The Gullibility Campaign (1976)

In 1976, the government informed citizens that gullibility was a contagious disease. The Dept. of Health warned that it was spread through the handling of so-called 'clever books' or by talking to people who were not approved by the state. Libraries, bookshops and schools closed overnight.

The department also disseminated the notion that gullibility could be inadvertently caught by coming into contact with airborne ideas. People were told to stay at home. One leaflet read: "All the information you will ever need will be presented to you via the state-controlled newspaper The Scarfolk Mail and the one and only state-run TV channel, which is decontaminated daily."

When the Dept. of Health realised just how successful the campaign was, it added that gullibility also led sufferers to forget serious crimes they had previously committed. This permitted the council to impose hefty fines and other arbitrary punishments (see poster above).

Scarfolk Mail Rub-On-Transfer News

In the early 1970s, local newspapers changed their publishing strategies. They stopped thinking of readers as interested parties keen to learn the latest news from objective sources. Instead, they thought of them as clients who consumed news to suit their lifestyles and, consequently, their unwavering ideologies.

Censoring and slanting facts soon degraded into outright fabrication and readers became conditioned to see only information that pandered to and confirmed their negative biases, so much so that newspapers such as the Scarfolk Mail realised that they no longer needed to provide actual content: Readers only saw what they wanted to see and comprehended what they wanted to comprehend.

Consequently, in 1972, the Scarfolk Mail started publishing editions with little or no content. Instead, it provided sheets of rub-on-transfers should the reader want to fill in the columns with their own jaundiced content. The Scarfolk Mail went on to win a prize for best reportage of the year, as voted by readers.

Unreleased Star Wars Merchandise Prototypes (1977)

Some claim that movies have become mere advertisements for their own merchandising and that even before a film is released the public has been overwhelmed by a tsunami of branded products, from toys to clothing, watches and perfumes; food and drinks to firearms and trafficked children.

The original Star Wars film was one of the first to capitalise on its merchandising potential by producing desirable, limited-edition toys that children (and their parents) could never afford. Even today, rare items such as the 1:1 scale, functioning Death Star can now reach upwards of £114 billion in auction, even more if it's still in the original box (batteries bought separately).

Back in 1977, SMS (Scarfolk Medical Supplies Ltd) desperately wanted to get on the Star Wars bandwagon and prepared a pitch for a series of potential tie-in products aimed at sick and other feeble citizens who are a drain on NHS resources. In addition to the product mockups posted above and below, there were also Darth Vader oxygen masks for asthmatics, X-Wing-X-Ray machines, Sith bedpans, and Chewbacca toupees. Even the slogan on the promotional catalogue reads: "Use the Forceps!" 

SMS were also very keen to tap the enormously valuable post-life demographic. For patients who didn't survive their medical conditions, there were mortuary items such as Greedo body bags, Jedi Embalming Materials and R2-D2 urns, all of which ensured that even after death it was impossible to escape exploitation by a movie brand.

Library Music LPs (1970s)

Library music is often used in television, radio and film productions. This low-budget, pre-written music is intended to convey particular moods to the audience. Entire LPs, named by theme and often in multiple volumes, are dedicated to a wide variety of moods and concepts such as 'business dynamism', 'modern leisure', 'relaxed terror', 'perky dismay' and 'unspecified uncertainty'.

The library music records presented here were found in the Scarfolk Council archive. Our files show that audio from them was included not only in many of Scarfolk's public information and infant indoctrination films, but they were also the soundtracks to party political broadcasts of the 1970s.

Library music was also used by large corporations in their threatening advertising campaigns, as well as the aggressive training and breaking of ineffective, altruistic employees.

Additionally, subliminal audio from releases such as 'Sound Frequencies to Induce Unconditional Obedience' (Music de Scarfolke, 1970) was broadcast on all local television channels on the hour, every 8 hours, for a duration of 3 seconds. It triggered in citizens the compulsion to stand at their open front doors and shout out confessions to thought crimes they had perpetrated during the day. Teams of social workers hiding in bushes and beneath cars recorded the confessions for later exploitation by the state. For example, up until 1979, a portfolio of each citizen's crimes was buried with him so that any outstanding sentences or punishments incurred in this life may be carried over into the next.

"Raingods" Children's TV Programme (1970s)

Rainbow was a popular daytime children's television programme in the 1970s. Yet very few people realise that it was originally pitched as an altogether different show called Raingods. Below are the only extant frames from the pilot.

Raingods introduced children to a pink, one-eyed, Aztec god of rain, Tlaloc, whose name translates as 'enraged niece of Bruce Forsyth'. Other characters included minor deities such as Tezcatlipocabungle, the bear executioner deity; Zippyloc, god of arrogance and poor dentistry; and Geoffrey the Devil.

Ultimately, a full series was not commissioned because it became apparent in the pilot that Tlaloc's fearful cohorts not only had to appease their vengeful god with sweet songs, but they also had to sacrifice live human children in his name.

In the first twenty minutes alone, two thousand children perished and the programme's producers received upwards of fourteen complaints from disgruntled parents and sweatshop owners.

The programme was soon thereafter redeveloped as the less malevolent Rainbow, Tlaloc was renamed George and the number of child sacrifices was reduced to an acceptable level.

"Violence On" (1970-1978)

This title screenshot is all that remains of 'Violence On', a children's TV programme that ran from 1970 to 1978. Each episode saw the programme's presenters encouraging children to push classmates out of windows, off high walls or from the saddles of seaside beach donkeys.

Another popular programme called 'Jail Fix It' gave children the opportunity to get their injuries treated in a psychiatric prison hospital by high-risk inmates who had to learn first aid as part of their integration back into society.
Each week, the children's decorated plaster casts (and, occasionally, unsolicited gang tattoos) were displayed in a gallery and a special prize was given to the child that had most amused the judges.