This scene pops into my head rather frequently:
I was completely unaware that it featured Sarah Jessica Parker until now.
…and Paul Reubens is the voice of the spaceship!
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I find The Million Dollar Duck exclusion acceptable, so long as Howard the Duck stays in Lucas’ vault…
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My god: that song from “The Barefoot Executive” was in my head just the other day (or the “he’s gonna make it” part popped into my head out of nowhere while trying to make a green light) even though I hadn’t seen it since I was a full-on little kid, and I was trying to remember the title of the film, then stopped thinking about it until reading this.
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I saw “Zulu” a couple of times when I was at Junior School; not a Disney movie, and an odd choice for a Christmas Film at a Catholic School.
Did they also show you “Zulu Dawn”, said to cover a tike period before “Zulu” but not quite a prequel? It came out in 1971.
I don’t remember many movies in elementary school except shorts. Though we did go one afternoon to see “Oliver!” at the theatre.
one teacher read us “The Snow Goose” and another “Miracle on 34th Street” (those last days before Christmas holidays), and since they were made into movies, kind of like a movie at school. “Movies of your mind”. Another teacher played that famous recording of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”.
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The only reason I know about some Disney movies is because in the late seventies or early eighties the local paper ran comic strips related to them. So maybe “The Black Hole” and definitely “Condirman” and “The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark”
What seems to be misding here are the “lesser” films, that were maybe only seen on the show. The one about Hurricane Hannah, the one about the boy sneaking into the USA with his dancing Chiuaua, and “Run, Apaloosa, Run” which my sister really liked, but which turns out to be about tge dustant relatives in Washington State. If I saw a list, there’d be others I’d love to see.
Then there was that period in the late eighties or early nineties where Disney issued remakes. So at least one if the Flubber films got remade (twice, once with the guy from “Night Court” and then with Robin Williams). Kirk Cameron in a remake of “The Comouter Wore Tennis Shoes”, in reruns the local.listings often assumed it was the original and I’d get excited, only to be disappointed when I tuned in.
Then of course Disney wanted to broaden its appeal, but at a distance, so Touchstone came along, with films like Splash!
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Was lucky enough to snap up The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh when it was available on DVD. I love that movie, but Jibbers Crabst, it’s $500 now!
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It’s not even Disney setting the price, some vulture making money off limited copies.
It is Disney’s fault in that they don’t keep it in print, or even go like the Smithsonian’s Folkways material, “printing” on demand. Disney has gotten better, many films are now always available.
I use “vulture” because having watched Amazon more closely this year, I keep seeing thongs at goid prices which then the next week move to a third part seller with a much higher price. If “Smoke Signals” is $7.99 one week at Amazon and in stock, how does it get to $35 at a third party the next week?
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One of my teachers played us a record of Sounder, seemed to basically be the movie in audio form, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, ditto. This was actually in the ‘80s, so we were really in touch with the zeitgeist at my school.
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And apparently the Matterhorn bobsleds are based on Third Man on the Mountain. I was obliged to read Banner in the Sky in grade 6 and did not enjoy it at all; it was many years later before I learned it had gone on to inspire greater things.
You’d think a Frozen rebranding would be obvious, but I guess they still have some regard for some sort of tradition.
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Oh wow… I actually saw that film at some point in my childhood because it had a cat in it. I think even by my ultra-low childhood standards it was kind of dull but I enjoyed it because… cat. I totally forgot it ever existed.
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Be sure you aren’t mistaking it with “That Darned Cat!”, another Disney cat-vehicle.
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You must have liked “The Three Lives of Thomasina”, maybe even “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar”.
I don’t think I ever saw “Song of the South” but I know some of the songs, so maybe saw excerpts. I eveb found a commercial cassette ten years ago that either is a soundtrack album, or has some of the songs.
To give sone leeway to Disney, for a long time their live action movies were period pieces. Hence Robin Hood and Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyana, etc. Even Pete’s Dragon, released in 1977, was set in the early 1900s. It was only in the sixties when we saw topical movies like The Moon-Spinners and The Love Bug and the Dexter Riley films.
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Fun facts:
That Darn Cat is adapted from the novel Undercover Cat, which is a waaay better title, imho. The novel was co-written by someone named Gordon Gordon, and I’m smitten by that name.
The 1997 remake of the film was directed by Bob Spiers, who directed the highly-underrated flick Spice World plus the first 21 episodes of Absolutely Fabulous. Unfortunately, it lacks the debauchery of AbFab.
This leads me to believe that Disney should remake it a third time, but as Undercover Cat. The titular feline will be portrayed as a hard-boiled detective with an intense catnip habit, named “Gordon Gordon.” It’ll surely be a hit!
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Oh yeah. I had a home recorded VHS of “The Three Lives of Thomasina” that I watched regularly. Definitely watched “That Darned Cat” and liked it. I remember my mom being annoyed to no end by how much I watched “Fraidy Cat.” I think at some point she “lost” the tape, that poor woman.
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