The Vine: November 25, 2009
Hi Sars,
For ages I’ve been trying to find an animated movie version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe that I saw as a child (during the ’80s).
I checked IMDB first, of course, and then YouTubed the 1979 version they have listed there and it was definitely not the movie I was thinking of. The 1979 version is too ’70s-looking and a bit too bright, if you know what I mean. The version I am thinking of was VERY dark and scary-looking.
I remember the scene where they cut Aslan’s hair as being terrifying with the various freaks and ghouls being very pointy and gross to look at. The queen too was very pointy.
It’s also not the BBC version which was a live-action version. I am hoping your readers can help me find the version I am thinking of (and even tell me if it was a television episode or something).
I Know I’m Not Going Crazy!!!!
*****
Dear Sars,
Someone on another posting board referred me to your site and I hope you or your readers can help.This cartoon has haunted me since childhood and I can’t find it anywhere now. I’m starting to wonder if I hallucinated it.
I would have watched it in the early ’80s. I’m guessing on a show like The Great Space Coaster, or Electric Company.
Anyway, it’s crude animation, maybe five to 10 minutes long, with a narrator. The narrator introduces a married couple and explains the husband doesn’t like himself and wants to be someone or something else. He starts by using disguises to dress up as other people. This gets too easy and he starts to disguise himself as things.
I remember an image of the wife putting a cup of tea down on a side table and, nope, it’s the husband with a doily on his back. It gets so bad, the wife is never sure when he’s around. One day the wife sees him sneak into the den and decides to lock him in there to teach him a lesson. Some time later, she unlocks it and he’s not in there. It’s just a room so chock full of furniture, she’s not sure exactly what was there before.
This is where it gets creepy and existential. The narrator says in a musing tone, maybe the husband got his wish and became something else and goes on like that for a bit. [shudder]Very creepy when you’re five.
Jeff
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Hoping you or your readers can help.In the summer of 1985, I saw on TV a movie that I believe was made in the late sixties to early seventies.I am desperate to know the name of the movie, as I never got to see the end!
Here is all that I remember and I warn you, it isn’t much to go on: there is a girl of about 13 with long, straight, blond hair who may be on vacation with her grandfather, possibly in France.Said girl meets a boy…about the same age with shaggy brown hair.
Boy’s name may be Bobby, but then again maybe not, as I was in love with a boy named Bobby back then and maybe I just made that part up!The boy and girl appear to run away together to Paris and are possibly being chased by a villain, and the two hide in a movie theater.
I also want to say that the girl’s parents are getting a divorce and that is why she is on vacay with gramps, but again, could be making that up.
That is it…sorry, still hope you can help.
Had I been more popular in the ’80s, I wouldn’t have been at home watching TV and this wouldn’t have perplexed me for 24 years…LOL
Tags: Ask The Readers Electric Company Great Space Coaster popcult
The last one is “A Little Romance”, with a young Diane Lane as the girl. One of my favorite movies to catch on cable. The grandfather character is Lawrence Olivier, a con man the two runaways end up traveling with.
I’m pretty sure that the Paris movie is “A Little Romance,” with a very young Diane Lane in the lead. Also, I’ll have whatever magical gorgeousness youth serum she’s having, please.
I think #3 might be “A Little Romance” a very sweet film made in 1979 and starrring Diane Lane as an American girl living in Paris who falls in love with a French boy named Daniel who was obsessed with Hollywood films. I barely remember the movie, but do seem to recall that they ran away together to Venice, and were somehow aided in their romance by Laurence Olivier, who played a kindly pickpocket(?). Does this sound familiar? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079477/
“A Little Romance” is it exactly!! Funny how I got so many details wrong but you all knew what I meant!!
Yes yes! A Little Romance! I even walked down the aisle to Vivaldi’s Concerto in D. Okay, so maybe it’s not the most original, and I didn’t do it BECAUSE of the movie- but that happened to be where I first heard it. Damn, I never know the Vine pop-cult questions.
That version of the lion the witch and the wardrobe was the BEST. Especially the scene where the witch turns into a tree! Why is it internet invisible?
Okay, I’ve been searching all afternoon, and I really do think the 1979 version is what you’re looking for. Most of the images I found looked too bright and too round for my memories, but then I found a page with screencaps that are definitely the haircutting scene at the table. Check out these and see what you think: http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/narnia/wardrobe.html
Hmm… I don’t know if I’m just brainwashing myself, but I’m starting to think it’s the seventies version I remember… Apparently there are two voice tracks, one with the American accents (that’s the version on youtube) and one with British accents. The one I saw definitely had the British.
Not Going Crazy, wikipedia lists another live-action version that aired on ITV in 1967. (http://tinyurl.com/y8wrxyn) Even though it’s live action, it sounds like the creepiness and darkness you describe would fit the time period. But it also says only 2 episodes are around, so the world may never know!
I think that *is* the version of Lion, Witch, Wardrobe. I remember it too. Although we had the terrible people version from the ’90s (I think). The animated one was superior, but the people one was a Christmas gift.
Hey Natalie,
I checked out the screen caps and it still looks too round, shiny and cartoon-y compared to my memories. The only character that looks like I remember is the witch’s little sidekick guy. Even the hair cutting scene doesn’t look terrifying enough. Maybe my memories are just warped :)
I also just searched youtube and there are clips. Here is the haircutting scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEJEm4cWpZI&feature=related It’s still more cartoon-y and less scary than I remember… is this what you remember it being Natalie?
Also, I’ll have whatever magical gorgeousness youth serum she’s having, please.
@Kim: Seriously! Lane’s loveliness seems almost absurdly permanent.
A guy at a Chronicles of Narnia-related site – http://members.lycos.co.uk/Jonathan_Gregory76/faq.htm – lists these as the only three screen adaptations prior to the big-screen movies:
* In 1967 ABC Television Network Production produced nine 20-minute live-action, black and white episodes of ‘The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’. The episodes were broadcast on ITV (UK) between 9 July and 3 September 1967
* The Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation of Atlanta, Georgia and the Children’s Television Workshop, New York joined together to produce a 2 hour animated film of ‘The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’. It was shown in the US in April 1976 and then in Britain in April 1980.
* The BBC produced versions of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, ‘Prince Caspian’, ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ and ‘The Silver Chair’. These adaptations were first broadcast on BBC Television between November 1988 and December 1990.
Is it possible yours is the black-and-white one?
I’ve definitely seen that cartoon version of TLTWATW, and I remember thinking that Mr. Tumnus was pretty creepy. The screen caps are definitely of better quality than I recall, so maybe that’s it?
I was actually a real fan of the BBC version. They were remarkably true to the books.
I believe the version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that you’re looking for is PBS’ WonderWorks–they also did The Silver Chair with Tom Baker as the marshwiggle (mad geek love, there). Hope that helps!
Jeff–I TOTALLY remember that too!! My memory is that it was black-and-white line drawings, but that could be inaccurate. Reading your letter definitely triggered a memory of it though. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s from, so it’ll be driving me crazy, too…hopefully someone here will identify it!
Jeff — no help on the cartoon, but there’s a children’s book by William Steig (who wrote the original book of Shrek — funny and quite unlike the movie) called “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” about a young donkey who wishes himself into the shape of a rock with the help of his magic pebble, then can’t undo the wish because — he’s a rock.
Michelle, I just want to say that I remember that Lion, Witch… cartoon so vividly–in fact, I was watching it as a kid when the lights went out in the house, completely freaking the hell out of me! As a result of that movie, I would also go digging behind the clothes in my closet, hoping there’d be a door to Narnia there. Sigh. Glad I’m not the only one who was affected so strongly by this movie!
Jeff, I remember that cartoon, too. It was creepy. It was line drawings, but I dont think it was black and white, just very washed out color sort of sepia. It was definitely not Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. I also have the feeling that it was a sketch on a PBS educational show… but that’s not much help. I probably saw it in the mid-tp-late ’70’s.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it was an animated short on the Electric Company. I can’t find it anywhere on line, though. Gaahh! I can totally hear the narrator’s voice. This is going to bug me now. Thanks a lot, Jeff.
dancing_lemur, Thanks for the validation! I was starting to think it was just me. Maybe this is the reason for my amateur philosophy. Anybody got any ideas?
Chiming in here on TLTWATW cartoon, I remember the one you’re talking about too, and I looked at the screen caps that Natalie posted and the youtube clip of the haircutting scene that Michelle posted, and they’re so close, but I really really think the one I remember was darker too. In the haircutting scene the little demon was…sharper? Darker? And moved much quicker? And instead of the background sounds of laughing and jeers I remember it being much quieter, the sounds of the scissors and some VERY creepy quiet snickers by the little demon.
Does anybody else remember Edmund having dark hair in the cartoon? I’ve looked at the other clips from the same version, like the one of him and the White Witch, and I could’ve sworn the witch was prettier and Edmund had much darker hair.
But I’ve looked around too and I don’t find anything but the 1979 version either. While it’s possible that I could’ve remembered it being much scarier than it actually is…it couldn’t be a mass hallucination from all of us could it?
I remember a darker version of TLTWATW too!
A lot of the screenshots look very similar to me – but Mr. Tumnus looks wrong to me (too cartoony and red and green), and same thing with the demons. Perhaps I just saw it young enough that I thought it was scarier!
Jeff- animation expert and friend of mine didn’t come up with anything off the top of his head but says that Big Cartoon Database (http://www.bcdb.com) is usually very helpful as is the forum (http://forum.bcdb.com/).
Also, for those of you firmly committed to identifying movies, the AFI movie database is awesome. It’s only through 1974 as of now (a longtime work in progress), but you can search for keywords in their very detailed summaries, it’s a helpful identification aid. And right now they’re opening it up to non-member use, check it out!
http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/
Elaine: “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” — AUGH! So scary! My mom had to put that book away when I was little. I mean, I’m all for not sugarcoating stuff for kids, but seriously, what kind of kids’ story was that???
LLyzabeth and Erica…. I am so glad someone else remembers it being darker! I too don’t remember Tumnus being green or so cartoon-y looking. I remember him being taller as well. I also remember Aslan looking much larger and more regal and lion-y than cartoon-y. I also don’t remember the children looking like that esp. the older girl, I mean she’s not very cute in the youtube clips! I am starting to wonder if I have memories of book illustrations that I am translating into movie scenes in my head. What’s most vivid to me is the haircutting scene because I remember being so deeply saddened by it. Oh well, it certainly isn’t showing up anywhere so maybe it was just me translating book illustrations into movie scenes in my head.
Jeff – try looking up cartoons by Plimpton.
Last poster – sounds a lot like part of the plot to the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweller (sp?), which is a book I read, but I never saw a live version of.
I have been plagued by memories of the same eerie cartoon that haunts Jeff. Its staying power in my memory is such that 30 years later I am scouring the web trying to find any information I can on it. The only clue I can offer is that it was definitely shown on The Great Space Coaster, during the interlude when Roy would show cartoons on his handheld TV. Most of the cartoons shown during this segment were European in origin, which would certainly jive with its existential tone. If by some chance anyone who knows about this cartoon comes across this comment, please find me on facebook. Best, JJ Vladimir