30m; U.S.
Directed by Peter Tewksbury
Starring Robert Young, Jane Wyatt & rest of the Father Knows Best cast

Tells the story of Springfield under the control of a tyrannical despot. The Father Knows Best TV series became such a part of American pop-culture that in 1959 the U.S. Treasury Department commissioned a 30-minute episode called “24 Hours in Tyrant land”, with all production costs paid for by the AFL-CIO and actors and staff contributing their talents. Never aired, it was designed to be distributed to schools, churches and civic groups to promote the buying of savings bonds. (This very rare episode is on the Father Knows Best Season One DVD.)

“Unlike the weekly broadcast episodes of Father Knows Best, the point of this episode was not to entertain. No, the purpose of ‘Tyrantland’ was to save America from certain, inevitable communist rule via the sale of US savings bonds. The program’s sales pitch is a deadly serious and heavy-handed one. Its themes and morals are thickly applied, and now comes across quite quaint, if not downright silly. In short, Tyrantland has not aged well. But, it should be said, the film, perhaps due to the strong convictions and seriousness of everyone involved in its making, has not completely de-evolved into a laugh out loud, camp classic like Duck and Cover or Reefer Madness or other antiquated morality tales. Nevertheless, Tyrantland remains a powerful reflector of a profound national mood.”
– Cary O’Dell