Today we continue our journey into the twisted smoking ruin that is our childhoods . . . what? Why are you all looking at me like that? I’m fine. I’m fine. Seriously, this week we continue “When We Wuz Kids,” where we check out movies that we remember loving as kids to see how they hold up. This week’s entry comes from Mike’s distant past: another 1968 entry, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, a non-Disney kids’ musical with songs from the team that brought you “Mary Poppins” and includes Dick Van Dyke who wisely chose to forgo any sort of British accent in this movie (which makes it a little odd, as he’s the only one in the family without one). This movie has it all: singing, dancing, candy, a magical car, a terrifying Child-Catcher, and several surprising connections to our last series, the one about James Bond. Seriously. And it’s not just because the movie has a car that can float or fly. Give a listen and find out what we’re talking about!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
My cousin and i had to share our toys, so we had the chitty chitty bang bang car, the mach 5 from speed racer with its spinning saw blades and the batmobile. We might have had more but memory isn’t so great! I saw this movie as a kid and thought it was weird…. truly scrumptious seemed a name parents should NOT name their kid!
To the best of my knowledge, there were NO Speed Racer toys when I was a kid. Corgi certainly never made one. I’d have been all over those things! I finally got one when I was in my 30s. That being said, those were all excellent toys which I wore out. No child should be named Truly anything. And ‘Chastity?’ That’s just plain mean.
Thanks (?) for the shout-out when discussing the scrap value of Chitty. But you make it sound like I’m some sort of financial Comic Book Guy eager to leap out with a hyperanalytical criticism. Be fair: I have only done that ONCE across your entire series, which makes my criticism rate a mere 1.234 percent.