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SMNTY Classics: All Them Witches · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't going to
0:07
Speaker 1: stuff I never told you production of I Heart Radio
0:18
Speaker 1: and this This is going to be a slew Samantha
0:25
Speaker 1: of which horror movie classics that we're gonna run during
0:29
Speaker 1: this month and I think it's a little bit into
0:31
Speaker 1: November because we have a lot of them. Surprise. We
0:36
Speaker 1: talked a lot about which is on this show. We
0:38
Speaker 1: love talking about it. So this first one was a
0:42
Speaker 1: double feature we did that actually changed my horror movie
0:46
Speaker 1: routine because, um, we did Practical Magic and which Is
0:51
Speaker 1: of Eastwick, both of which I had never seen when
0:55
Speaker 1: we did this one. Uh and now I watched Practical
0:59
Speaker 1: Magic every Halloween. Wait were those my choices? Yes? Yeah,
1:04
Speaker 1: I cannot believe I made to watch to watch which
1:06
Speaker 1: movies that are like that? That's amazing. I'm myself keep
1:10
Speaker 1: going as you should be as you And it's really
1:14
Speaker 1: funny because I introduced a lot of people to Practical
1:17
Speaker 1: and Magic, which I don't know why. It's just really
1:19
Speaker 1: resonated with me in my heart. We do a lot
1:21
Speaker 1: of like midnight margaritas when we watch it. I love it.
1:25
Speaker 1: It's very very fun. Yes, So please enjoy this classic
1:30
Speaker 1: episode Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to
1:39
Speaker 1: stephan Ever told you a production of I Heart Radio.
1:50
Speaker 1: So for today's question, I'm going to do it in
1:53
Speaker 1: the spirit of this episode. What what movie? Which children's
2:00
Speaker 1: movie do you think scared you the most? It was
2:05
Speaker 1: meant for kids, It was terrifying, it was meant for kids. Yeah,
2:09
Speaker 1: so I have a few, because I definitely had a
2:15
Speaker 1: giant imagination of things coming to get me in like
2:18
Speaker 1: insignificant things that shouldn't have been a big deal. And
2:21
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, hell no, Um, we're gonna be
2:23
Speaker 1: talking about one of the movies specifically for sure, so
2:26
Speaker 1: I'll leave that one. Yeah, for surprise. It was really
2:33
Speaker 1: but actually I wasn't a kid and it came on later,
2:36
Speaker 1: but it freaked me out. Was the Ernest Saves Helloway yea,
2:44
Speaker 1: those snotty trolls. I was thinking about this the other day.
2:47
Speaker 1: I was like, what other movies really freaked me out?
2:50
Speaker 1: And that was one of them, and I was like, why, why,
2:55
Speaker 1: why did that have to happen? And for for me,
2:58
Speaker 1: Like I actually watched a lot of really bad at
3:00
Speaker 1: nineties eighties horror movies growing up, and so I think
3:03
Speaker 1: I was with my teens preteens, we were doing that.
3:05
Speaker 1: We were being rebellious and watching like House of Wax
3:08
Speaker 1: and that stuff really scared me. But those were were
3:09
Speaker 1: supposed to be scary, and even though you know, on
3:13
Speaker 1: a scary stupid was supposed to be kind of scary,
3:15
Speaker 1: it would really freaked me out. Yeah. I can't really
3:20
Speaker 1: remember much about that movie, but I do remember being
3:22
Speaker 1: unsettled by it, so I don't think you're alone. Yeah. Look,
3:26
Speaker 1: they turned into treat people, they turn into like, yeah carving.
3:30
Speaker 1: It was weird, So what about you? Yes, uh, well,
3:35
Speaker 1: I've probably mentioned it before, but I have an entire
3:37
Speaker 1: list of what I call terrifying children's movies, and there's
3:40
Speaker 1: like twenty movies on there. And I was an interesting
3:43
Speaker 1: kid in that, Like I watched Nightmare on Elm Street.
3:47
Speaker 1: I don't know, for nothing, no fear, but like, the
3:52
Speaker 1: one that scared me the most was a little Nemo
3:55
Speaker 1: Adventures in Slummerland. What is that? I don't know, It's
4:00
Speaker 1: like comic, I think, um, but it scared me so
4:04
Speaker 1: badly I asked my dad to remove it from the house,
4:09
Speaker 1: like I would not have it, and so he like
4:12
Speaker 1: took it out and donated it and I haven't seen
4:15
Speaker 1: it since, but sometimes when I bring it up, people
4:17
Speaker 1: do you remember, and they remember it being very scary
4:20
Speaker 1: as a kid, and I definitely also on there is
4:24
Speaker 1: the secretive name that terrified me. Legend. I haven't seen Legend,
4:31
Speaker 1: but I it's It's I was on primary Thinking and
4:33
Speaker 1: I'm like, maybe it's time because has brought up Legend too. Yeah,
4:37
Speaker 1: I think you have talked about this before because Tim
4:40
Speaker 1: Curry as Satan the Devil one of the scariest scenes.
4:44
Speaker 1: I remember, like I'm still in his voice, deep and
4:47
Speaker 1: growling at you and you just knew that you were
4:51
Speaker 1: going to get eaten up. And of course it was
4:53
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise's first movie. I think we've talked about it
4:54
Speaker 1: on our show before. I think it was Cances and
4:57
Speaker 1: it was really baffling as a child and kind of
4:59
Speaker 1: like embarrassing to watch. I'm like, why is he handless? Well, yeah,
5:03
Speaker 1: that is very baffling. But speaking of Tim Curry, I
5:07
Speaker 1: actually recently we watched one on the list, freen Gully,
5:09
Speaker 1: which is not it does not hold up, but I
5:13
Speaker 1: can see why it scared me. And Tim Curry has
5:15
Speaker 1: a musical number in it, so it's worth watching. But
5:18
Speaker 1: and a dark Crystal. Oh my god. The Wizard of
5:21
Speaker 1: Oz too. Yeah, not the first one, the second one.
5:25
Speaker 1: I didn't gonna lie. Oh oh, it's all about depression.
5:29
Speaker 1: It's so upsetting, Like they don't believe that she went
5:33
Speaker 1: to OZ. So she goes through like a lecture, shock therapy.
5:37
Speaker 1: It's awful. Yeah, intense. Yeah, Rockadoodle. That one doesn't hold
5:47
Speaker 1: up either, but it scared me. Yeah, it's a fun
5:52
Speaker 1: a forest. All of these are pollution based children's movies. Yeah,
5:55
Speaker 1: we are you scared that the world was going to end?
5:57
Speaker 1: I did. I actually was really worried about that, and
5:59
Speaker 1: I had a whole list. When I was nine years old,
6:02
Speaker 1: I wrote my bucket list and most of it was like,
6:04
Speaker 1: if you read it now, it reads as though I
6:06
Speaker 1: thought the world was going to end it in any
6:07
Speaker 1: moment um. So I guess, well, we are talking about
6:16
Speaker 1: one movie that did scare a lot of children, because
6:19
Speaker 1: we're examining two movies today because it's coming up with
6:22
Speaker 1: my favorite season, which is Halloween. My favorite Well, I
6:24
Speaker 1: call it a season. You do call it a season,
6:27
Speaker 1: like you used what it was two weeks ago. You
6:29
Speaker 1: sent me an email saying, Okay, it's time. What are
6:32
Speaker 1: we gonna do for the Halloween specials? What horror movies?
6:34
Speaker 1: Alrea we gonna do? Like, let's get a whole months worth?
6:38
Speaker 1: And well, Paul is my favorite season and Halloween is
6:41
Speaker 1: my favorite holiday. Uh, And we talked about which is
6:43
Speaker 1: all the time, will take any opportunity to talk about
6:45
Speaker 1: which is. So today we're doing two movies that I
6:49
Speaker 1: would argue our children's movies but definitely scared a lot
6:52
Speaker 1: of people and are enjoyed by adults, hocus Pocus and
6:56
Speaker 1: The Witches. And then we're gonna have a conversation on
6:59
Speaker 1: depiction of which is in children's movies in general. Now,
7:03
Speaker 1: hocus Pocus didn't scare me. I know I've mentioned it
7:05
Speaker 1: on this show before, but I rented it from a
7:07
Speaker 1: Blockbuster so much as a kid that the guy I
7:12
Speaker 1: remember his face. He was like, you know what, you
7:14
Speaker 1: can just have it? Because I kept renting it and
7:18
Speaker 1: my parents refused. They were like, no, she can't, she cannot.
7:22
Speaker 1: How dare you? Don't you hand this too much? And
7:25
Speaker 1: my grandparents offered to buy it for me, and they
7:27
Speaker 1: also said no, don't give it to her, but behind
7:30
Speaker 1: their backs, I saved up my money and I bought
7:33
Speaker 1: it from the blockbuster guy at a really cheap price.
7:35
Speaker 1: I think he sold it to me for like two
7:37
Speaker 1: dollars um. And then I watched it so much my
7:41
Speaker 1: parents banned from the house and I did not rewatch it.
7:44
Speaker 1: So this was probably like eight to nine. I didn't
7:47
Speaker 1: real watch it again until college. It's a good movie.
7:51
Speaker 1: It's a good like. I loved it, and I love
7:54
Speaker 1: Bette Midler. You know this. Everything she does to me
7:57
Speaker 1: is just power house movie. It doesn't matter what it is. Like,
8:00
Speaker 1: I grew up watching her. She did one where she
8:03
Speaker 1: was twins with another one it was I just love
8:06
Speaker 1: a Big Business. It was called Big Business. Love that movie.
8:11
Speaker 1: But hello First Wives Club, Like I made you watch
8:13
Speaker 1: it because how much I love her as an individual,
8:16
Speaker 1: but then as a cast it's phenomenal. And yeah, hocus pocus,
8:19
Speaker 1: she makes that movie. Oh yeah, she's a delight to watch.
8:26
Speaker 1: And certainly, yeah stuff we're going to get into how
8:32
Speaker 1: it has become a cult classic and I certainly don't
8:34
Speaker 1: go a Halloween without watching it at least once. We've
8:36
Speaker 1: actually already watched it. Samantha and the Witches we did
8:40
Speaker 1: a double feature um, and apparently there is a Hocus
8:44
Speaker 1: Focus too in production. It's going to be a Disney
8:48
Speaker 1: Plus exclusive. I was very confused by it because there
8:50
Speaker 1: was a lot of back and forth over who was
8:52
Speaker 1: going to be in it. It was the original cast
8:54
Speaker 1: going to come back. I don't know. I guess maybe COVID,
8:57
Speaker 1: because this is right in March ounced it, so maybe
9:01
Speaker 1: COVID really got in the way because I couldn't really
9:03
Speaker 1: pin down any more details other than that. And there
9:06
Speaker 1: is a writer and a director on board, but I
9:09
Speaker 1: don't know, so I guess look out for that. There's
9:11
Speaker 1: also a board game. Um, I think it just came out,
9:16
Speaker 1: just came out really, yeah, like it's it was four Halloween.
9:19
Speaker 1: They were getting it ready, So there's a board game
9:23
Speaker 1: if that's your kind of thing. I really can't tell
9:24
Speaker 1: you much about the gameplay, but I like the cover
9:26
Speaker 1: of it. And there is a book. There's a book
9:30
Speaker 1: that analyzes the main themes of Focus Postcus, which the
9:33
Speaker 1: author identified as home nostalgia, festivity, horror, broadway, sibling rivalry, virginity,
9:40
Speaker 1: and feminism. It's called hocus Pocus in Focus. The Thinking
9:45
Speaker 1: Fans Guide to Disney's Halloween Classic by Aaron Wallace, And
9:50
Speaker 1: there's another book from Hocus Focus and the all new
9:53
Speaker 1: sequel that follows Max and Allison's daughter Poppy too. It
9:56
Speaker 1: sounds like she's trying to prove that the story they've
9:58
Speaker 1: told her isn't true. So she was to the Sanderson
10:01
Speaker 1: Museum and I'm sure nothing goes wrong, because nothing ever
10:03
Speaker 1: goes wrong. And then I says, I was thinking about this.
10:08
Speaker 1: I remembered that last August to August ago and it
10:13
Speaker 1: was last August. It was only a year ago. Oh
10:15
Speaker 1: my god, it feels like so long. It does. Um.
10:19
Speaker 1: Samantha and I were in Orlando for podcast conference and
10:21
Speaker 1: we went to Magic Kingdom and because it's Disney, even
10:24
Speaker 1: though it was August, uh, they were already celebrating Halloween, right,
10:28
Speaker 1: And we saw the Halloween special at Magic Kingdom and
10:31
Speaker 1: it was hocus Pocus based, and I just remember, like
10:35
Speaker 1: the entire crowd groaned when they said how old it was. Yeah,
10:39
Speaker 1: they literally said it's been thirty something years since we
10:41
Speaker 1: had last appeared, or something along on those lines. Twenty
10:44
Speaker 1: something years. And Lauren was with us from Savor, and
10:48
Speaker 1: the three of us looked at each other and I
10:50
Speaker 1: think I really had a moment of crisis. I was like, wait,
10:52
Speaker 1: what what just happened? And I had to count back
10:55
Speaker 1: to like prove, oh, no, that's not right, and then
10:57
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, it is. And I'm
10:59
Speaker 1: gonna say down now. Yeah. It was hilarious the grown
11:05
Speaker 1: that reverberated through the crowd. Why did they have to
11:09
Speaker 1: be specific and say it's been so many years sisters,
11:12
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what, Yeah, that they definitely were. I
11:16
Speaker 1: feel like they were messing with the crowd of that one.
11:19
Speaker 1: Um on the other side of the coin. I've also
11:23
Speaker 1: mentioned on this show how I never watched The Witches
11:25
Speaker 1: as a kid because we we owned it, but the
11:28
Speaker 1: cover terrified me. Um. But yes, Samantha has fixed that
11:33
Speaker 1: and I have now seen it. It's also on Netflix
11:35
Speaker 1: if you want to check it out. Is it on
11:37
Speaker 1: Netflix now? Okay? Because I just have my own copy.
11:40
Speaker 1: I have searched for a copy for years trying to
11:43
Speaker 1: find that movie, and I finally was able to find
11:45
Speaker 1: a copy and it was really expensive, surprisingly, not really,
11:49
Speaker 1: but like more expensive than the others. And I'm like, wow, okay, okay,
11:53
Speaker 1: And of course it's not like re digitally mastered or anything.
11:56
Speaker 1: It's just it is as bad as it was. You.
12:00
Speaker 1: I didn't know it then, but the way it was
12:01
Speaker 1: made whatever, But what did you think after seeing it? Uh?
12:07
Speaker 1: I really liked it. Uh. I loved Angelica Houston. I
12:10
Speaker 1: can see why it's scary, Like, Oh, my kids, it
12:14
Speaker 1: really scared them, not only in kind of the creepy
12:17
Speaker 1: puppet effects, um, but also getting into the history and
12:21
Speaker 1: who was behind this, it makes a lot more sense
12:24
Speaker 1: some shots because I was watching it and and I was like,
12:26
Speaker 1: this has the vibe of one of those really kind
12:28
Speaker 1: of creepy children British shows, kind of like a quiet, understated,
12:34
Speaker 1: ominous undertone that something's just off. Um. So yeah, No,
12:41
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. It was unsettling in a way
12:44
Speaker 1: I couldn't quite pinpoint. Um. And it is different in
12:48
Speaker 1: terms of while these are both children's movies, with which
12:52
Speaker 1: is in them, Hocus Focus is much more about like Bumbling,
12:55
Speaker 1: which is who want to live forever? Whereas The Witches
12:59
Speaker 1: is about which just who want to kill all children? Right?
13:03
Speaker 1: Like it's just about vehemently hating all children and getting
13:08
Speaker 1: rid of them in the world and how awful they
13:10
Speaker 1: are and they are nothing but evil. Yeah, and that's
13:14
Speaker 1: a pretty disturbing right when you think about it. Um,
13:18
Speaker 1: do you remember the first time you saw it. I
13:21
Speaker 1: can't remember the first time I saw it. I just
13:23
Speaker 1: know the emotions and being so freaked out. But like
13:27
Speaker 1: also it's just like and we'll talk a bit more
13:30
Speaker 1: like this all the rest of the films around that time.
13:32
Speaker 1: It's like, why does so much tragedy have to happen
13:34
Speaker 1: to make up a story? Especially for children? Children about
13:38
Speaker 1: to say it's true, it's true. I've been giving that
13:41
Speaker 1: a lot of thought lately. Actually. Okay, so let's right
14:00
Speaker 1: with hocus Pocus, which I feel like we really don't
14:02
Speaker 1: have to go into too much detail, but you know,
14:05
Speaker 1: we'll give an overview. Hocus Pocus was at Disney film
14:09
Speaker 1: directed by Kenny Ortega that stars Yes, Bette Midler, Sarah
14:13
Speaker 1: Jessica Parker, Kathy and Jimmy and thora birch Um. I
14:17
Speaker 1: mean right there, those are all women right in the
14:20
Speaker 1: main cast there. Even though the main story is about
14:22
Speaker 1: like the dude in theory, he really just is kind
14:25
Speaker 1: of not ends up not be like he carries the storyline,
14:29
Speaker 1: but he's not the storyline. Yeah, he's not what you
14:32
Speaker 1: remember about that movie for sure. It's a comedy that
14:35
Speaker 1: follows three witches, the Sanderson sisters, as they terrorize Salem, Massachusetts,
14:40
Speaker 1: one Halloween night. It also is the story of the
14:44
Speaker 1: older brother younger sister dynamic that kind of sibling rivalry.
14:47
Speaker 1: Is full of hijinks, talking cats, random musical numbers, and
14:52
Speaker 1: so much nineties, so so so much nineties. Lookt up.
15:00
Speaker 1: You got like the tight ice shakes. You've got this
15:03
Speaker 1: like running insult of kind of California liberalism, Hollywood l
15:07
Speaker 1: A judgment going on jabbos, which have you ever heard
15:13
Speaker 1: anyone called boobs jabbos in your life? Was that a thing? Yeah? Yeah,
15:17
Speaker 1: So to me, yabbos is very much like the valley
15:20
Speaker 1: talk that you hear of sometimes in the nineties and
15:23
Speaker 1: nineties were I think because you actually spoiler alert watched
15:28
Speaker 1: Heathers they say it in that too. Did they really?
15:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah they did? And I was like, yeah, yeah,
15:35
Speaker 1: I thought this was a totally made up thing. Wow, okay, um. Yeah.
15:44
Speaker 1: There's also this whole idea of virgin lighting the black
15:48
Speaker 1: than candle, which we're going to talk about more in
15:50
Speaker 1: a second. But I read a lot of essays about
15:52
Speaker 1: how if you yes, essays on this movie, if you
15:55
Speaker 1: really think about this is a Disney movie that's preoccupied
15:58
Speaker 1: with sex and a lot of ways. Uh. And apparently
16:01
Speaker 1: some people think Max did have sex at the end
16:04
Speaker 1: of the second act. Let's talk. Samantha's face tells it all.
16:11
Speaker 1: We'll get into that later too. Also, someone in my
16:13
Speaker 1: building's WiFi has named black Thing Candle and I love it.
16:16
Speaker 1: That makes me very happy. You need to be Yes,
16:20
Speaker 1: she's very u feminists, like a till by the bumper
16:23
Speaker 1: stickers on her car. And I finally got to meet
16:26
Speaker 1: her from a distance, and I think where we'd be
16:29
Speaker 1: very best friends indeed. Um. So when this movie came out,
16:34
Speaker 1: it did receive mixed reviews at best. Actually, I think
16:39
Speaker 1: on Raight Tomatoes it's got a twenty seven percent yes
16:43
Speaker 1: yes uh. And it lost money at release. Um, I
16:48
Speaker 1: don't know. Some places said it lost money. It certainly
16:50
Speaker 1: didn't make money. Uh. It did come out in July,
16:53
Speaker 1: so it's a Halloween movie that came out in July,
16:55
Speaker 1: so that a lot of people were like, well, that
16:56
Speaker 1: was probably part of the problem. Um. But it absolutely
17:01
Speaker 1: did go on to become a beloved cult classic, Like
17:05
Speaker 1: millions of people every year watch it. On free Form
17:07
Speaker 1: which used to be ABC Family. But when I say millions,
17:09
Speaker 1: like eight million. They already released their October playlist. I
17:13
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen it. Actually popped up and
17:16
Speaker 1: it's on there for sure. Oh yeah they I read
17:19
Speaker 1: an interview with somebody who's head of programming there and
17:21
Speaker 1: she said it's like an event like pocus Pocus. Um. Yeah,
17:26
Speaker 1: I watch it every year. My dream, one of my dreams,
17:29
Speaker 1: one of my cosplay JEMs, is to one day do
17:32
Speaker 1: the Sanderson Sisters with two other people. Their costumes are
17:35
Speaker 1: pretty complicated though, yeah. Yeah, and whoever does when he
17:40
Speaker 1: is gonna have to really have the hair, Oh my gosh. Yes.
17:44
Speaker 1: To get a bit further into the plot, but not
17:46
Speaker 1: too much, because I do think most of you have
17:48
Speaker 1: probably seen it. The movie opens with Thackeray Banks trying
17:52
Speaker 1: to save his younger sister from the dastard bleie Sanderson Sisters.
17:54
Speaker 1: And yes, his name is Thachery, not Zachary, as a
17:56
Speaker 1: lot of people thought. Um, and the Sanderson Sisters are
18:00
Speaker 1: are these witches that live in the woods near his home.
18:04
Speaker 1: The witches drain his sister Emily of her youth and
18:07
Speaker 1: her life to make themselves appear younger and achieve immortality,
18:12
Speaker 1: and they turn Thacker into a cat after they discover him. However,
18:17
Speaker 1: the sisters are caught by an angry mob of townspeople
18:19
Speaker 1: and they are hung, but not before they and their
18:22
Speaker 1: wonderful book cast a spell to bring them back if
18:25
Speaker 1: a virgin lights the black Fame candle on all Hallow's Eve.
18:30
Speaker 1: Cut to you present day, which is the nineties and Max,
18:35
Speaker 1: who is the main character again purportedly Um a teenager
18:39
Speaker 1: whose family just moved from l A to Salem, and
18:42
Speaker 1: he is oh so angsty teenage not happy about it. Um.
18:46
Speaker 1: Salem is in the midst of their annual Halloween celebrations
18:49
Speaker 1: is really big deal there, including telling the legend of
18:52
Speaker 1: the Sanderson sisters, and Max, also teenage, ankstantly does not
18:57
Speaker 1: buy into it, is not into it, and this leads
18:59
Speaker 1: to a confrontation with Allison and girls into about him
19:04
Speaker 1: being kind of I don't believe in Halloween, and she's like, well, actually,
19:07
Speaker 1: and then he gives her his his digits so smooth,
19:11
Speaker 1: So it's such a smooth operator, you certainly think so yes,
19:16
Speaker 1: and only to be rebuffed and she gives back his number.
19:19
Speaker 1: I did love it. Um. Despite his protesting, Max has
19:23
Speaker 1: to take his younger sister, Danny, who was dressed as
19:26
Speaker 1: a witch out trigger treating who wants to take care
19:29
Speaker 1: of their siblings come on and they end up at
19:31
Speaker 1: Allison's house surprise, and Max, trying to show off, convinces
19:35
Speaker 1: her to take them to the close Sanderson's sister museums,
19:38
Speaker 1: even though Danny, who we should all have believed really
19:42
Speaker 1: doesn't want to um, and Max stupidly likes the black
19:45
Speaker 1: flame candle to prove the sisters aren't real after he
19:49
Speaker 1: asks Allison to do it, but she declines, implying she
19:52
Speaker 1: either has more sexual experience than Max and isn't shy
19:55
Speaker 1: to share it, and or is not going to be
19:59
Speaker 1: peer pressured in to messing with something she doesn't want
20:01
Speaker 1: to mess with. Yeah, I interpret that differently, But of
20:03
Speaker 1: course the sisters are real and they are resurrected, and
20:07
Speaker 1: they proceed to run a muck throughout Salem in song
20:10
Speaker 1: um as they only have until sunrise to drain the
20:13
Speaker 1: life force of children or they will turn into stone.
20:16
Speaker 1: After a series of confrontations, the witches set their sights
20:19
Speaker 1: on Danny, determined to drain her. Of course, the one
20:21
Speaker 1: who said don't do it. Um. And in the end,
20:24
Speaker 1: Max drinks the last of their potions, so they had
20:26
Speaker 1: to drain him instead of his sister. Before they can
20:29
Speaker 1: do this, the sun rises and the senders and sisters
20:31
Speaker 1: turned stone before shattering into dusts and then factary Banks
20:35
Speaker 1: is freed of his cat form and reunites with his
20:38
Speaker 1: sister in the spirit world. Role credits. Yes, and then
20:42
Speaker 1: it's the book kind of looking around, and then it
20:46
Speaker 1: has kind of a post credit scene where it implies
20:48
Speaker 1: that as long as the books around, maybe the story
20:52
Speaker 1: maybe Yes, and I did all of this from memories
20:57
Speaker 1: and it all mistakes her mind, but I feel pretty
20:59
Speaker 1: confident you do it. You wrapped it up perfectly. Also yes,
21:02
Speaker 1: and yes, by the way, Factory is helping them throughout
21:05
Speaker 1: as a cat as a cat. Yeah, and yeah for
21:10
Speaker 1: for being a kids. Maybe a lot of this is
21:13
Speaker 1: about sex um. Some have even argued that Max's virginity
21:18
Speaker 1: is an inversion of the Final Girl Show, a pure
21:21
Speaker 1: male character being chased by female characters, which I've never
21:24
Speaker 1: thought of before, But that is very interesting interpretation of it.
21:28
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about this. I mean,
21:32
Speaker 1: I can see it. I can see it. Others have
21:37
Speaker 1: rightly pointed out that he has mocked for his virginity
21:39
Speaker 1: in a way that women would not have been. That
21:41
Speaker 1: would have been a pure as sign of purity in
21:44
Speaker 1: a sense that would have put them on a pedestal,
21:46
Speaker 1: although I've also read other interpretations that he's not being
21:51
Speaker 1: mocked for his virginity, he's being mocked for his stupidity
21:55
Speaker 1: for lighting the candle. So uh, there is that at um.
22:01
Speaker 1: It is odd thinking back to it like that. I
22:03
Speaker 1: guess this idea of virginity, even as an eight year
22:06
Speaker 1: old who watched this movie so much my parents banned it,
22:09
Speaker 1: was already there. I don't know, I didn't have those thoughts.
22:12
Speaker 1: I didn't think it that way to me, honestly, even
22:14
Speaker 1: back then, to me, it was mocking this kid who
22:17
Speaker 1: needed to show his masculinity by proving that he's not scared,
22:21
Speaker 1: and that to me was what it was more so
22:22
Speaker 1: than anything else, just pretty much mocking toxic masculinity, which
22:26
Speaker 1: I didn't know those terms then, but I'm like, come on, dude,
22:29
Speaker 1: stop being that jerk. Yeah, I do. I think I
22:33
Speaker 1: did it that way too, of like he was trying
22:35
Speaker 1: so hard to show off and they were both saying like,
22:38
Speaker 1: don't do it, and then he did it anyway. Um. Yes,
22:43
Speaker 1: and some people do think that Mac that sex for
22:45
Speaker 1: the first time with Allison at the end of the
22:48
Speaker 1: second act when they think it's over and they were
22:51
Speaker 1: like cuddling on the bed, and therefore read it as
22:55
Speaker 1: a sex positive story. I've never ever thought that. Yeah,
23:00
Speaker 1: but I can see, I mean, you don't know faces true.
23:05
Speaker 1: I mean it does say the black. My innocent heart
23:07
Speaker 1: wants to say they just cuddled and made out and
23:09
Speaker 1: probably broke up a week later. Heart, my innocent cynical
23:19
Speaker 1: My innocent cynical heart wants to believe it that way.
23:22
Speaker 1: But anyway, let's break down some of the characters. It
23:25
Speaker 1: is led by three female anti heroines who are sisters. First,
23:28
Speaker 1: which I do love Winifred Winnie the leader, the smart
23:31
Speaker 1: one obviously kind of a bully, Sarah the sexy airhead
23:36
Speaker 1: but she'll kill you though after she flirts with you.
23:39
Speaker 1: And then Mary, the goofball nurturer. And I have to
23:43
Speaker 1: like they kind of play that same role. Bette Midler
23:47
Speaker 1: and Sarah Jeska Parker and the first wife Scove. Yeah, yeah,
23:54
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I agree with that. Um and if you
23:58
Speaker 1: look at those roles, um, and a lot of interpretation
24:03
Speaker 1: is especially been done on Sarah's character, you can read
24:08
Speaker 1: them as weaponizing society's dismissive attitude towards women as sluts,
24:13
Speaker 1: spinsters are witches because I mean this movie, it's played
24:15
Speaker 1: for laughs, it's a comedy, but I mean, like Sarah,
24:20
Speaker 1: she even threatens that one dude, like they'll kill you. Um,
24:26
Speaker 1: they are on the outskirts of gender norms. And as
24:31
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot with which is most witches
24:33
Speaker 1: are but they ah. In this kind of telling of
24:38
Speaker 1: these characters, it takes those because everyone dismisses them. You
24:42
Speaker 1: see in the movie everybody, but they are dangerous, um,
24:46
Speaker 1: And people just are assuming, oh, she's a spinster, she
24:49
Speaker 1: can't do anything. Actually she's a spincer and a witch
24:52
Speaker 1: and you should be scared. Um. And this was in
24:55
Speaker 1: contrast to a wave of witches as moral beings to
24:58
Speaker 1: aspire to in the nineties like Willow from Buffy, Sabrina
25:01
Speaker 1: and Charmed. When we did our episode on the Craft,
25:04
Speaker 1: the Craft was also kind of in conflict with that
25:06
Speaker 1: whole idea. But a lot of these which is coming
25:08
Speaker 1: out during Third Wade feminism and the nineties were shifting
25:13
Speaker 1: from the previous telling of Oh they're bad too. Oh no,
25:17
Speaker 1: they're like paragons of good. Um. So this was kind
25:21
Speaker 1: of an interesting take at the time of they were bad,
25:24
Speaker 1: but they were also funny and you could relate to them.
25:27
Speaker 1: You could connect with these sisters. Um. Yeah, they were
25:31
Speaker 1: transgressors of gender roles. They were uh too sexy, too old,
25:35
Speaker 1: too ambitious, too ugly. And this movie certainly plays a
25:39
Speaker 1: lot as do a lot of movies with which is
25:41
Speaker 1: uh on the need versus want of children because they
25:46
Speaker 1: don't they don't like children. They don't want children, but
25:48
Speaker 1: they do need them right to continue their plans uh
25:56
Speaker 1: and b immortal. Um. So that's the the sisters. Then
26:00
Speaker 1: you have Max, who's yea the kind of bro character
26:05
Speaker 1: older brother. You've got Danny. It was definitely painted as
26:09
Speaker 1: the annoying little sister, but she's certainly I don't know,
26:14
Speaker 1: I could see it being told from her perspective, and
26:16
Speaker 1: it would we would have a different reading on her character.
26:19
Speaker 1: But anyway, Alison, who is the love interest but also
26:23
Speaker 1: very smart, uh, which she figures out the salt circle
26:27
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Um. Then Dachary binks that you
26:31
Speaker 1: believe to older brother lost his sister Emily and was
26:33
Speaker 1: turned into a cat by the Sanders and sisters. Many
26:36
Speaker 1: of my friends had a crush on him. Oh yeah,
26:38
Speaker 1: it was the heartthrow at that point. I think he
26:40
Speaker 1: came around doing like Jonathan Taylor, Thomas and all of them,
26:43
Speaker 1: so he fit with the shaggy haired, bowl cut hair
26:47
Speaker 1: dudes that everyone loved in those in that time frame.
26:52
Speaker 1: It's just funny to me because he did spend I
26:54
Speaker 1: mean what you see him like that for maybe four
26:57
Speaker 1: minutes and the rest of the movie he's a cat.
26:59
Speaker 1: We'll take about Do you remember the movie Casper? I
27:02
Speaker 1: never saw Casper. Oh well, so in Casper you have
27:06
Speaker 1: Devin Sawa and Christina ritchie Um and Devin saw it's
27:10
Speaker 1: not even the voice of the ghosts throughout the movie,
27:13
Speaker 1: which is animated the entire time, pops up for fifteen seconds,
27:17
Speaker 1: and everybody was like, I love him. I'm not gonna lie.
27:22
Speaker 1: I wasn't one of them as well, because they were
27:23
Speaker 1: also in um other movies, And I'm like, yeah, but yeah,
27:29
Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter. He also was one of the
27:31
Speaker 1: shaggy haired blonde kids at that time frame. Okay, that's
27:36
Speaker 1: that's funny. I mean, I guess it could be whatever
27:38
Speaker 1: you want onto someone who's there so little. I mean,
27:42
Speaker 1: it's not like you didn't get to know Factory through
27:44
Speaker 1: the cat right exactly. He loved his sibling, he tried
27:47
Speaker 1: to save people, He was cursed just like everyone else.
27:51
Speaker 1: All Right, Okay, I got I mean that's someone who
27:54
Speaker 1: loves fictional characters. And is that had a crush on
27:56
Speaker 1: a cartoon character before? I can't judge, so was their
28:03
Speaker 1: but yeah, speaking of boy crushes at this point, there
28:06
Speaker 1: is Billy Butcherson, who was the zombie boyfriend. By the way,
28:09
Speaker 1: does he not look like the character from Edward Scissor
28:12
Speaker 1: Hands a little bit? Yeah, a little Yeah. Though he
28:16
Speaker 1: cheated on Winnie with Sarah, he was the one who
28:19
Speaker 1: was punished by Winnie again Sisters first, which is kind
28:22
Speaker 1: of a relief. I mean, you don't you can feel
28:24
Speaker 1: bad for him, but the same time, at least it's
28:25
Speaker 1: not women against women. Yeah. And then of course there
28:29
Speaker 1: are two male bullies that get hung in cages after
28:32
Speaker 1: harassing the sisters, and of course they pick on everybody
28:34
Speaker 1: at the school, so you kind of feel, yeah, you
28:38
Speaker 1: kind of want them to be in those cages. So
28:41
Speaker 1: there's a cameo by Penny Marshall and her brother Gary Marshall,
28:45
Speaker 1: and they are spouses ye in this one, which is
28:50
Speaker 1: quite funny and every way, but of course I love
28:52
Speaker 1: the two of them anyway, So yes, him just as
28:54
Speaker 1: a devil now I remember for sure, just be a
28:57
Speaker 1: running theme, some kind of Penny Marshall related fact in
29:01
Speaker 1: every movie episode. Amazing. Well, I know Gary and Penny
29:04
Speaker 1: would put each other in each other's films or have
29:06
Speaker 1: each other like Gary was in a leak of their
29:09
Speaker 1: own opinion right, actually directed, but I think they did
29:11
Speaker 1: that often. They were really close. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
29:16
Speaker 1: um yeah, So that's pretty much hocus focusing. There's all
29:19
Speaker 1: these themes of you know, sisterhood and sibling rivalry, but
29:24
Speaker 1: also being protective of your sibling in particularly your sisters.
29:27
Speaker 1: Um and I don't know. I I have a new
29:31
Speaker 1: appreciation for UH because it is a very nostalgic film. Right.
29:36
Speaker 1: In certain movies, if you've seen enough, you're not really
29:39
Speaker 1: paying attention to anything other than oh, this part makes
29:42
Speaker 1: me feel warm because it reminds me of all these
29:43
Speaker 1: other things, right, or I can say this line with
29:46
Speaker 1: Gusto because I love it. Um. But yeah, now I've
29:52
Speaker 1: especially thinking about the context of when it came out,
29:54
Speaker 1: having these this close sister rely relationship and these characters
29:58
Speaker 1: who are both funny but it are bad and witches
30:01
Speaker 1: but everybody loves them. It's pretty rare. Um. So I
30:06
Speaker 1: am very excited for another Freewatch starting all over again.
30:11
Speaker 1: More witches. Yes, um, So that's that for now, But
30:17
Speaker 1: now we need to talk about the Witches. But first
30:20
Speaker 1: we're gonna pause for a quick break for a word
30:22
Speaker 1: from res sponsor and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Right, So,
30:39
Speaker 1: we did want to talk about these two movies together,
30:42
Speaker 1: the Witches and hocus Pocus, because there are specifically made
30:46
Speaker 1: and geared as children's movies, but they both have very
30:49
Speaker 1: interesting takes on witches and how they represented so we
30:52
Speaker 1: thought it would be an interesting contrast to each other. Yeah, yeah,
30:57
Speaker 1: for sure. So The Witches is a movie originally adapted
31:00
Speaker 1: from the classic novel written by Rhodes All Uh and
31:03
Speaker 1: by the way, he did actually see this and uh
31:06
Speaker 1: he wasn't a big fan of the movie. According to
31:09
Speaker 1: one report, he felt as if the movie was quote
31:11
Speaker 1: utterly appalling because of the changes which were happier than his.
31:15
Speaker 1: That does not surprise me. Um these changes in the movie.
31:19
Speaker 1: And it was produced by Jim Henson Productions and was
31:22
Speaker 1: apparently the last movie he was personally involved in. And
31:26
Speaker 1: though it wasn't actually a big hitting theaters either, critics
31:29
Speaker 1: were fans of it. And it still has a Route
31:32
Speaker 1: Tomato scare, so it's better than August Focused. Yes, it
31:35
Speaker 1: was even given three out of four stars by famous
31:37
Speaker 1: film critic Robert Ebert. And yes, it also has a
31:41
Speaker 1: big cult following. I guess I'm a part of that
31:43
Speaker 1: cult obviously. Um So. The movie was directed by Nicholas Rogue,
31:47
Speaker 1: who was already known for his horror movie Don't Look Now,
31:50
Speaker 1: which Annie you watched? Yes, I actually watched his right
31:55
Speaker 1: March fourteenth, right when Quarantine started, and I was looking
31:59
Speaker 1: for that give of his Donald's something it's not done well,
32:03
Speaker 1: that guy where he points and he has the look
32:05
Speaker 1: of horror on his face. But this that's actually Invasion
32:08
Speaker 1: of the Body Santras. So I watched this whole movie
32:10
Speaker 1: waiting for that, haven't never did. But then I watched
32:13
Speaker 1: Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I loved it. But anyway, yeah,
32:16
Speaker 1: that's why when you told me this, Samantha, I was like, oh,
32:19
Speaker 1: I can see it. Yeah. So him being the director
32:24
Speaker 1: of this horror movie, he had plenty of controversy under
32:26
Speaker 1: his belt and was a surprising choice to direct a
32:29
Speaker 1: children's film, as most of his works were seen as
32:31
Speaker 1: overly risque and even too explicit at that time, and
32:35
Speaker 1: some of them movies were shelved apparently because it was
32:37
Speaker 1: too much. And unsurprisingly, the movie has been deemed by
32:42
Speaker 1: many people as the scariest children's movie ever, and I
32:45
Speaker 1: would agree. And although although I do love this movie,
32:49
Speaker 1: I was surprised to see so many articles written about
32:52
Speaker 1: it this year. But it turns out, as I said,
32:55
Speaker 1: this March the thirtieth anniversary of the film release, so
32:57
Speaker 1: it's been thirty years since it's been released. As well
33:00
Speaker 1: the fact that they're now talking about doing a remake
33:02
Speaker 1: with Anne Hathaway playing the Grand High Witch and directed
33:06
Speaker 1: by Robert Zemecka's so that should be interesting. Accidentally timely, Yeah,
33:11
Speaker 1: I really do is real and many have contended to
33:14
Speaker 1: argue that this was one of the most terrifying movies
33:16
Speaker 1: ever made for children. So there's a debate about like,
33:20
Speaker 1: is it just terrifying because it's a children's movie, or
33:22
Speaker 1: is it just terrifying and why are children watching it? So?
33:27
Speaker 1: Rogue even stated that at one point his child watched
33:30
Speaker 1: some of the dailies, I guess, and his child was
33:33
Speaker 1: so terrified that he realized he needed to edit several
33:36
Speaker 1: of the scenes. So I wonder what that looked like. Um,
33:41
Speaker 1: And I definitely have lasting memories of the many terrifying
33:45
Speaker 1: scenes that kept me awake for sure. Yeah, oh no,
33:49
Speaker 1: I can't definitely see as I was watching it, they
33:52
Speaker 1: were scenes where I'm like, oh, I'm sure that would
33:54
Speaker 1: have kept me up. Yeah. I had a real weird
33:58
Speaker 1: thing about paintings and getting trapped in meeting. You know,
34:01
Speaker 1: I have a weird thing about like people in paintings
34:02
Speaker 1: and when they're watching they're watching me. Well maybe it
34:06
Speaker 1: came from this. Maybe. So for the plot, we meet
34:11
Speaker 1: Luke played by Jason Fisher and his grandmother Helga played
34:15
Speaker 1: by Madge Setter and in Norway, and she's telling Luca
34:19
Speaker 1: all these cautionary tales of witches who not only walk
34:23
Speaker 1: among all of us, but they actively work to get
34:26
Speaker 1: rid of all of the children in the world. The witches, though,
34:29
Speaker 1: are good at hiding among regular people and can actually
34:32
Speaker 1: they can be spotted because they have a purple tint
34:35
Speaker 1: in their eyes, a rash on their head as they
34:37
Speaker 1: are bald and have to wear wigs. They wear gloves
34:40
Speaker 1: because they have claws and no toes, so square feet,
34:44
Speaker 1: and an obvious dislike of the smell of children two,
34:47
Speaker 1: which is they smell like dog droppings. And this is
34:50
Speaker 1: actually another interesting thing I noticed when I was thinking
34:53
Speaker 1: about witches in children's movies, is they often have like
34:57
Speaker 1: a smell a version two children, and it's it's usually
35:01
Speaker 1: like some kind of waste by products, right. I remember
35:04
Speaker 1: when she said droppings. It was so weird to me
35:07
Speaker 1: being from fellow j Georgia, and of course they're you know,
35:10
Speaker 1: and I think Norway, and I'm like, wait, what droppings?
35:13
Speaker 1: Was drippings? What are droppings? So much? It's fancier than
35:18
Speaker 1: it really does. It's like it just made it up
35:19
Speaker 1: so much more upscale. And of course the cleaner they are,
35:23
Speaker 1: the worst they smell. So to bring home the reality
35:26
Speaker 1: of the dangers of these witches, Helga tells of her
35:29
Speaker 1: friend who disappeared from their village. As the family of
35:32
Speaker 1: Erica scrambles to find her. We see her pop up
35:35
Speaker 1: in a painting that was recently purchased by her father.
35:38
Speaker 1: Not only has she suddenly appeared in a painting, but
35:41
Speaker 1: we see her reposition at different places at different times,
35:43
Speaker 1: and she even grows up in the painting until one
35:46
Speaker 1: day she disappears. That's saying, freaked me out. Yeah. So
35:51
Speaker 1: we come back to the present day and we meet
35:53
Speaker 1: the parents as they rush off for their date event,
35:57
Speaker 1: leaving Luke with his grandmother, And at this point he
36:00
Speaker 1: has his first interaction with a witch. As he plays
36:03
Speaker 1: in his treehouse. He meets a woman who tries to
36:05
Speaker 1: entice him with chocolates into snake. By the way, that
36:08
Speaker 1: would not work for me, but Lucas obviously too smart
36:12
Speaker 1: for that and calls out for his grandmother, who, by
36:14
Speaker 1: the way, is told by the witch that she could
36:16
Speaker 1: not hear him, so she could not help him. Freaky Yeah,
36:20
Speaker 1: that's his freaky uh. Later, we come back to the
36:24
Speaker 1: sad fact that Luke's parents have died in a car
36:27
Speaker 1: accident because yes, obviously all children's movies must have some
36:31
Speaker 1: type of tragedy, and he moves in with his grandmother, Helgan,
36:34
Speaker 1: and they moved to England, in their new life, we
36:37
Speaker 1: see more obstacles for the parents. Helga is diagnosed with
36:40
Speaker 1: diabetes and is told she must learn to manage her health.
36:43
Speaker 1: So we cut to Luke and Helga going on a
36:46
Speaker 1: much needed vacation in a very spanky hotel soon after
36:49
Speaker 1: Luke's birthday uh, in which she's gifted with some white mice.
36:53
Speaker 1: There there we meet Bruno, a very hungry, rich boy
36:56
Speaker 1: that loves to sneak some of the lovely tea cakes
36:59
Speaker 1: before everyone else. His character reminded me he was one
37:02
Speaker 1: of the things where it's like, this feels very British. Yeah.
37:05
Speaker 1: I don't know why, just the way he speaks feels
37:07
Speaker 1: very British. It's not necessarily even his accent, just something
37:10
Speaker 1: about it. I've never read the book, uh, but do
37:13
Speaker 1: love a lot of the children's book Raal Dhald did.
37:16
Speaker 1: But this is very similar to that character in Matilda,
37:19
Speaker 1: the boy who take So I wonder if he has
37:22
Speaker 1: this as a theme for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:26
Speaker 1: So it's at this point we learned at the hotel
37:28
Speaker 1: is awesome hosting a convention for which is of course
37:33
Speaker 1: masqureating as the Royal Society for the Prevention of cruelty
37:36
Speaker 1: to children. Uh, here we meet the Grand High Witch,
37:40
Speaker 1: played by none other than the wonderful Angelica Houston and
37:44
Speaker 1: her assistant, Miss Irving. Yeah, this is when it gets
37:47
Speaker 1: a good Luke while exploring the grounds and running away
37:50
Speaker 1: from the hotel manager played by Mr Bean if you
37:53
Speaker 1: all know who I'm talking about, the famous English actor
37:57
Speaker 1: with his pet mice. We see that they've come together
37:59
Speaker 1: to advise a plan to rid the world of children
38:02
Speaker 1: by turning them into mice with a potion that would
38:04
Speaker 1: be shared all over the world. And can we talk
38:08
Speaker 1: about the revel for Angelica Houston and her face as
38:11
Speaker 1: the actual witch, masterfully done by Jim Henson's crew. Of course,
38:17
Speaker 1: her high, shrill voice and disdain like it gave me nightmares,
38:20
Speaker 1: like even when she's like talking and heaving almost like
38:23
Speaker 1: she's gonna vomit. Yeah, giving nightmares. It's not gonna lie.
38:27
Speaker 1: And it's at this point they bring in their demonstration.
38:30
Speaker 1: Poor Bruno, Poor poor Bruno, he's turned into a mouse,
38:34
Speaker 1: um and we see him scurry away. That whole thing
38:38
Speaker 1: was nightmarish, like his little seizure and the green power
38:43
Speaker 1: what does that green fog everywhere? But of course Luke
38:49
Speaker 1: has seen all of this and has discovered them. And
38:51
Speaker 1: after he is discovered to have been spying, Luca escapes
38:54
Speaker 1: to his room only to find his grandmother unconscious in
38:57
Speaker 1: their room. And by the way, they're kind of relationship
39:01
Speaker 1: between the Grand High Witch and the grandmother that they
39:03
Speaker 1: hadn't met before. And I think, yes, and the grandmother
39:07
Speaker 1: lost her tips of her fingers or no, the grandmother
39:10
Speaker 1: lost one of our fingers to the Grand High Witch.
39:13
Speaker 1: Just put that in there. Luke is then caught and
39:16
Speaker 1: turned into a mouse. Mhmm, but no fear because Luke
39:22
Speaker 1: using his mass abilities like crawling and his tail. Of course,
39:26
Speaker 1: thinking this with the tail, he sneaks the potion into
39:29
Speaker 1: the soup served to the witches, turning them into mice,
39:33
Speaker 1: all but one, Miss Irving, who was banned from celebrating
39:36
Speaker 1: the rest of the witches. So both Bruno and Luke
39:39
Speaker 1: are reunited with their families and all they all return home,
39:42
Speaker 1: But unlike the book ending, Miss Irving has become a
39:45
Speaker 1: good witch and not only turns Luke back into a boy,
39:48
Speaker 1: but goes on to set Bruno back as well. And yes,
39:52
Speaker 1: Doll hated this ending, as he argued witches were unredeemable
39:57
Speaker 1: and cruel. So Rogue actually did do two endings, one
40:01
Speaker 1: to satisfy a doll and to go more with a book,
40:04
Speaker 1: and the original happy or one that we see. And
40:06
Speaker 1: when they did the test screen test, yeah, everyone hated.
40:11
Speaker 1: This is like the reverse shining. The shining is the
40:13
Speaker 1: opposite in a weird way. Yeah, so it was like, okay, interesting, Um,
40:18
Speaker 1: so they kept the happier ending, which I'm not gonna lie.
40:22
Speaker 1: If it was a bad ending, there may have been
40:24
Speaker 1: a chance that I couldn't have watched it. I mean,
40:27
Speaker 1: that would have been a very tough thing as a kid.
40:32
Speaker 1: I was upset, Like when we were watching and I
40:34
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, he's gonna be a mouse forever. Wow,
40:37
Speaker 1: Like he's the resolved for it. But I'm like white.
40:42
Speaker 1: So there are some themes in controversy within this movie,
40:45
Speaker 1: of course. Um there's quite a bit of conversation about
40:48
Speaker 1: the whole women hating children thing, women who can only
40:50
Speaker 1: be either haggard or cruel or mothers and caregivers and
40:54
Speaker 1: actually played a lot on the stranger danger fearmongering from
40:57
Speaker 1: this film. So we wanted to talk a little out it.
41:00
Speaker 1: As I told you, there were several articles about pretty
41:03
Speaker 1: much about why this is one of the most scary
41:05
Speaker 1: movies ever for children. UM. The continued conversation though, had
41:09
Speaker 1: come up on the Hag and Spencer versus the mother Protector,
41:13
Speaker 1: which is an obvious scene to this movie. You have
41:15
Speaker 1: one or the other, whether it's turning the idea that
41:17
Speaker 1: women are all maternal and carrying versus women who ripped
41:20
Speaker 1: children away from their families and are evil and thrive
41:23
Speaker 1: on the demise of children they never wanted. It's very
41:26
Speaker 1: divisive and it gets pretty. It gets dark pretty quickly,
41:30
Speaker 1: as we mentioned in the Tale of the Disappearing young Girl,
41:32
Speaker 1: seriously eerie to me um. And then if we look
41:38
Speaker 1: at feminism in this movie. Uh So. The point that
41:42
Speaker 1: the film was used to tell tell the tale of
41:44
Speaker 1: the unhappy, motherless hag who murders are sometimes steels children
41:48
Speaker 1: has made many people feel that this is a stereotypically
41:52
Speaker 1: misogynistic cautionary tales. Some have recently say they felt it
41:55
Speaker 1: was more forthinking. According to an article UM they say
41:59
Speaker 1: off through Caroline Kitneys have used it as quote a
42:02
Speaker 1: hilarious feminist commentary on women, work and family, where men
42:06
Speaker 1: are ineffective and women possess more power, something they might
42:09
Speaker 1: prove horrifying to those frantically upholding the patriarchy. Right, so
42:13
Speaker 1: it's gonna have been a back and forth with them
42:15
Speaker 1: about is this feminist or is this anti feminist? Should
42:18
Speaker 1: we be upset or should we laugh? I I interpreted
42:25
Speaker 1: it as almost satirical, as almost like you're so afraid
42:30
Speaker 1: of women with power, and this is what scares you.
42:33
Speaker 1: I don't know, like that there was some element of
42:35
Speaker 1: it that was almost giving a knowing wink of like, yes,
42:39
Speaker 1: there is the stereotype of ugly hag women who want
42:43
Speaker 1: to kill children, But what does that say about the
42:46
Speaker 1: fact that there is that stereotype? Right? So it does
42:49
Speaker 1: go back and forth. Yeah, so, but back then it
42:51
Speaker 1: was just so upfront, and it was that point of
42:54
Speaker 1: third wave feminism. So, so who is the villain here?
43:00
Speaker 1: You know? Is it women in general who don't want children?
43:02
Speaker 1: Or is it that the patriarchy have to pen and
43:04
Speaker 1: only can categorize these two very deep for children's movie
43:10
Speaker 1: so also, and one of the big things that I
43:13
Speaker 1: saw was the stranger danger concept um and as many
43:16
Speaker 1: have stated, this brought fear for children with a new
43:19
Speaker 1: concept of stranger danger, which came around in the eighties.
43:22
Speaker 1: Not only does this movie immediately place that fear within
43:24
Speaker 1: a child's mind, but the movie and the book flips
43:27
Speaker 1: it with women instead of men. Um Here is the
43:30
Speaker 1: hatred of children that drives them, and as a child
43:32
Speaker 1: of the eighties nineties, that's something children were taught to
43:34
Speaker 1: fear the whole. Strangers offering candy is a perfect setup
43:38
Speaker 1: that's gonna get you, so you must be aware and
43:40
Speaker 1: be cautious. Yeah. Actually, ever on Saber were just an
43:45
Speaker 1: episode on the ice Cream Truck and it was so
43:48
Speaker 1: interesting to me because they read all of these like
43:50
Speaker 1: beautiful nostalgic love memories people had with ice cream truck,
43:54
Speaker 1: and I was like, when I grew up, even at
43:57
Speaker 1: four years old, I was like, no way in hell,
43:58
Speaker 1: right am I going follow up music to kick I
44:03
Speaker 1: meaning me buy it. It's not different than the store,
44:04
Speaker 1: but it just felt so creepy, like here's this song,
44:07
Speaker 1: go outside and just hope that nothing's gonna happen to me, right, Definitely.
44:12
Speaker 1: There were some cases in the eighties where children were
44:15
Speaker 1: abducted in unmarked vans, and that's kind of that play
44:18
Speaker 1: that came in. So you have this whole time when
44:21
Speaker 1: we talked about good touch bad touch, it was always
44:24
Speaker 1: that stranger danger level of conversation. Yea, in this movie
44:29
Speaker 1: and possibly the book, brought that into context this here's
44:33
Speaker 1: and not only that, but trying to make you feel
44:35
Speaker 1: comfortable with women, saying that women cannot be the predators here,
44:39
Speaker 1: but they are so. Yeah. They That definitely gets into
44:42
Speaker 1: the mind very quickly, and for children who wants to
44:46
Speaker 1: be get dapped, no right. So to say that this
44:51
Speaker 1: movie leaves a lasting impression or an impact is an understatement,
44:55
Speaker 1: and many still agree again that the overall horror of
44:57
Speaker 1: this film is one for the record books and many
45:00
Speaker 1: both still have is the number one movie of the
45:02
Speaker 1: scariest childhood movies that exist? Yeah, and again these artist
45:06
Speaker 1: because these articles were written the last couple of months. Yeah,
45:09
Speaker 1: I was surprised how many articles I found. It's like
45:12
Speaker 1: pages of them were like the scariest children's movie of
45:14
Speaker 1: all time? Right, he look, yes, I agree, yes, but
45:22
Speaker 1: I'm interested to see the rebate because they did talk
45:24
Speaker 1: about Robert Remcca said that he was making it more
45:26
Speaker 1: a social Yeah, it's it's like it's said in the
45:30
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. Jim courier. Yeah, and it's a black child. Yes,
45:35
Speaker 1: so Octavia Spencer will be playing the grandmother, which is
45:37
Speaker 1: kind of funny because the other grandmother was about fifteen
45:40
Speaker 1: years older than her. Yeah, well, we'll have to see it,
45:48
Speaker 1: certainly will be. We're getting two remakes of these things. Well, okus,
45:51
Speaker 1: focus is getting sequel, that is getting rebeca. Yes, um,
45:55
Speaker 1: so we did want to talk about some overall themes
45:58
Speaker 1: when it comes to which is children's movies. But first
46:00
Speaker 1: we're gonna pause for one work up break for a
46:02
Speaker 1: word frommer sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So
46:22
Speaker 1: originally we were gonna get into we we both we
46:25
Speaker 1: thought of prominent examples. But the more I thought about this,
46:28
Speaker 1: the more I feel like we're both very influenced by
46:33
Speaker 1: the product the movies that were coming out in our era,
46:36
Speaker 1: because like Sabrina was one we thought about. Which was
46:39
Speaker 1: an interesting, um contrast, because we do have the Netflix remake,
46:44
Speaker 1: which is much not not I would call it a
46:46
Speaker 1: children made for children, um, but the one in the
46:49
Speaker 1: nineties certainly was. I mean it was a T G
46:52
Speaker 1: I Friday Moves show, right, Yeah, yeah, I actually never
46:57
Speaker 1: saw it, but I I mean even just the clips
47:01
Speaker 1: and the vibe. I was like, oh, yeah, you never
47:03
Speaker 1: watched that? No, was that on cable? I didn't have
47:07
Speaker 1: a cable. It wasn't on cable. It was on I
47:10
Speaker 1: believe it was on ABC. Was on a Family Night
47:12
Speaker 1: show for a long while. I know it was rebroadcast
47:15
Speaker 1: on what used to be free Form whatever it was
47:17
Speaker 1: before then for a little while. Yeah, so, but it
47:21
Speaker 1: was Clarissa explains at all who was Nickelodeon jumped into
47:25
Speaker 1: that the show as a teenager with Harvey and all
47:28
Speaker 1: of them. But yeah, the new ones are definitely completely different. Um.
47:33
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the whole thing that there wasn't prominent
47:37
Speaker 1: devil worshiping in the nineties sitcom Oh surprise, surprise. But
47:42
Speaker 1: they have thought D and D was seven in Demons. Um. Well, yeah,
47:47
Speaker 1: so the groups of examples we thought of, it really
47:50
Speaker 1: does split pretty down the middle of like, you do
47:55
Speaker 1: have this good witch who it's almost over the top
48:00
Speaker 1: up good um, and then you have the villain. And
48:04
Speaker 1: particularly when you think about Disney movies, which we'll get
48:06
Speaker 1: into in a second, there was an era where the
48:09
Speaker 1: witch was bad in Disney movies and that's it, and
48:13
Speaker 1: that is changing but the reasons that it's changing are fascinating. Um.
48:20
Speaker 1: I thought of double double toil and trouble. You you
48:23
Speaker 1: often have that kind of dynamic because they were twins
48:25
Speaker 1: that it was Clara Stitchman who was originally going to
48:28
Speaker 1: be I think in Hocus Polk. No, she's gonna be
48:31
Speaker 1: in the witches. Um. But anyway, so you've got the
48:34
Speaker 1: good witch and the bad witch. Uh. It's a Wizard
48:37
Speaker 1: of Oz kind of dichotomy of you can only be
48:40
Speaker 1: one or the other and that's it. You can only
48:43
Speaker 1: be this sort of maternal thing or this evil children
48:47
Speaker 1: hating one. Yeah, and certainly attitudes towards children and youth
48:55
Speaker 1: in general. It's just one of the biggest recurring themes
48:58
Speaker 1: I could think of in depictions of witches and children's movies,
49:03
Speaker 1: and also love, Like when you think of up and
49:05
Speaker 1: I know this is not a children's movie, but Practical
49:07
Speaker 1: Magic was geared as a teenage movie because it was PG. Thirteen,
49:11
Speaker 1: but it kind of has that whole effect as well.
49:13
Speaker 1: Of course children are involved in that as well, and
49:16
Speaker 1: love and all of that. So you wonder, you're like,
49:19
Speaker 1: what what is your ideas here? Yeah? Um, And if
49:24
Speaker 1: you think of like hocus focus in particular, uh, sucking
49:29
Speaker 1: the youth to peer young and beautiful, and that whole
49:31
Speaker 1: idea that women's value and currency in society is their
49:35
Speaker 1: youth and their beauty. Um. And like one of the
49:38
Speaker 1: reasons they choose to focus on Danny thora Birch's character
49:43
Speaker 1: to suck her youth, as she says, You'll always be ugly.
49:46
Speaker 1: You're the ugliest thing that's ever lived. And when he
49:49
Speaker 1: is so wounded, yeah, by this insult, she's like, I
49:54
Speaker 1: have all of these children options that would be much
49:57
Speaker 1: easier to get, but you are the one. You you
50:00
Speaker 1: have insulted me. Yeah. And it kind of that choosing
50:03
Speaker 1: vengeance and and losing everything being too power hungry. Uh,
50:09
Speaker 1: perhaps too emotional, I guess you could read it that way,
50:13
Speaker 1: and losing everything. And then if you go back to
50:15
Speaker 1: Snow White, which is one of the very first I
50:17
Speaker 1: mean that was Disney's first movie, you have the queen
50:21
Speaker 1: who asks asked a mirror, like, who's the fairest of
50:25
Speaker 1: them all? Yeah, she can't stand to not be the
50:30
Speaker 1: fairest of them all. She must get rid of any competition. Yes, yes,
50:34
Speaker 1: women competing against women. I mean, that's the interesting about
50:36
Speaker 1: who's focused. Is there is this kind of like sisterly bond,
50:40
Speaker 1: the women competing against women is sort of removed on
50:43
Speaker 1: that level, but on a societal level it's still kind
50:47
Speaker 1: of there. Um, So that's interesting. And then I did read, Uh,
50:55
Speaker 1: there are so many essays This should not have surprised
50:58
Speaker 1: me at all, but so many as has been written
51:01
Speaker 1: about Elsa from Frozen. Oh my gosh, yes, is she Yeah,
51:08
Speaker 1: it's a power. We don't know that she's got one
51:12
Speaker 1: known power anyway. Um. Yeah, So she is one of
51:20
Speaker 1: the first Disney which is especially the first I think
51:23
Speaker 1: that was good, but also embraced her powers. Um. She
51:28
Speaker 1: was also the first to use camp and heightened style femininity,
51:32
Speaker 1: not to to know evil. So if you think of
51:33
Speaker 1: like Mobile Efficent or Ursula or yes, the Queen from
51:38
Speaker 1: Snow White, they all have this like over the top,
51:41
Speaker 1: kind of like high college almost theater theatrical style, and
51:46
Speaker 1: Elsa doesn't have that at first, but when she goes
51:48
Speaker 1: into her big musical number and kind of sheds it all,
51:52
Speaker 1: she does, but she's still good. Um. But if you
51:55
Speaker 1: look at the history of yeah, which is Disney films
52:01
Speaker 1: in particular, there's this over the top monstrous female desire
52:06
Speaker 1: that aligns it with queerness. But there's also this fear
52:10
Speaker 1: of middle aged sexual agency. And as as I was
52:14
Speaker 1: reading these essays, there's just some things you don't pick
52:15
Speaker 1: up on as a kid, I didn't really get, like
52:18
Speaker 1: when Ursula was giving aerial like here's how you get
52:21
Speaker 1: a man, and she's like plumping her lips and doing this,
52:23
Speaker 1: So I didn't pick up on that. But it's true.
52:26
Speaker 1: She's like middle aged sea witch, totally confident in her body.
52:30
Speaker 1: She loves herself, and I loved her for loving herself, Yes,
52:35
Speaker 1: but it's painted as a bad bit. It is because
52:38
Speaker 1: she had to be demure and quiet. Yeah, yeah, it
52:45
Speaker 1: quite power obviously with family power and ambition, the whole
52:50
Speaker 1: witchcraft idea and the punishment and evil that comes with it.
52:54
Speaker 1: Uh And apparently I didn't realize, but it is changing
52:57
Speaker 1: with New Disney. I guess if Elsa can tinues on
53:00
Speaker 1: a stretch, is there any more new which is coming about?
53:03
Speaker 1: So the essay I'm thinking of, in particular um delved
53:07
Speaker 1: into Elsa, um Maleficent, the new uh Angelica, Jolie Ones
53:14
Speaker 1: and then um Meredeth who wasn't a witch, but they
53:18
Speaker 1: were saying, like she immediately breaks gender norms and is like,
53:21
Speaker 1: I don't want to get married. Maybe I never want
53:23
Speaker 1: to get married, go ahead to Clare war Um. So
53:29
Speaker 1: kind of that female power and ambition thing. And previously
53:35
Speaker 1: when there had been that sort of aberrant which power,
53:41
Speaker 1: it was bad and you could see that essaying when
53:45
Speaker 1: women have too much powering ambition, it is bad. But
53:49
Speaker 1: now that I mean people children love Elsa. I don't
53:52
Speaker 1: know if you know this, but whoa, um, I've seen it. Yeah,
53:56
Speaker 1: they and in those movies too, they paint the love
54:00
Speaker 1: is in between two women, whether that's like two sisters
54:04
Speaker 1: or I haven't seen Maleficent so long, but basically Aurora,
54:07
Speaker 1: I'm Levicent um, and then Merida and her mother. Instead
54:11
Speaker 1: of it being this like romantic rush to get married,
54:14
Speaker 1: first time you meet a guy, it's love and that's
54:17
Speaker 1: what you need and then your life it's done and
54:18
Speaker 1: happier or after um in that case, your POWERI is
54:22
Speaker 1: essentially just finding a man, right, Yes, I was just kidding,
54:29
Speaker 1: just completely kidding. I was like, oh, Samath that comes
54:35
Speaker 1: out with a very yeah, not at all. And then
54:43
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like we could just talk about
54:47
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff forever in a in a
54:50
Speaker 1: more detailed episode, and perhaps will be because again it's
54:53
Speaker 1: my favorite season and my favorite holiday. But we were
54:57
Speaker 1: also discussing how in Harry Potter and and most things
55:00
Speaker 1: where you have witches and warlocks and and wizards, and
55:06
Speaker 1: it does feel that wizards are you know, there's a
55:11
Speaker 1: wiseness attached to them and perhaps more of a maybe
55:18
Speaker 1: it's just like less complicated, but it does feel like
55:20
Speaker 1: I don't have a natural inclination to think they're bad,
55:23
Speaker 1: whereas witches, like, even though I don't think that anymore,
55:26
Speaker 1: there is that in the back of my head kind
55:29
Speaker 1: of Oh wait, I've seen so many bad witches? Is
55:31
Speaker 1: that what you mean? Um? And we I mean we
55:35
Speaker 1: use it as an insult or we have for in
55:37
Speaker 1: our society forever. So I just watched a movie where
55:41
Speaker 1: a woman just randomly shouted witch at a bar and
55:44
Speaker 1: they tried to kill her. She just said it. Um,
55:48
Speaker 1: I've watched a lot of bad horror reason, but what
55:51
Speaker 1: would be a movie that did that? How is it
55:54
Speaker 1: called they're watching? It was about a home improvement show
55:56
Speaker 1: that went really wrong. Oh yeah, you're digging into something real.
56:00
Speaker 1: Dude brought you know, Okay, we're going down the well
56:04
Speaker 1: on this one. Um. But yeah, I would love to
56:09
Speaker 1: return to this and have a more in depth conversation
56:15
Speaker 1: about some of these ideas. But but in the meantime,
56:18
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a pretty good overview, right of
56:22
Speaker 1: the themes you see a lot with women and which
56:24
Speaker 1: is in these children's movies, right, which I find fascinating. Uh.
56:29
Speaker 1: I do want to see more of the ideas that
56:32
Speaker 1: we see in adult films to translate into children's films.
56:36
Speaker 1: And I guess technically Harry Potter did that mm hmm,
56:39
Speaker 1: which makes bad but you know whatever, newer ones are
56:43
Speaker 1: certainly playing with a lot of this. Again, I found
56:48
Speaker 1: I wish I had way more time to prepare because
56:50
Speaker 1: I found so manny. So I don't know why I
56:57
Speaker 1: just popped in my head the teen which movie from
56:59
Speaker 1: eighteen nine? Uh and the worst I think that was
57:02
Speaker 1: the worst musical number in the Oh you've got my
57:07
Speaker 1: attention now. But essentially it is eighteen rom com that
57:12
Speaker 1: involves a redheaded witch and I can't remember much about it.
57:15
Speaker 1: I remember loving it. Um, yeah, damn, I forgot about
57:19
Speaker 1: that one too, all right, Like that might be another
57:23
Speaker 1: movie that I have to make you watch, but I'm
57:25
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. I can't attest to your worth watching.
57:31
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Okay, Well we'll add it to
57:34
Speaker 1: the list and in the meantime, listeners. If you have
57:38
Speaker 1: any movie you want us to add to the list,
57:40
Speaker 1: please send them our way. Our email is Stuff Media,
57:44
Speaker 1: mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You can also
57:46
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You,
57:48
Speaker 1: are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks. It's always
57:50
Speaker 1: to our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks guys. Oh no,
57:53
Speaker 1: this is one thank you and thanks to you for
57:57
Speaker 1: listening Stuff I've Never Told You. The production of I
57:59
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58:04
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.