Sunday, August 20, 2006

Disney night

Day before yesterday I had a great movie watching day. First, I lucked upon Lady and the Tramp on the Disney Channel... have always loved that animated movie, and then later in the night me and the hubby watched Cars.

I have so many of the old Disney movies on VHS... yes, VHS. I've collected and saved them for years for when I have children... figuring it's something we can do as a family. Lucky for me the hubby likes animated movies too! :) My niece loves Disney movies and before coming to Bahrain, I loved sitting w/ her watching some of her favorites and some of mine too! I can't wait to share this with a child. One of her favorite is Mary Poppins and she loved The Wizard of Oz... but I can't remember is that's Disney or not. The Wizard of Oz always terrified me as a child. I was so afraid of the bad witch! I loved it when they killed her in the end!

When I was a little girl, every Friday night there was a Disney movie on TV. Our family never missed it. All of my family would sit down in front of the TV and watch whatever Disney movie was on that night. I can remember Tinkerbell flying across the screen doing her magic (I LOVE Tinkerbell - even as an adult!!), the Disney music coming on... and then the movie would start. Those were the days. I loved it. Not only did you get the animated movies, but you also got some of the great old classics. Movies like Shaggy Dog (the original), The Love Bug, Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, That Darn Cat, The Jungle Book, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Apple Dumpling Gang (an all time favorite), The Shaggy D.A., Freaky Friday, Pete's Dragon... my list could go on and on. These are favorite memories of mine and I cherish them. There's nothing like being able to sit down with your family and watch fun movies like this!

Even today, there are so many Disney movies that I want to get on DVD. Cars being one of them. It was such a sweet movie. I loved it. I even cried a bit near the ending... which some of you may laugh at, but... it was quite touching. But, you know... I've cried w/ Disney movies for as long as I can remember. I always cried w/ Bambi. It's always touched my heart and is probably my most favorite of all. I love little Thumper! and you can't beat the music in the Disney movies. April Shower is one favorite of mine. The music is always so fitting... it's gets dramatic when something bad is happening - which you can always count on in Disney movies - and then it's highly animated during the happy scenes. But, I loved it as a child and I love it now. :)

For any of you that love animated movies and/or Disney movies, Cars is definitely worth watching. It's such a sweet and funny story. One of my favorite lines is: "he's as happy as a tornada in a trailer park" (be sure to say w/ heavy hillbilly accent!!)

Anyway... felt like doing a little reminiscing.

happy day everyone!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im a big collector for Disney movies, old and new, I see to it I never miss any. Nowadays, as opposed to pre-Toy Story times, studios are really putting in alot of effort into targeting the animated movies for all ages rather than just kids. Things like Finding Nemo, and others are loads of fun and very family oriented.

I havent seen Cars, YET! :D

The Moody Minstrel said...

Ah, the memories!!!!
(...light the corners of my mind...)

My family always watched Disney night, too! In fact, when I was kind of little, I always used to wonder why Tinkerbell always destroyed the Cinderella castle with her last blast of magic!

Did you ever watch "The Mouse Factory" when it was on? It was a prime-time Disney feature that focused on the cartoon shorts. It would've been on in the mid '70s. (Now that you know about how old I am...)

Disney is an institution...or a world-conquering power...

Anonymous said...

Is that where the name "tooners" come from?

Anonymous said...

alfanan!! you got emotional at the ending?? i didn't know that... now i'll have to watch more closely! ;)

techz, i love all of those movies, including Finding Nemo. it's fabulous. i also love Toy Story, Aladin (sp?) - love Robin Williams in that movie - just so many of the movies i thoroughly enjoy.

moody, i loved The Mouse Factory. i love all the old Disney cartoons.. i still find enjoyment when watching them and will sometimes watch for hours. so.. hey, now you know about how old i am too! i think we might be around the same age. you know, i never thought anything when tinkerbell destroyed the castle... i was just in awe of her. i even loved seeing Julie Roberts play that role in the Peter Pan movie w/ Robin Williams.

mahmood, you know... i wondered when the hubby gave me that nickname if it was for something like that or because i'm crazy like a cartoon or something. need to ask him about that! ;)

Anonymous said...

Something I noticed, alot of the older Disney movies are coming out on DVD, as cleaned up high quality sets, I'm thinking of slowly getting them one at a time. I love watching the extras, that come with DVDs, how the animators worked on the project, where they got their inspiration for the characters from. Disney know, even today, how to make you feel like a kid watching their movies :D

Olivia said...

Who didn't grow up watching one Disney tradition or another?

For me it was those awesome old documentaries and nature programs that were narrated by Walt himself.

Saturday morning I saw about half of Robin Crusoe, the one with Dick van Dyke as the navy pilot who crashes and washes up on a beach and names the girl Wednesday.

Munther said...

I agree, our generation (I am an 80s child) :P was heavily influenced by Disney movies, my all time fav was the jungle book, used to sing the "bare necessities" all the time but Aladdin was great too. Oh and the beauty and the beast, You know what ? I love 'em all !
I don't think that the Wizard of OZ is Disney's but still one of the all time greats ! "Follow the yellow brick road" was another song that I used to mumble, in my uni years though! It stuck in my head because BBC 1 used to show the movie every now and then on sundays. :D

Olivia said...

Haha, Munther, you just reminded me that my first visit to the cinema was to see Jungle Book...or maybe it was ET...I can't remember.

It must have been a special showing, because Jungle Book was made in 1967, and I'm only 29.

Um Naief said...

munther, i still sing songs from the wizard of oz. love it! i grew up watching disney but the older movies... i love all of them though.. even the new ones.

olivia, ET.. i remember seeing that in the cinema. so good.

Munther said...

Sorry gals, you make me feel like a baby ! didn't go to ET in the cinema, too young to remember anyway ! :P but I didn't wanna be left out so I had to mention my ET bed covers ( noooo ! I don't have them now, just in case someone wants to be cheeky) and of course I had an ET toy ! lol

Ingrid said...

We are a big fan of Pixar (that ended up getting together with Disney which was a good thing for Disney). The animation, and smart story writing is a whole lot better than Disney. Of course, for sentiments sake, you'll always go for the 'old films'. Who could not love Mary Poppins? (read all the books) (never mind that it's not animation) I grew up reading the 'donald duck newspaper', did you have that as a kid? Some of the British Claymation type films are funny too (my 8yr old loves Chicken Run, not in the least because of the British accent; "did you go on holliday?")
As Techz mentioned, now they make the films so that both parents and kids can watch the same film but get different levels of fun out of it..
Ingrid

Jahooni said...

my fav is not a disney but its finding nemo and toy story love love loved em'. but my favorite oldie is jungle book.

gosh, now I want to go home and watch one with my daughter!

miss lady bug said...

cinderella was by far my fav disney movie. i watched it a hundred times over and over again--literally! i was about three years old and sooooo sick i had a terrible fever 103.5, and i was just in misery and nothing was soothing me, so dad went out and bought us our first vcr and our first movie--cinderella. i watched it over and over and over again until i got better and still watched it quite often afterwards. i would still watch it today, but my vhs finally gave out a couple of years ago and i haven't managed to get the dvd version yet.

RC said...

cars is definitly a movie i'm planing on renting...

i'm kind of to the point where i save the animated films for home.

I loved your post here, it sounds like you had a lot of disney magic fun.

--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com

Jahooni said...

OMG... I forgot all about my favorite Disney movie and can't believe I said "Jungle Book" instead of PETER PAN. I love the old one, the one with Robin WIlliams and also the FInding Neverland with Johnny Depp. ALso I love Cinderella and also the remake with Drew Barrymore. But Peter Pan is my all time fav.

Um Naief said...

jahooni, i love the remake of peter pan w/ robin williams. just love it. i loved julia roberts as tinkerbell in that movie! i also love the remake of cinderella w/ drew barrymore. actually, it's a fav of mine. i didn't care for Finding Neverland though... i've watched it a few times now and i can't get into it. i love johnny depp - as you know - but... i just don't like him in that movie.

ingrid, i love the Pixar movies as well. i love all types of animated movies. my husband has even gotten me into these anemies (if that's how it's spelled). there's one, in particular, that he likes and it's taken my heart... but i can't remember the name of it.

there's a whole new brand of animation coming out as of late... but i'm not sure that they're calling it animation. i haven't gotten 'that' into it or anything. but there's a new movie featuring this coming soon w/ some well known actors in it (Robert Downey Jr.) - saw it featured on some weekend show but, like usual, can't remember the name of it. it actually looks quite interesting. these characters actually look like the real ppl but are animated to some degree.