellow phone grows huge, the dial opens up, and the kids follow some effeminate manboy named Telly to watch phone operators, technicians, etc. do their jobs before heading to the abyss called Telezonia, where they get forgettable songs and a crash course in everything from phone manners to how to use the yellow pages, courtesy of humans dressed as a question mark, an exclamation point, an Rx symbol, a pair of parentheses, and the letters Q and Z. I'd love to know what the filmmakers were smoking when they were making this.