Learn in Media, Culture and Art

Intermission: Watch This Old, Ridiculous NYC Transit PSA Against Subway Graffiti

The NY Transit Museum Archives is unearthing past transit videos and posting them on YouTube. Don't Do It is a hilarious, stern, and utterly unrealistic PSA from 1988 reminding us that "graffiti-vandalism is a crime."

Finer points to admire: the music, the graphics, how the graffiti itself plays off the narration in an oh-so subtle filmmaker's flourish, the fact that the cop magically appears at the far end of the platform as if he walked up off the tracks, and best of all that he actually somehow runs fast enough to catch the faceless scofflaw even after we see his feet waddling along in slow pursuit.

Oh, 1988 New York, we don't miss you. But we miss your PSAs.

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