For some reason, Ivygirl hit the age of 15 without ever seeing Mary Poppins. It was on ABC Family last night, so we watched it.
I got to enjoy it all over again just watching her reactions. She didn’t believe me when I told her Dawes Sr was played by Dick Van Dyke, the same actor who played Bert, so I told her to stick around for the credits.
When they started singing “Supercalifragilisticexpeallidocius” she yelled, “That’s where that word came from!” and when Mary said it backwards, she was delighted.
From “Tidying up the nursery” to the magical carpetbag to the medicine bottle to Mary powdering her nose with soot, my daughter loved it. She thought the ending was sad, but I told her Mary wasn’t there to be a nanny, she was there to get George more involved in his children’s lives. When that happened, her job was done.
I also found out she’s never seen The Wizard of Oz in its entirety…that’s on this weekend too.
The classics can be new again when you watch them with your children.
When our kids were little, on national holidays we used to have movie day. We’d stay in pj’s and watch videos (it was before DVDs). The rule was that each person got to pick a favorite, and everyone had to watch everyone else’s. That way, we exposed our kids to old black and white classics they’d never have watched, and they showed us what was current with them. It made for a fun, great, holiday… as well as exposing the kids to classics.
Right now my kids are watching Oliver!, which is a lot of fun. I got it from the library and figured my kids would enjoy the songs and dancing, and there’s a lot of excitement. We’ve just gotten to the part where Nancy is telling the gentleman that she can get Oliver back. My oldest now hates Fagin, to the point where she got out her karate staff and kept poking the TV with it! She’s never done that before. And I don’t think they can understand a lot of the dialogue in those accents.
OldestGirl is very sensitive about injustice and meanness and always wants to save everyone, and I guess Fagin is about the worst character she’s ever run into.
When we were in China for our 3rd adoption (7th kid), I scored with a Disney boxed set which included Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Lady & the Tramp, Dumbo, and a bunch of other stuff including vintage (B&W) Mickey stuff.
The girls went nuts about them, so we followed up with Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, etc. They sing the songs, act out the parts, and generally enjoy the crud out of every one of them. Our friends can’t understand why we encourage the old stuff–they’re letting their kids watch “High School Musical 2” several times a day. (Our kids watch TV, including movies, about 2 hours a week.)
The reason they’re classics is because a) they’re good movies and b) the music is so much better than anything currently available. C’mon, Somewhere Over the Rainbow? Best song ever written (and I’m a rock & roll freak). Julie Andrews singing vs. the HSM2 kids? No contest; not even close.
You want your kids to have culture? Let 'em watch Sound of Music and Wizard of Oz. Besides, then (in later life) they’ll get all the in jokes that movie makers put in for those of us who know the classics.
Fessie! How are the twins doing aside from the Grinch? They must be 4 now or something? My little ones are 2, 5, 6, & 9 these days. Sheesh, time flies!
You’ve blown my mind, woman! I have to go watch it again now, except I need to find a time when the tot is asleep, because she doesn’t like the movie one bit. How do I know? Because when I tried to show it to her, she kept repeating, “I don’t like this. I DON’T like this. Mama, I don’t LIKE this!” Sometimes sharing a classic with your kids needs to wait.
(We watched *Annie *instead, which worked pretty well. She declared Miss Hannigan “scary…no, silly…no, scary” and we skipped the whole Annie-in-peril scene at the end.)
