Rerun: How I Missed The Hobbit

In celebration of the long awaited release of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit to theaters, I thought I'd repost my poem recounting an episode from childhood, in which I missed seeing the second half of Rankin Bass' animated adaptation when it aired on television in the late 70s, as punishment by my parents for refusing to finish my dinner.

The tragic episode is rendered in picture and verse reminiscent of those Victorian-era, Stuwwelpeter-esque cautionary tales for children.

(And yea, this is just the blog equivalent of airing a rerun... but it'll be the first time I've done it in over five years of operating The Haunted Closet, so give me a break!)

You can read the whole story in greater detail at the original post here.

Happy Arbor Day from The Haunted Closet!

Once again, it's that holiday I'm vaguely aware of that has something to do with trees.

I usually observe Arbor Day by not knowing it's Arbor Day. But this year I thought I'd break tradition and venture forth into that spooky old forest growing in the back of this ol' closet to examine some of my favorite arboreal (it's a word!) friends that managed to uproot themselves and branch out into the realm of monsters.

We will dispense with the pleasant-trees (zing!) and get right to "Mel", the mean-spirited specimen from 1973's Tales That Witness Madness, a British-accented anthology film of four spooky tales wrapped in a framing story set in an insane asylum operated by the always pleasant Donald Pleasence. Anyone who's familiar with Amicus' 70s anthology output will feel right at home here, even though this is a World Film Services production.

In the film's third segment, "Mel", couple Brian and Bella Thompson (Michael Jayston and Joan Collins) get into an argument over Brian's latest addition to their modern country home, a section of dead tree with the name "Mel" carved into it. Perhaps going for that primitive-meets-modern effect that causes people to decorate their contemporary living spaces with tribal masks or tiki carvings, Brian displays Mel in the living room after finding her in the neighboring woods. It's shaped vaguely like a women, even more so after Brian sands and prunes it.

Bella isn't impressed with Brian's decorating taste, but she has a good reason to object beyond mere aesthetics, as Mel seems to be alive, gently leaning and shifting position around the room, and emitting a soft heartbeat heard only by the audience.

When Brian steps out for a visit to the pub, Bella leans in too close and gets clawed by Mel's sharp extremities.

When Brian returns, Bella gives him an ultimatum: if he expects her to sleep in this house, the tree has to go. Well, you can guess how that turned out...

Tales That Witness Madness has not found its way to DVD yet, but is available streaming on Netflix as of this writing.

Next up is one of my earliest monster-tree memories, the sour-apple trees from The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Back in Kansas, Dorothy was used to picking apples off of trees. But in Land of Oz, trees pick fruit off of YOU!

In the animated sort-of sequel, Journey Back to Oz (1974), Dorothy (voiced by Liza Minnelli) and some new friends revisit the ferocious forest, where the trees have grown larger and nastier with the help of Mombi the Bad Witch's magic.

They all look like they belong to the same family tree (slide whistle) of the evil trees from Living Island, home of 1969's H.R. PufnStuf.

But going back even further, we have this unpleasant fellow from Walt Disney's first color cartoon, the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees (1932). His morning yawn reveals a mouthful of bats and a lizard for a tongue.

While trying to burn down the forest, he ends up setting himself on fire instead, leaving behind a semi-disturbing burnt-out corpse.

Flowers and Trees led to Disney's first animated feature, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which had its own spooky forest of anthropomorphised trees.

Even though these monstrous trees appear to be the product of Snow White's overactive imagination, they can be found occasionally roaming the Disney parks as costumed characters.

Charlie Brown had regular run-ins with a ravenous kite-eating tree, which loudly and visibly devoured any kite that got too close.

It was sometimes depicted with an actual tooth-filled mouth, and in 1969's A Boy Named Charlie Brown, it even leaned menacingly at passers-by.

In 1982's The Last Unicorn, Schmendrick the Magician winds up tied to a tree that is brought to life by magic, transforming into a voluptuous lovesick tree-woman, threatening to smother the poor wizard with her... affections.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) featured a walking, talking hangman's tree...

Moving out of the realm of animation, we have Baranga, from 1957's From Hell It Came. I haven't actually seen this film, about a murdered island prince reincarnated as a murderous walking tree (available on DVD from Warner Archives burn-on-demand store), but the trailer looks like a lot of fun.

Anyone remember when this picture of a young Baranga was taken? I'm stumped.

After classroom chum Veronica plants ideas of witchcraft in her head, the impressionable Flavia has a nightmare that the tree outside her window is scratching to get in, in 1984's Poison For the Fairies (a.k.a. Veneno Paras Las Hadas) (hat tip to Kindertrauma for introducing me to this gem.)

But that tree was a wallflower compared to the one outside the Freeling's house in 1982's Poltergeist, which not only scratched at the window, but busted right through to grab up little Robbie between its massive limbs for a midnight snack.

Why do we always fight on holidays?

I've got something in my eye...

Aw, heck. I'm man enough to admit that certain movies have left me crying like a little girl (and that comment isn't sexist...just accurate.)

Here's the top 10 film or television moments from my childhood that brought me to tears (or at least had me sitting stone-faced with a lump in my throat, trying to control a quivering lip.) These were all first viewed in my grade school years.


10. KONG TOPPLES FROM THE WTC TOWERS

King Kong (1976)

I saw the 1976 King Kong remake in the theater, and while it was never a well regarded film, I loved it enough at the time for it to earn the coveted lunchbox slot for that year.

Questionable special effects and cheesy sequences aside (did we really need to see Kong blow-dry Jessica Lange with his big, puffy cheeks?), you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be affected by the big ape's final tragic plunge from the top of the World Trade Center towers. The disrespectful photographers scurrying across his lifeless body like eager maggots only added to my grief.




9. SNOOPY'S GOING AWAY PARTY

Snoopy Come Home (1972)

Who on earth thought it was a good idea to use Charles M. Schulz's beloved Peanuts characters as fodder for this sadistic sob fest?

Created and written by.... oh. Alrighty then.

In this feature, Snoopy is guilted into leaving Charlie Brown and the gang when his former owner, sickly and bed-ridden Lila, asks him to come back to her. Charlie Brown doesn't want Snoopy to leave, Snoopy doesn't really want to leave, and Lila, who is portrayed as a friendly and sympathetic character, leaves the audience with no one to root against in this depressing and frustrating situation.

The entire thing comes to a soul-crushing crescendo at Snoopy's going away party, as one character after the next succumbs to despair.

I distinctly remember foregoing dinner the night I watched this on TV... my stomach was already full after a big plate of W-A-A-A-A-H.




8. FROSTY MELTS IN THE GREENHOUSE

Frosty the Snowman (1969)

Little Karen is accompanying Frosty on a trip to the North Pole in this Rankin Bass animated holiday special. But as the weather turns bitterly cold, it becomes clear that Karen's life is in jeopardy.

Frosty carries her in his arms, looking for shelter, when they come across a poinsettia greenhouse. He brings her inside the warm enclosure, but before he can exit, the evil Magician (who wants his magic hat back) locks him in.

I can't tell where Frosty's melted body ends and my pool of tears begins...




7. MAMA ORCA MISCARRIES

Orca (1977)

Basically a Jaws rip-off but with killer whales, Orca opens with scenes of a killer whale couple cavorting playfully (they're monogamous, don't you know), traveling together in pods like a big happy family, and even saving a scuba-diver from a shark attack.

So about the last thing I wanted to see was the female whale being harpooned, reeled in and suspended from the boom of a fishing boat while still alive.

Did I say the last thing I wanted to see? Make that second-to-last.

The last thing I wanted to see was the mommy Orca, still dangling over the deck, miscarry her calf, which drops onto the deck before being unceremoniously tossed overboard.

Daddy Orca roars "No-o-o-o-o-o!" And so did I... (tapping chest) ...in here.





6. LINDERMAN'S BIKE GETS TRASHED

My Bodyguard (1980)

Loner Ricky Linderman (Adam Baldwin) forms a delicate friendship with Clifford (Chris Makepeace) and his circle of friends after defending them against the bully Moody (Matt Dillon).

But despite his reputation as a psychotic tough, Linderman's really a gentle giant, still carrying guilt over the accidental death of his little brother years earlier. So when bully Moody and his new "bodyguard", the macho Mike (Hank Salas), start trouble at the park, Linderman can't even find the will to defend himself.

The despicable pair double-team him, before finally throwing his vintage motorcycle, which he'd rebuilt piece by piece over the past year, into the lake.

The lessons I took away:
a) high school is a horrible, horrible place, and...
b) if you love something, don't set it free--lock it away somewhere. Somewhere where Moody and Mike can't get it.




5. DUMBO VISITS HIS MOTHER

Dumbo (1941)

Dumbo's mother is locked away as a "mad elephant" after aggressively defending her baby from being picked on by a mob of obnoxious kids.

Dumbo visits her one night, but she's chained to the wall and can barely reach her trunk out the tiny barred window. The gentle melody of "Baby Mine", heard while mother rocks baby Dumbo in her trunk, only magnifies the bittersweet scene.





4. HAZEL JOINS THE BLACK RABBIT

Watership Down (1978)

We've followed Hazel on a grand adventure, risking death many times, to find a safe new home for his family after their den was demolished by construction vehicles. In an epilogue set years later, an older, tired Hazel is approached by the ghostly Black Rabbit, who invites Hazel to join him.

After one last look at the younger rabbits of his warren (whom, the Black Rabbit assures, will be alright without him), Hazel lays on his side and takes his final breath.




3. ASLAN IS SACRIFICED

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (1979)

Aslan the lion could have torn the White Witch and her monstrous minions to pieces. But instead, he lets them murder him in a black magic ritual, part of a secret bargain he's made to spare the traitorous Edmund from a similar fate.

Lucy and Susan are watching from a hidden position, and, like the audience, are unaware of what is going on until it unfolds before their disbelieving eyes.





2. WE'RE LOSING E.T!

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

The little alien that we'd grown to love over the past 90 minutes finds himself withering away on an operating table, surrounded by clueless adults who seem to be doing more harm than good.

After the damage is done, Elliot (Henry Thomas) says a final solemn goodbye to E.T., whose lifeless body must now suffer the indignity of being frozen for future lab study.





1. OLD YELLER GOES MAD

Old Yeller (1957)

Old Yeller, the big yellow lab who is adopted by young Travis Coates (Tommy Kirk), proves himself time and again to truly be man's best friend, even fighting off a wild wolf that trespasses on their remote wilderness farm.

But mother Katie (Dorothy McGuire) realizes only a rabid wolf would attack so boldy. There's a poignant moment where the audience sees, just by the expression on her face, that Katie grasps the terrible implications for Old Yeller, then just as quickly masks her concern, so as not to upset her children. It's the moment when we first realize things will soon take a dark turn.

Old Yeller must be isolated in a shed for several days until they are sure he hasn't caught "the madness". But soon the sickness has transformed him into a savage beast, too dangerous to be kept alive.

Travis assumes the responsibility for putting him down. Classic Disney films are sometimes stereotyped as being sugar-coated frivolity (dare I say... Pollyannish?) but that isn't always true, as anyone who's seen Old Yeller can testify.




Whew--all that remembering about stuff that used to make me cry has made my eyes itchy. I'll just turn my head away and dab them with a Kleenix.

Every title is available on DVD.