It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

How do you prep a kid in the modern age for this film? One of the radical differences in the way we consume entertainment today than how we did from the sixties through the eighties is that it’s perfectly understandable that a kid could reach the age of ten without knowing who anybody in this silly and hilarious epic is. I think I must have been about twelve when I first saw It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on HBO around 1983. My dad saw it in the monthly program book and cancelled all potential plans; we were watching that movie. And then, I remember being amazed because I knew who so many of the actors were. Him! Her and him! That guy! Milton Berle! The millionaire from Gilligan’s Island! Mearth from Mork & Mindy! The mechanic from The Love Bug!

Today? The only reason any kid would know any of these jokers is if their parents are showing them entertainment from the past. Choices were so limited then that when we wanted to watch TV, we often settled. We were often pleasantly surprised and amused, but kids today get to watch whatever they want whenever they want – which is how it should be – while we grew up watching whatever we thought was the best of the eight or nine options available. So occasionally we’d run into Jerry Lewis or Mickey Rooney or Peter Falk or Sid Caesar or Edie Adams or Ethel Merman or Terry-Thomas or Jonathan Winters or Phil Silver and be happily entertained, but what we really wanted was for somebody to make TV shows where Spider-Man and the Hulk fought actual supervillains and had them on demand to watch whenever we wanted. Kids today have that. The comic heroes of the past will be lost to time. Nothing lasts forever.

(A question went around on Twitter yesterday, one with which we were sometimes confronted: The Andy Griffith Show or The Beverly Hillbillies? The answer, of course, is “the sweet, merciful embrace of death.”)

So what prep work was there for our son? Well, I told him that he saw Terry-Thomas as Cousin Archie in a Persuaders! we saw recently, and he was sure to remember Milton Berle being heckled offstage by Statler and Waldorf in one of the finest moments in all of The Muppet Show, and…

…and he’d just have to trust me, because one of the most amazing things about Mad World is just about every speaking part in the movie is played by somebody that audiences in 1963, 1973, 1983, probably 1993 knew. In 1983, my dad had forgotten that the two service station attendants who briefly bedevil Jonathan Winters were actors even he knew. I remember him saying “That’s Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan!”

The other bit of prep work that I could do was remind him of the Three Stooges. You never know how this kid’s memory works. I picked up the complete DVD set some time back, but we’ve only seen a few, and it’s been a while, so we sat down to “Three Little Beers,” the one with the press, press, pull gag, yesterday afternoon. He about lost his mind, and I reminded him that there is absolutely no situation that the Stooges cannot make far, far worse. Had to make sure to set up their brief appearance here.

I’m confident anybody reading this is familiar with the movie, though it’s possible you may not be aware of how much antipathy there is in the movie snob world about it. A few months ago, when I got interested in the Criterion Collection again, I read the World thread at their forum and was surprised to see it get so much hate. I think it’s absolute slapstick joy myself, and the kid, dying of laughter, completely agreed, but you see Dorothy Provine in the center of the top picture, finding this whole thing unamusing if not disgusting and ready to call the police to round up these greedy jackasses? That’s my wife, that is. She didn’t come back from the intermission.

Never mind the haters. Watch this movie with a kid. Prep them as best you can beforehand so they’ll know what pay phones are, and let it rip. They’ll probably miss a few of the gags, like Spencer Tracy making his decisions, or Berle’s face when Merman asks where she should stick a cactus, but Silvers’ car and Winters at the garage will have them howling. It’s a little dated, and I suppose it will one day be forgotten, but until then, it’s sure to make me laugh so hard that my left eye will still be hurting an hour later. You probably don’t need the five-disc version, but as Mark Evanier, one of the contributors to the commentary track, will tell you, the two Blu-ray Criterion will do you just fine. See you at the Big W.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.15 – Chopper

The reality is that no television episode that credits David Chase, Bob Gale, and Robert Zemeckis among its co-writers can possibly be a flop, but “Chopper” sports such a flat resolution that it disappointed me massively all those years ago and never recovered. I just remember it as the one with the credibility-straining monster of the week.

But for younger viewers… “Chopper” scared the wits out of our kid from the headless biker’s first appearance and never relaxed. “I am scared out of my skull,” he bellowed early on. I said “That’s funny, because he doesn’t have one.” He protested that he knew, and that was the problem. Afterward, when asked whether this was the most frightening episode of Kolchak, he not only insisted that it is, but it occupies a rare position alongside the New Avengers installment “Gnaws” as the scariest thing he’s ever seen, and he was similarly emphatic tonight that he will never, ever watch this story again.

Joining the frights this week, Jay Robinson and Jim Backus both have single-scene roles. Robinson is as amusingly over-the-top as ever, but Backus, who had such a reputation of scenery chewing, is pleasantly restrained and human as a Navy vet working as a motorcycle salesman. And the story deserves more than its “woeful effects” reputation because it ranks as Kolchak’s biggest win yet. Not only does he defeat his supernatural foe, but this week’s cop who’s had it up to here with our hero, played by Larry Linville, gets busted down to sergeant and reassigned to traffic for bungling the case so badly. Sure, he didn’t get a story on the wire, but two out of three’s great for Kolchak.

Ark II 1.13 – The Cryogenic Man

I’m again impressed by the guest casting on this show, with actors you wouldn’t expect would show up on a kids’ sci-fi series. This time, it’s Jim Backus and John Fielder. Both men played dozens of roles in the seventies. Fielder, apart from everything else he did, was a regular patient on The Bob Newhart Show and had a recurring part as Gordy in Kolchak: The Night Stalker, but he’s probably best known as the voice of Piglet for Disney. Backus had also been in everything, and had worked for Filmation before on an episode of The Ghost Busters the previous season.

In this episode, they play men from the distant past of the 1980s who had been cryogenically frozen. Backus is, of course, the rich guy and Fielder his subordinate. Backus is unethical, doesn’t understand ecology, and thinks the Ark II crew are a bunch of bureaucrats.

Pete’s Dragon (1977)

This morning, we sat down to watch another very long Disney film with our son. Like Bedknobs and Broomsticks, this is a movie that has been recut and edited several times in multiple releases. We watched the current cut, which is pretty long at 129 minutes. There are longer and shorter versions in circulation as well. It really did test Daniel a little bit, but he was very brave. I was afraid, given his history, that the scene where the villagers and fishermen of Passamaquoddy try to capture the dragon, whose name is Elliot, would frighten him, but he did just fine.

Pete’s Dragon is a collaboration between live-action director Don Chaffey, who was behind all sorts of interesting stuff, from Jason and the Argonauts to some late-in-the-run episodes of The Avengers, and Don Bluth, who had just finished work on Disney’s fantastic The Rescuers. That’s actually one of my favorite Disney films of all time, by the way, and we’ll definitely watch it for the blog some time in the future. The main human stars of the film are Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, and newcomer Sean Marshall, and they’re opposed by the villains played by Carry On star Jim Dale and Red Buttons. Jim Backus and Shelley Winters also appear in smaller roles.

But the real star of the movie is Elliot, who is just terrific. I’m aware of the remake that will be released later this summer, and as much as I pretend to judge films on their own merits, that movie will sink or swim based on how well they do all the tics and grumblings and oddball little grunts that Charlie Callas gave the original Elliot. All things being equal, it’s actually a pretty strange little vocal performance, but I just adore it.

Daniel was completely charmed by the movie, as hoped. He loved all the slapstick comedy and Elliot’s funny facial gestures, and most of the songs – good gravy, there are a lot of ’em – and while he’s been on better behavior and still wanted to roll around on the sofa a lot, he did mostly very well. His favorite part was when Shelley Winters and her hillbilly gang get dumped in tar. “I love it when people get covered in tar!” he tells us.

I was surprised to learn that this film isn’t better remembered. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is a lowly 48% at present, which is a real stunner. Many writers agree that it runs too long, but here’s the thing: I think it’s at least a song and a half too long, but nobody’s going to concur what should be cut. I’d be tempted to edit away the hillbillies’ first number, but watch with a kid and see how well that plays with the child. The very first shot of the movie is Pete somehow floating into a wooded clearing, instantly establishing the magical premise, and that first musical number starts inside of two minutes. I don’t know whether Don Chaffey was actually given a document entitled “How to Immediately Hook a Five Year-Old,” but it sure feels like it.

I’d also cut “Candle on the Water,” regardless of it being nominated for an Academy Award. Like “Cheer Up Charlie” in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, it stops the movie dead in its tracks. It’s a nice little song, I suppose – it wouldn’t be out of place between Steely Dan and Michael McDonald on the soft rock radio in your doctor’s waiting room – but quite fast-forwardable in a picture this long.

So while it’s certainly flawed, it’s nevertheless a very good film. Jim Dale is a really entertaining villain, and Helen Reddy is a great emotional anchor. Sean Marshall isn’t great, but the list of most aggravating kid stars has many dozens of names before you reach him, and Elliot, all pudge and funny expression and tic-tic-tic burbles, would have been watchable and impossibly charming regardless of who was in it.

And no, those weren’t tears streaming down my face when Elliot tells Pete goodbye. You stop that slander right now, you hear?

The Ghost Busters 1.13 – The Vikings Have Landed

I found myself liking the show trope of the ghosts talking before they actually materialize and show themselves with this episode, because Erik the Red is played by the unmistakable Jim Backus, who was Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island and the immortal voice of Mister Magoo. So when he started yelling, I said “I know who thaaaat is…” Backus did quite a lot of kid-friendly work in the 1970s in addition to prime-time roles. His time on Gilligan made him high-demand from just about every producer in town. You never asked “What’s Jim Backus doing in a cheap show like this,” because he was in every show, regardless of budget or audience.

Daniel adored this episode, which has series-best hallway gags (all five principals end up colliding in the middle) and filing cabinet gags. The trick to the filing cabinet this time is that it has to be shoved from behind to open, and it’s bolted to an exterior wall. Fortunately, Tracy’s grandfather was known for climbing the Empire State Building. This leads to a completely unexpected gag when Tracy makes a second trip outside the building to walk around. I wondered what he was up to, and had a very good laugh when the gag pays off.

Joining Backus in this trip back from the afterlife is an actress named Lisa Todd as Brunhilda. Of course that’s her name; there aren’t any other Viking names for women on television. She doesn’t seem to have had a very long career, but she was a “Hee Haw Honey” for most of four seasons in the seventies.