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Friday, March 11, 2016

The Reagans Speak Out On Drugs (1988)



Done using 16mm film, this parody of the Reagans' "Just Say No" campaign is one of the earliest film mashups. VHS video copies were later distributed, and in the early 1990s it was screened on cable-TV and at many festivals in the U.S. and around the world. In 2005 shortly after YouTube was launched it became one of the first viral videos (although all previous postings were unauthorized*), and it helped define and popularize the political mashup meme category, and is considered a pioneering remix video. This all-new digital transfer of "The Reagans Speak Out On Drugs" was created to commemorate the film's 25th anniversary. "The Reagans Speak Out On Drugs" was created by filmmaker Cliff Roth.

Cliff Roth is an American filmmaker best known for a 1988 parody of the Just Say No anti-drug campaign called "The Reagans Speak Out On Drugs." The short re-edits footage from a presidential address by Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan to suggest they are inaugurating a pro-drug campaign. The audio from that film was sampled by Black Grape for their 1997 song "Get Higher."

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