Because educational films are designed to hold the attention of students or employees while driving home simple messages, much of the fun of watching them derives from reconnecting with what previous generations found entertaining. The shorts on Fantoma's Educational Archives DVDs span five-plus decades, and though they allow plenty of opportunity for good-natured snickering at outmoded fashion and the stiltedness of industrial-film acting, it's surprising how often these little cinematic lectures induce a pang of nostalgia—either because they present a quaint vision of American life or because they look and sound so much like old episodes of My Three Sons or The Rockford Files. Ephemera collector Skip Elsheimer began making his stash accessible on DVD last year with the first two volumes of the Educational Archives series, Sex & Drugs (an assortment of hygiene and just-say-no films) and Social Engineering 101 (films about etiquette and the pathways to self-esteem). This year brings volume three, Driver's Ed., featuring shorts about safety and the dangers of drinking and driving; and volume four, On The Job, which ranges from sermons about proper office behavior to lectures on how to prevent accidents. Strung together, the mini-movies offer a sketch of America in transition. The level of legal intoxication drops between Driver's Ed.'s "Highball Highway" and "Alco Beat," while the increasing number of women in the workforce informs On The Job's "The Trouble With Women" and the danger-of-gossip illustration "The Grapevine." The simple tract housing in the background of "Safety Belt For Susie" and "The Talking Car" gives way to the elaborate, gaudily decorated suburban manses of "The Last Prom." The background music gets funkier as the films become more contemporary, and the style of the presentations changes from the stark, set-bound morality plays of the '50s to the character-heavy dramas of the '60s and '70s, with their emphasis on location shooting and Godard-esque editing technique (and their avoidance of stentorian narration). Volumes three and four add a "classroom experience" feature—an alternate audio track that mimics a faulty projector through distortion and clatter—but the fake noise doesn't have the fragile beauty of the actual celluloid scratches, pops, and fades which survived the digital transfer. The decay is appropriate for the plotlines of these old industrials, which someone once described as like Leave It To Beaver episodes gone horribly wrong. (Tonight: Ward's DUI conviction.) The television reference is appropriate: These films were made more palatable to students and workers by directors who made their lessons, and life itself, more like television.