Buried in the bowels of the Pentagon Channel – or, perhaps, other delicate areas – is this long-forgotten sexual-health warning to sailors. In the form of a cartoon. Starring a vampire.

Yes, the Navy once saw fit to describe the hazards of syphilis to young sailors using the menacing bite of Count Spirochete (gross), an undead, ever-predatory monster representing one of the more potent venereal diseases. (Or so we remember from health class.) At excruciating length, the count takes viewers on a multi-continent tour of the history of syphilis, all in an edu-taining cartoon. That's right: In the 1970s, the Navy produced the VD version of Schoolhouse Rock.

The video is weirdly modest about broaching the actual means through which the disease is transferred. The "age of exploration" in the Renaissance, for instance, is described as "a time of intellectual conquest, as well as other types of conquests" – while an unsuspecting soldier reclines in the embrace of a comely maiden, who certainly doesn't seem like she'd burn him. Let your imagination run wild.

This being the 1970s, for some reason the action starts out at an award show, as Count Spirochete wins the statue for Communicable Disease of the Year. For reasons only its creators can explain, Spirochete comes under fierce protest from a ball of goo representing Gonorrhea, who's fightin' mad that he was overlooked. But the academy representative explains that people die from syphilis. Did that get your attention, Vietnam-era sailor?

In truth, you'd have to not treat syphilis in order for it to kill you, and the film is pretty quaint in the era of AIDS. You'd think that sailors were sufficiently mature in the 1970s that they could take sexual precautions without the aid of animated bloodsuckers. But who knows: Maybe some sailor got scared into packing condoms into his wallet during a hard-earned liberty. It's the closest thing the Navy gets to the Chappelle Show's "Kneehigh Park" sketch. Thanks, Count Spirochete!

All this comes via the Pentagon's John Ohab, whose buddies at the Pentagon Channel found it while going through archival footage. Ohab says you can own your own VHS copy for just $55 if you act now through the Department of Commerce. It makes a great holiday gift for your sexually reckless and technologically backward friends.

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