6 Handy Ways of Surviving A Nuclear Explosion

1. Duck and Cover (U.S. Public Service Adverts)



Well, if the U.S. Government said it would work, why would they lie? Obviously, nuclear explosion weren't quite as frightening in the 50's - traditionally, they're depicted by everything going into black-and-white for a moment, but everything on telly was already in black and white. So really, it was just like photocopying the world, but with the contrast turned up a bit too high. In an effort to emphasise just how true this advert is, we're also lead to believe that the creatures best equipped to survive a nuclear disaster are slightly camp turtles called Bert. Well, it makes a pleasant change from Giant Mutant Cockroaches, but I don't think there's a decent B-movie in it.


2. Become a Mutant that Worships the Almighty Bomb, before Setting it Off and Destroying the Entire World (Beneath the Planet of the Apes)

Seems a bit extreme, this. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is one of those movies that's really frightening to eleven year-old kids who a: lives in a time when they really do think that Ronald Reagan's going to blow up the world and b: doesn't like mutants. Watch it now, and it's just... stupid. Still, if I lived in a cave I'd probably start worshipping a big A-bomb, more out of boredom than anything else ('cos the only other boredom-relieving activity seems a bit less tempting when all the women look like that... although I still prefer her to Catherine Tate). There was an episode of Blake's 7 based on this premise too, although in Blake's 7 it wasn't an A-Bomb - it was a rocket-ship with some race-banks in it, or something. Which is probably the only time that Blake's 7 ripped off an idea, but made it slightly less depressing than the source material.


3. Become a Mindless Creature Incapable of Communication, Stalking Around Like a Zombie and Eating Raw Meat in a Post-Apocalyptic World (Threads)

And everyone thinks the defining moment of 80's television was Miami Vice. If Reeling in the Years performed any sort of public service, it was in dispelling the notion that the 80's was a world of pastel colours, big hair and shoulder pads; it was a grim, dismal world of unemployment and terrorism, set entirely to the soundtrack of The Smiths and Talk Talk. Well, that's what Reeling in the Years should have managed to do, but those recent McDonald's adverts seem to have missed the point. One of the problem's with nostalgia is that it ain't what it used to be (sorry) - people used to be nostalgic for real things, but now we become nostalgic about a consumerist phantasmagoria that never really existed, or certainly wasn't the main point. It's not roller disco wasn't the 1980's, just that there's no attempt made to put it in its correct context - namely, a desperation to escape a world that was drearily humdrum and devouring any shred of morality from its operating system.

(Besides - is Roller Disco really such a bad thing? Is it any more ridiculous than the system we have now, where DJs who call themselves 'artists' play mash-ups of Kelis and Beethoven's Fifth forever? Part of the reason Ecstasy's so popular is that you've got to be pilled up not to think to yourself "well, I suppose that's not a bad bassline, but it's been on for twelve sodding minutes now. Any chance you could play something else?")

Anyway, the bright 'n' bubbly 80's also gave us a visceral drama based on current fears of how the world's going to end, featuring a version of the near-future so horrific, so believable, that it traumatised millions of people. Nowadays, we can predict a near-future world equally horrific - no fuel, no heat, lethal weather conditions, flooding, religious war waging everywhere through the medium of terrorism, and millions of people dying senselessly as civilisation collapses... but we get The Day After Tomorrow. In the 60's they called horrifying films things like The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and The Day the Sky Exploded. That's drama. Instead, we get a film that might as well have been called Oh, Wednesday Week. Sorry, this entry's gotten too long, here's a shorter one.


4. Hide Behind A Jeep (Doctor Who: The Hand of Fear)

Yes, really. Nuclear explosions were much more gentle back then. The only possible rationalisation is that this must have been made by the same people as the Duck and Cover story. The most glorious, blissful moment takes place just before the selected picture; Sarah Jane Smith (who, back then, wasn't a slightly raddled old hag with a thoroughly unexpected son, and was rather alluring - even if she did dress up like Andy Pandy sometimes) is told to hold her nose and open her mouth, because the blast might perforate her eardrums.

Yes, really.

Disappointingly, she didn't reply "Look, I'm a few hundred yards from an imminent nuclear explosion, I think I could start fellating a field-mouse and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference." But I'll bet she thought it.


5. Hide in a Fridge

You'd really think I'd be able to get a picture of this on the net, wouldn't you?

Because 1950's fridges were lead-lined, thereby protecting from radiation. The heat of a nuclear explosion, hotter than the heart of the sun, is going to be stopped by... um... fridges are cold, right? The side-effect of this - according to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - is that you'll be catapulted several milesbefore emerging, slightly battered, without any fear of suffocation. This doesn't feel like a scene in the film, more or sort of writers disclaimer; if you can't handle the fridge bit, you might as well go home immediately. The result is that "nuke the fridge" is superseding "jump the shark" among certain people. Because, if you found the phrase "Jump the Shark" catchy, then you're very easily amused.


6. Shane Warne's Advertising Hair-Replacement Treatments Now. Bloody Hell, He's Sunk a Bit Low Since Giving Up Cricket, the Fat Aussie Git.

Nothing to do with nuclear radiation. But I could only think of five, and I like doing things in sixes.