User reviews

The human courtship ritual is a veritable minefield riddled with hidden explosives and tattered fragments of cardiac tissue. I was feeling lost, unsure as to how to approach that "special girl". Thankfully, director Ted Peshak had already catered for my social inadequacies. 'What to Do on a Date (1951)' is a Bible of essential information for any love-sick adolescent. A date needn't be expensive, the film tells us; just take your Juliet to a scavenger sale. Yes, that's right, to help set up. (Woohoo, free manual labour!) As we might expect, based on our experience with reality, the date goes very well. So well, in fact, that manly hero Nick scores himself a second date, with Kay agreeing to attend a dubiously-named "weenie roast." So... now that I've got the full dope: who wants to help me set up a garage sale next Friday?

'What to Do On a Date' is a title to probably make you smile already. I can assure you, everything in it will bring a smile to your face as well. But it is not the smile a film wants. Here you do not smile because the guy actually gets the date with the girl he likes, the way it is supposed to be, but because it is so stupid.

We see a shy teenager asking a girl on a date after his friend has persuaded him. The girl agrees and while they are on their first date (together with at least ten other friends) the guy wonders what the girl would like for a next date. Funny stuff. The acting in terrible films like this is quite hilarious as well. Although I rate it poorly, I had fun watching it. For the wrong reasons that is.

We follow a young man named Nick, who is aided by his savvy friend Jeff in getting a date with the cut girl next door, named Kay. Of course, to modern eyes, this film seems completely ridiculous, but in 1951 times were much simpler and a "weenie roast" wasn't something people snickered over.

Nick seems to be a socially immature, penny pinching teen who gets dressed by mom in the morning. His friend Jeff carries himself with supreme confidence and seems to realize that dating isn't a bunch of complex games. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll thank MST for being there the whole way.

2'd mostly because the acting is truly laughable, the only person who seems to know how to act here is Jeff.

Man, girls sure scare me. I mean, I like them and all; they sure are swell, but I just don't know what to do or say when they're around. If I see a girl I like, how do I ask her out? And if she says "Yes" (Hey, hope springs eternal, right?), then where do I take her? What do we do on a date? My own ideas of shopping for roofing nails or going to the supermarket and playing with the electric doors always fall flat. Fortunately for me, and all the other socially-challenged basement-dwelling geeks out there, this film exists to instruct in the ways of social interc-, er, interaction.

In this film, Nick, a gangly, goofy, but good-natured young fellow, yearns for the wholesome Midwestern affections of Kay, the wholesome Midwestern girl next door. He's in the same mess I am - how to convince Kay that being seen in public with him would not be the social suicide she fears it is? Nick's smirking know-it-all buddy Jeff is ready with lots and lots and lots of condescending and unsolicited advice. Soon Nick and Kay are hitting the town, going to all the hottest and hippest scavenger sales around. They seem to be on track to live happily, wholesomely and Midwesternly ever after.

This instructional short from the early 1950's is a corny, but sweetly affable example of the genre. And that Kay sure is a cutie. Rrrrrowwrrr!

After shocking the world with the ground-breaking "Appreciating our Parents", director Ted Peshak returned with his most controversial work, "What to do on a Date". This film stunned audiences with it's brazen sexuality and the use of the word "Weenie". Impotent man-child Nick ignores social mores and takes nebbishy girl-toy Kate on a white-hot date organizing the local rummage sale. Dusty lamps, Cokes, and streamers lead to hot, hot lovin'.

Peshak was ostrasized from the directing community for this brave, electrifying work which dared to combine fantasy and reality and pubescent yearning. He tried to curry the public's favor with more pedestrian efforts like "Improve your Personality" and "Good Table Manners", but nothing doing. "What to do on a Date" branded him a nonconformist, and Peshak died, alone and penniless, in a Hollywood dumpster (reviewer's speculation).

The following is more of a summary of the movie than a review:

In "What To Do On A Date," Nick, a lovesick dork who sounds perpetually constipated, wants to go on a date with Kay, whose status as a member of the fairer sex is confirmed when she needs Nick's manly help to nail a paper elephant to a rafter. Nick calls up Kay, and asks her if she wants to go see a movie on Friday night. But Kay knows that in the darkness of the movie theater, Nick might put his arm around her shoulder or hold her hand, and that would cause their swell little fifties white suburban world to implode, so she rejects him. Fortunately, our flustered hero has some help from his smooth best friend Jeff and a fifty-year-old's Authoritative Disembodied Voice, who clearly knows what all the teenagers are into. They suggest all sorts of sanitized dating ideas for Nick and Kay, most of which involve doing things in a group so the teens can frustrate themselves trying to suppress their hormonal urges. Nick and Kay talk about various dull, non-sexual dating scenarios and Nick discovers a great pick-up line in the process: "Say, you like to do lots of things, don't ya?" Nick asks Kay if she'd like to go for a bike ride or a weenie roast or a bowling party or a baseball game or a taffy pull next Friday, and here we reach the climax of the movie: will Kay go on a second date with Nick, or will she dump him for somebody who's not such a loser, or will she spend Friday night listening to the Authoritative Disembodied Voice tell her about the importance of home economics? Will Nick continue to have a bland and asexual relationship with Kay, or will he find true friendship and companionship with Jeff, or will he become celibate and devote his life to nailing paper elephants into rafters?

But still, the fact that a socially inept loser like Nick can get a girl to go to the community center to set up a garage sale on a first date should give the rest of us hope.

More fun thanks to MST and daydreamers of the 1950's. Gangly oaf Nick can't get the nerve to ask Kay out on a date. She's seen Wagon Train already and will not see it again. Nick's friend suggest a scavenger sale with cokes, streamers and paper elephants. Most people see this as geeky, but this means one thing that should make guys happy, KAY IS EASILY ENTERTAINED!! She also likes taffy pulls and weenie roasts too. And she doesn't mind if the guy is cheap. THIS IS FANTASY!! Where are these women? Unfortunately we don't get to see Nick and Kay's future adventures and these taffy pulls, bike rides, Bali puppet shows and illegal border crossings. One can speculate that they live happily ever after magically not having sex yet having lots of children!!

Such as this one. While it was nice and cute in the 1950s, and reflected the morals of the time, today it is viewed as an antiquated piece of dated trash. I found it to be rather so-so. Not bad, but not great either. The story about Nick and his nerves on choosing a date is a timeless one, but how the story is handled is quite dated.

Man, if only I could have dated a hip, cool dude like that gawky teen! Think of the fun we miss these days... weenie roasts, bike rides, and tacking paper elephants to ceilings. This "how-to" film really sets the tone for squeaky clean fun. I just wish they'd made a sequel... "What To Do on Your Second Date"

Nick's in a situation most of us have experienced: he's got a crush on a cute girl but he's too nervous to do anything about it. A little push never hurt in a situation like this, and Nick's friend Jeff is there to goad him into asking Kay out. Before Nick realizes it, he and Kay are off to help set up the local scavenger sale at the community center.

During Nick and Kay's Big Night Out, the helpful narrator gives advice on the types of dates young couples might find enjoyable and appropriate. It seems this community center keeps a running list of activities that Nick realizes would be good date fodder, and how he failed to know about it before is anyone's guess.

There was no community center list of activities when I was dating. I was on the hook to come up with my own events, so I was less interested in the advice this short had to offer than I was in the way they presented it.

Most fascinating is Nick, our leading man and the audience's surrogate on this journey. With his dopey speech and general childlike demeanor, Nick seems to exist in a perpetual state of bewilderment. He probably tested just over the intelligence threshold for public education. I suspect Jeff promised Nick's mother back in first grade to take Nick under his wing and keep him out of trouble. That would explain Jeff's condescendingly paternal attitude toward Nick, a position of power he seems to enjoy. Rather than taking comfort in this association like Steinbeck's Lenny, however, Nick senses he's being patronized and pushes back. Their whole "friendship" seethes with passive- aggressive animosity.

Nick also evinces neediness in virtually every situation. Once the date with Kay is scheduled, Nick begins badgering Jeff with questions about the scavenger sale. He asks Kay several times if she is having a good time, if she's glad she went out with him, etc. I was no ladies' man in my single days, but even I knew that bugging your date for constant affirmation is a good way to inspire her to end the night early.

Nick pushes hard for that second date, despite the fact that Kay really doesn't seem to be much of a catch. She puts the kibosh on the movie he invites her to because she's already seen it. When she gets called away at the scavenger sale, she goes! No "Sorry, I'm with Nick, who invited me here," she just leaves him there with a hammer dangling in his hand. You can hear the "Where did I lose control?" in his voice as she disappears into the kitchen.

I suppose teenagers in the early 50's might have been inspired by this flick to think outside the box when planning a date. I hope it didn't give them the idea to stumble around like someone only dimly aware of his surroundings, constantly at the mercy of others.

I've only ever seen the MST3k version and it's wonderful, but I think even standing alone, "What To Do On a Date" has entertainment value that far outstrips its intended purpose.

Yes, "What to Do on a Date" is the typical "educational" short made during the oh-so-innocent 1950s (which of course means that everyone is a bunch of wholesome white people). In this case, a geek can't figure out how to ask a girl on a date and needs guidance. Quite frankly, anyone who takes this movie as guidance will probably have a lot of trouble on a date.

Has this film no redeeming qualities? Far from it. "Mystery Science Theater 3000" showed it, and the Satellite of Love viewers had lots of fun tearing it apart. Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank may try to torture Mike/Joel and the 'bots by showing them this swill, but they're no match for the jeers and heckling.

There is a sequel to this called More Dates for Kay. It's bizarre beyond reason. Enjoy!

Here's another of the hundreds, if not thousands of Coronet short films that used to play at school between final exams and vacation, or occasionally when you got a substitute teacher who had no idea of what the class was about. Call the audio-visual squad to come by and put this on, and then, if you're lucky, ask the students what they liked to do. This one would cause a lot of embarrassment when I was in middle school.

Like most of them, this seems like it was aimed at middle class children who had no social skills at all. With its peppy narrator enthusing about weenie roasts, and teen-age inability to say "I would rather do anything than that," it guaranteed a dating life that would be an absolute misery.

From the 1950s... it's the typical "How To...." educational film from the days of Stop, Drop, and Roll, or how to be a good human, also known as Big Brother is Always Watching!

the goofy high school students share these awkward moments about how to do things in every day life. It's SO dated, basic, and awkward, it's campy now. We watch as they set up a sock hop, or whatever they are doing. The narrator talks about hanging around in groups, so clearly this would avoid any personal, one on one romantic contact. Apparently, Jeff (Robert Casey) didn't dig the hollywood scene... he disappeared after just three small roles. No other cast listed. Directed by Ted Peshak, who made a ton of these educational short films during the 1940s, 1950s. Pretty droll stuff. This one is shown on Turner Classic Movies, and sometimes as a quick short shown on Mystery Science Theater episodes. Yawnnnnn.....