Most of the shorts that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" heckled are very dated but not necessarily creepy. Not so with "Junior Rodeo Daredevils". Less a look at a subculture than an excuse to put children and animals through hell, it's the sort of thing that probably couldn't have gotten filmed after the '60s (at least not in any country with animal welfare laws). It's enough to make anyone NOT want to attend a rodeo. This is just a horrendous disgusting movie.Sure enough, the Satellite of Love Crew has fun with it. Their narration DOES give an idea of what people would probably think if experiencing the events of the movie. It's the only way to enjoy this awful movie.

Man, how times have changed! If you believe what you see in Junior Rodeo Daredevils, it seems that in the 1940s, any crazy stranger could take your kid, strap him/her to some sort of livestock, and watch them get thrown to the hard ground. Oh what fun - child abuse as entertainment! What parent wouldn't want a broken neck or a ruptured spleen for their child? Instead of being brought up on charges, Old-Timer Billy Slater gets to sit back and enjoy the sight of children having their necks snapped. It did my heart good to see this crazy old coot laugh like a hyena as one child after the next received severe head trauma. Yes, Junior Rodeo Daredevils is certainly one of the most demented sights I've ever seen.Mystery Science Theater 3000 did a wonderful job with this short. The riffing possibilities were abundant and the guys took full advantage. Much of it is laugh-out-loud funny. On my MST3K rating scale, Junior Rodeo Daredevils gets a 4/5.

When I was a kid I put on my white cowboy hat, jeans, jean jacket, work shirt, bandana and boots and attended things like this. Yeehaw! At the time I wasn't fully aware of the cruelty that went into this so-called sport. Once I turned 15 I swore that I wouldn't be caught dead at one of these disgusting things, Junior or otherwise, ever again. I've kept that promise to myself.This short is itself predictable and boring. One thing I can't understand is why it was made, since most short films from its era were intended to be instructional (cf. "Cheating" and "Body Care & Grooming.") I guess it had appeal to the kids of the era.MST3K makes this one fun. Under no circumstances should ANYONE waste time on this without it.

This is a pretty darn creepy late 40s short taking place in the West (apparantly Texas) in the late 1940s. I'm really not sure if this is staged or faked, but a showing of it today would anger both animal and children's right activists. It begins with a couple of mischevious youngsters trying to prank a local psycho named Billy Slater by tying a tin can to his horse's tail. Billy catches them, lassos them, and is just about to hang them, but he has a last moment change of heart and decides to spare their lives and instead have them organize a junior rodeo, which is really far more sadistic. He has the kids make posters and then the whole town comes. It is a ghastly freakshow, as poor, innocent kids are thrown from the backs of raging broncos, trampled, maimed, and just plain humilated. It's just as bad for the poor animals as well, who are all humilated and tortured (especially the poor calves). Like Catching Trouble, another vaguely similar short (that also showed on MST3K) it was totally acceptable in it's time, but today would draw outraged crys from both the PETA and the children's rights groups. It was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and is lampooned quite hilariously. Along with Catching Trouble and Days of Our Years, this is one of the more disturbing of MST3K shorts.