When I moved in May, my new place didn’t receive satellite. So I opted to just pull the “satellite plug” and see how we would do without TV. The boys and I never watched a lot of TV anyway. Other than not having the Olympics, we’ve not missed it.
I order them movies from Netflix though, and it’s been really fun to see them enjoy older movies.
I ordered a Disney movie that came up in my suggestions, I had never seen. Considering how much my mom liked Disney movies, it is really rare, there is a Disney movie, I hadn’t seen. It was “Follow Me Boys,” with Fred MacMurray. It is from 1966, and follows the story of a town and a man, as it organizes it’s first Boy Scout Troop. The first two times I ordered it, the disc was scratched, and the third time I ordered it, the disc was broken in half. It took us the entire summer to watch it, but the boys absolutely loved it. It really is a fun movie, with a lot of humor. Fred MacMurray is wonderful as the Scoutmaster, Kirk Russell is one of the boys in the town, and does really well in one of his first parts. I actually teared up in a few spots-especially at the end. I bought the boys our own copy, and they’ve watched it three times so far. Watch out for the marching song, “Follow Me Boys,” it is very catchy and my boys sing it constantly.
The second movie was another Disney movie, (noticing a theme here?) and it was Davy Crockett. I think that pretty much speaks for itself. Ryan and Cole loved it,they sing the theme song, and I bought them their own copy. I remember watching part of it when I was little, but never saw the whole thing all the way through . It was a “boy” movie to me back then. But, it is one of my boys’ favorites now. I think it is pretty remarkable it was made in 1955 and almost 60 years later, with all the digital and high tech movies we have, this movie holds my boys’ interest like it was released today.
Finally, after seeing all these boy movies, I decided to show them something a little different. Another movie I liked, and my brother liked it too, is from Disney again, and it is a fun musical type movie, “Summer Magic,” with Haley Mills. Since we moved over the summer, the boys were interested in the story line: a family has to move from the city to the country. The main characters are teenagers, which Ryan and Cole like. Anyone who is a teenager right now, is cool to them. There are a lot of fun songs, and the boys really liked Burl Ives in the movie, and the song he sings with smaller boy, “Ugly Bug Ball.”
A few days after the boys watched this movie, Cole said his favorite part was when the Burl Ives character named Mr. Poppem, was writing a letter to Mr. Hamilton, with his back turned, and didn’t know it was Mr. Hamilton he was talking to. Cole then went on to do the impression of Mr. Poppem talking. He sounded just like him!
We did a lot of fun things this summer, but watching some of the movies I liked as a kid, with my kids, it was really neat to share that with them. I may sound old fashioned, but I like we can watch these movies from when times were simpler, and they can see what life was like, but the basic thread that makes people nice and enjoy each other, hasn’t changed. I like I don’t have to worry about violence, cussing, or themes that are too mature for them. It makes me think back to my own mom, and maybe that is what she thought when she was showing them to us, when we were kids.
I suppose that is why they are called classics. My boys right now just call them really, really good movies.
Which older movies do your kids like?