Okay, some of us only handled "Somewhere Out There" by telling ourselves there were no actual children or mice in Fievel's position. That goes double for the sad songs in Follow That Bird. Or when Dumbo's mom can only reach him with her trunk. Sadists.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
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"Reeest yooooour heeeead close to my heart, never to part, baby of miiiiine." Sends me into insta-tears. Dumboooooo!
@one cow. OH GOD DUMBO. OH GOD OH GOD. I can't have been the only one who wanted to f*cking FLAY that stupid boy who was taunting Dumbo and his mom was just trying to protect him?! And typing these words has made me tear up?
@one cow. I am pretty sure I owe at least a small part of my being vegan to Dumbo's imprisoned mother.
@D.@twitter Speaking of elephants, my second grade teacher had the book "Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People, and War" on her shelf during our class unit on Japan. That book left me utterly beside myself. I read it and just sat there sobbing my little 7-year-old heart out. Generally, I try and think of things like this as little as possible, the better to preserve my fragile emotional equilibrium, and prevent me from abandoning grad school in favor of going to live in a tree and using a sniper rifle to pick off poachers (or something) for the rest of my life.
Dogs who wait at the train station for the rest of their lives after their owners die.
@Nicole Cliffe Futurama?! That episode is terrible! I hate how much I can feel for cartoons...
@NeverOddOrEven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko I'm so sorry to do this to you.
@Nicole Cliffe
Am I the only one who weeps at the end of the Futurama episode "Jurassic Bark," with Fry's dog?
@Princess Slayer Aw sonofabitch! In real life?!
I only skimmed that since I don't like crying at work, and I'm premenstrual, but I will surely read this at home and immediately regret it.
I like how quickly I jumped to Futurama though, being that Frye never died and it was a pizza joint.
@Princess Slayer Nooooooooooo that is the saddest thing.
@NeverOddOrEven There's a Hachiko movie with Richard Gere! I give it 4 1/4 Kleenex's. That Akita had chops, but I'd try to avoid it during "that time" of the month. There's no being a grown up woman once the maudlin tears start.
@Dancersize Nope. I do. Every time. Such that I can't watch it anymore.
@D.@twitter @Nicole Cliffe @SarahP Sorry, but there's a bag of dust about to explode in your eyeballs: http://m.wimp.com/elephantsreunited/
@maevemealone Thank you so much for posting this! THIS. I saw this for the first time when pregnant with my first and it stayed with me forever. Elephants, they are my spirit animals or something, I have always had a strong love for them, I guess like how some girls have the horse thing? This also reminds me of Koko the signing gorilla. I saw this for the first time when I was very little and it made me BAWL. Koko love.
@maevemealone OMG, what is this?!? Oh shit, oh shit, tears. "They say elephants never forget..." Oh, my creys.
@Wookiee Hole I knoooow!!! I'm sorry. The hugging trunks melts my face off my head.
Or when Bambi's mother is shot.
Or when the Velveteen Rabbit's boy throws him away.
Or when the Last Unicorn finds out that she is the last.
Or when Shadow takes a really long time to show up at the end of Homeward Bound.
Or when Peter Pan falls in love with Wendy's daughter in Hook, and you feel really bad for Wendy that Peter never felt that way about her.
Or when Fiver looks for Hazel after he has been shot.
Or when Hazel-Ra dies in Watership Down.
Or the entire story of The Selfish Giant.
Or The Fox & The Hound.
My memories of childhood films are like a vast, desolate plain where the grasses of sadness ripple as I water them with my tears.
@wee_ramekin Or when the Last Unicorn comes to Molly Grue.
God, no wonder I'm a mess.
If I really want to annoy my husband, I say: "little matchstick girl." That story slays him.
And then I'm all "she must have been SO COLD, but she had NO MORE MATCHES." I'm horrible.
@Nicole Cliffe And now I'm cracking up at work.
@wee_ramekin When the baby blanket cries like an actual human baby in The Brave Little Toaster.
@wee_ramekin - and what about that poor fucking tree that just kept giving and giving to that ingrate kid? My mom read that to me a bunch when I was little, cuz she loved Shel Silverstein stuff (as I do now!) and it fucked me up so bad that whenever people would take me places like carnivals, I just insisted I didn't like rides, or funnel cake, or games, or presents, or anything.
"No thanks, I just love to watch the people!" I was so over-sensitive about not being that little prick all I ever wanted to do was sit around stumps and read and watch the other boughs bend in the wind, and appreciate them before the other greedy little bastards who missed the point of the story ripped them down to make boats and sail far away.
@wee_ramekin Or all of Where the Red Fern Grows. I still remember bawling in my fourth grade classroom while the teacher read it to us. Sob!
@vanillawaif Oh Gawd, why don't we just say all of The Brave Little Toaster, and leave it at that?
@scrawler I'll see your Where the Red Fern Grows and through my tears, I'll raise you an Old Yeller and The Yearling. And then there's also that movie where the horse ends up having to choose between a little rich girl in a wheel chair and a little poor boy? Add that in there too.
@Mr. Singin Yeah, that story is reeeeeeally misinterpreted. Whenever someone tells me it's their favorite book, I'm all like "Uhhhhhmmmmm.....?".
Your story about not enjoying carnivals is so adorable though. Hee!
@leon.saintjean - All of that is to say, I was an unbearable little communist-punk until I started earning my own money and realized sometimes it's nice to give people things.
And please, nobody even mention the sadness at the end of a book with the titular initial OY.
@wee_ramekin Or when Littlefoot watches his mother die.
("I'll be with you, even if you can't see. [...] Littlefoot: let your heart guide you; it whispers, so listen closely.")
@wee_ramekin Or how about in the Neverending Story when Artax the Horse just gives up and lets himself sink into the Swamp of Sadness while Atreyu tries to rescue him?
@wee_ramekin Bridge to Terabithia.
@wee_ramekin One of the biggest mistakes I made in high school was convincing our creative writing teacher to let us watch TBLT one afternoon instead of reading our work aloud. It's a good thing the lights in the room were off because I CRIED AT HIGH SCHOOL OVER A CARTOON.
@Alixana OH GOD.
@applestoapples :(
@nofunnybusiness OH GOD The Land Before Time!!!! How could I have forgotten that?!
True story: When I was in college, I downloaded the music that plays during his mother's death. Then I played it out loud, and my roommate and I sat in silence with tears streaming down our faces for the entire 3:30 minutes.
~*~*~Liiiiiiiiittlefooooooot~*~*~.....
(Shit. I just watched that and cried at work.)
@wee_ramekin Having someone read the Velveteen Rabbit at a wedding is a guaranteed cry from me.
@applestoapples I thought we agreed to never ever ever ever mention Artax ever again. If we haven't, we should!
@nofunnybusiness Oh goddammit I teared up just reading those words. WHY.
@wee_ramekin
Grey Friars Bobby!
@boyofdestiny
"Come on Artax, let's ride."
"Come on boy what's the matter? [pause] I understand. It's too difficult for you. The swamp is making you sad."
"Artax, you're sinking!"
"ARTAX! Please! You have to try! You have to care! For me! You're my friend! I love you! Artax! Stupid horse! MOVE!"
"Nooooooooo! Artaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax!!!!"
I...I'm sorry. I become a sadist when talk turns to Sad Movies from Childhood, and I try to ensure that everyone else around me is sobbing as hard as I am.
@scrawler Oooh, one of the treats of being a 5th grader was seeing your teacher cry while reading Where The Red Fern Grows. It was a rite of passage in our school district.
@wee_ramekin
THANKS FOR THE SPOILERS, WEE RUIN-IT-KIN!
Ahhh you guys, stop, this is just like that War Horse post where we started talking about sad animal movies! I don't know if I can handle this conversation topic twice in one week. But I said it last time and I'll say it again (and reconfirm what wee_rams pointed out) SHADOW IN HOMEWARD BOUND ugh I cried forever every time. "Shadow!" "Peter!" "SHADOOOWW!"
Also the part of Brave Little Toaster I couldn't handle was when they're in the junkyard and the scary metal detector/collector thing was coming for them. My dad had to watch that part with me every time. So traumatic.
Ughh let's just talk about WHAS so I am happy again!
@boyofdestiny: Noted. But I blame wee_ramekin for forcing me to dredge up sad childhood movie moments.
@wee_ramekin I didn't even last five seconds on that video. If I keep going there's a 90% chance of crumpleface.
@leon.saintjean I took a class on banned literature, and you'd be surprised how much that book gets challenged (meaning, people try to get it taken out of libraries and classrooms) for promoting deforestation!
@Roxanne Rholes Promoting...deforestation? Not, oh I don't know, EXTREMELY ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS?
You guys, this is the most horrible thread ever. I have so much dust/eyelashes in my eyes, and waaaahhhh!
@atipofthehat OH NO! Tip (and people who liked his comment)! I am so sorry!
I rashly assumed everyone had seen The Never-Ending Story, and now I can't delete the comment :(.
@wee_ramekin If it makes you feel better, I liked his comment, but only because I enjoyed the silly Wee Ruin-It-Kin joke, I was not spoiled!
@wee_ramekin If you feel like being furious, all day: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/21stcenturychallenged/index.cfm#2010
@wee_ramekin Or when Artax drowns in the Swamps of Sadness.
@wee_ramekin OH GOD THE FOX & THE HOUND! How is that a children's movie? What sadist thought that was a good idea?
@tortietabbie Has anyone seen "Goodbye, My Fair Lady"? because holy shit, waterworks galore. Also, and this is truly embarassing, but Angels in the Outfield. *flap. flap. flap.*
@wee_ramekin Speaking of bambi, my mom bought two copies of the VHS and RECORDED OVER the scene where bambi's mother gets shot. She felt it was too mature for our baby brains to handle.
So yeah, bambi never made sense to me. Okay he's running he's running he's ... in the forest with his father being all solemn and shit? What's goin on???
@heyits @heyits If we're just talking about movies that make us cry, my list is basically endless. I can/do cry at anything. But since you mentioned a baseball movie...A League of Their Own! I watched it over Xmas with my mom and was just a mess by the end that my mom asked me (FOR THE SECOND TIME THAT WEEK, AGAIN DUE TO AN EMOTIONAL MELTDOWN) if I was pregnant.
@redheadedandcrazy Your mom is Phoebe Buffay's mom! (Am I allowed to make Friends references here? Yes, right?)
@Valley Girl WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT
@Valley Girl ARTAX NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
That scene turns me into a blubbering idiot every time.
@applestoapples That ruined me. I was deathly terrified of that movie as a child, and that scene was why. Not scared like during the fire in Bambi when I would hide under my bed, but deeply, existentially disturbed. Ditto to everything about Fern Gully, for some reason.
@wee_ramekin Somehow over the past twenty years, I've become able to watch Artax sinking without tearing up. But the Rock Monster saying "they look like such big, strong hands" after he couldn't save his friends still makes me completely lose it.
@kateek YES. I want to hug the rock monster!
@wee_ramekin I just started watching this clip and full-on WHIMPERED in my cube at work. I couldn't even watch to the end :'(
@atipofthehat You should still see the movie, though. I promise it's not ruined! At least now you know not to be hopeful when you get to that scene.
@jen325
Or after Scar hits Sarabi, and even though she's big and strong and a mighty hunter, she doesn't even get up because what's the point?
Or when Oliver is left in the soggy cardboard box?
Or when the mother has to eat frogs in The Triplets of Belleville? And actually just The Triplets of Belleville?
On another note, what was even UP with The Never-Ending Story's movie's ending?? I mean, WHAT, that is the opposite of everything.
@jen325 The rock monster! All my cries, all the time.
And hazel-ra I can't even hear 'bright eyes' without having to rapidly leave the room to deal with my... allergies. God, watership down.
It's something about the animals. I did a big re read of Tamora Pierce books in the hols, and while the human deaths are sad, the animal ones made me sod to the point where I needed my asthma inhaler. There was one point in one of the Trickster's choice books where faithful is merely referred to and I cried for two minutes.
@wee_ramekin Oh my god, it's like a vast horrible conspiracy of sad-making. Is this society's way of trying to prepare children for the desolate injustice of life? Or is there some surreal pleasure derived from the tears of children? OMG IS MONSTERS INC REALLY A DOCUMENTARY?! That would explain SO MUCH.
@Inkcrafter What do you mean? What's wrong with the ending?
@jen325
In the movie, Bastian uses Falcor to get back at the kids who bullied him. He's not mentally advancing and hasn't learned anything since the beginning of the movie, and he uses Falcor to pick on some schoolkids. Falcor's a majestic-ass luckdragon. He's got better shit to do!
@Inkcrafter He's not actually using Falcor to get back at the kids; he's using his imagination. The whole movie is about imagination, so it makes sense when you look at it that way.
@jen325 Yeah, it's his imagination, but he's still not doing anything but being a bully himself, I guess? He hasn't moved on mentally from the state he was in at the beginning of the story, that he would get them back if he had a chance.
@Inkcrafter Um...but he's doing it in a fun, not-harmful way? I don't know. It's one of those cases where I wonder how closely that part follows the book (which I haven't read).
I liked the ending when I was a kid, but I got picked on so of course I liked it.
@jen325
Oh, the book goes waaaay on (a great red if you liked the movie!) and contains character development.
I think how the characters learn from the things that happen to them is one of the most interesting elements of how a story ends up. It makes it more than adventure and new creatures and fighting because it's only emotional take-away that impacts the reader as well. The movie seemed to communicate that Bastian didn't absorb anything from his journey as he was acting the same start to finish.
@Inkcrafter
A great red. Yeaaas. Nearly a magenta if you will.
@Inkcrafter Now I want to read it even more than I already did!
I can't even say 'Dumbo's mother' without my voice starting to catch a little. Could easily sob just having typed that. At moments like this, does anyone else think of Linda Radlett and the 'little houseless match'?
@datalass It has no roof, no thatch.
My most embarrassing elementary school moment is related:
A friend's birthday sleepover in 3rd grade involved her parents taking us to her dad's restaurant at 11pm and having us sign up for karaoke to sing in front of the bar patrons. I had pretty much just learned that my parents had a kid between my brother and me who had died before I was born (heart issues), so I put my name down for "Somewhere Out There," which I wanted to sing to the brother I never knew. My name was eventually called, and after working up the nerve to get up to the front, dedicate the song to my brother, and start singing, all the other girls joined in with me. I was angry at the time - thinking they were taking my ‘moment’ from me - but now I appreciate it. I'm a terrible singer, and that was a lotta ballad for someone as tone deaf as me.
I also cannot imagine what was going through the minds of the adults drinking in the bar that night. The earnestness!
Did I mention that one of my closest friends had found out that day that she was adopted and subsequently cried all night?
Ahhhhh Follow that Bird! Big Bird in the cage??! What was that?? Childhood trauma courtesy of Sesame Workshop, thanks guys.
@waitykaitie "Oh, this'll be fun! A whole movie about Big Bird!"
And then you cry. Forever.
@waitykaitie That movie terrified me! When Big Bird is all washed in the blue light, and the Dodos!
@NeverOddOrEven The adoption bird lady was The Worst. "You should be with your own kind." Girl, please.
@lil.orphan.shannie Exactly. Somewhere around that point the rest of the movie just got really upsetting to me.
But Big Bird in the cage in the blue light.... that one is just seared in my brain.
@waitykaitie Follow That Bird is so underrated for how traumatic it is/was. Even now I'm getting stressed out just thinking about sitting at my grammas house and sobbing while watching it on VHS.
Any time someone tells me little kids aren't able to handle death or other scary or sad concepts, I think of stuff like this. I knew all those scenes were sad when I was five, but I don't think I started bawling about them until my teens and 20s.
@SarahP It's like the beginning of Up. The older you are, the more you cry.
@SarahP And I think it's really important that kids have narratives with death and sadness and all that. Because at some point they have to deal with it, and it's even harder if they don't have the language.
@Sylvia A. Rudy@facebook My sister and I went to see Toy Story 3, and she'd already seen it so she turned around to watch the audience at the end. She said every single adult in the theater was crying but the kids were mostly okay.
Sing it, Abed.
Wow - two of my saddest childhood memories in one post (Dumbo and Fieval)!
No I wasnt kidnapped as kid, I was just too sensitive to tv.
There is probably no way to say this without coming off as mega bitchy, but did you read that little blurb carefully?
She was "kidnapped" by her grandmother for five days. Five days. With grandma. I have no doubt it was traumatic, not to mention dramatic:
The five days I spent without a mother were and will always be the worst of my memories. Frances was my dirt, and when she left, she took my feet with her. A six-year-old girl without gravity. Weightless but not flying because that would have been a relief. Instead, I was in a constant state of losing—spending one minute remembering the plump of the small bump on both her pinkies where her sixth finger used to be, and the next minute trying to picture the curl of the three hairs near her chin. There were moments when I could call up her face on speed dial, and others when I couldn’t remember the number to save my life. I needed saving.
I know it's not the worst thing ever, but she didn't know it was only going to be five days, you know? Then again, I also had to be picked up from every sleepover I ever had, so I am not objective here.
@Nicole Cliffe Ah, a fellow member of the "never made it through the night" club. Our club crest is a tiny hand holding a telephone, the other hand anxiously twisting the telephone cord.
Has anyone ever had a real "tummyache" at a sleepover? Ever?
@Nicole Cliffe One time I was tearing up at the prospect of staying the whole night at this girl's house (which was crazy, considering the fact that she had a canopy bed AND a Persian cat, so she had my fantasy life) so I pretended that I had dropped something and it had rolled under her bed. While I was under there, I decided in a flash that it would be a genius idea to pretend that I had hit my nose on her bedframe and therefore I needed to go home. It worked, inasmuch as I got to go home, but she never wanted to play after that.
That time it was a one-on-one sleepover, but was there anything worse than being the crybaby who left while everyone else was braiding one another's hair with their Dorito-stained fingers?
@karion Not with Grandma, with Grandma's friend. And you seem to be assuming that Grandma is a wonderful loving person who is pleasant to be with. Where did you get that idea.
Regardless of who took her, this little girl was taken away from her mother without either of their consent, and had no idea where her (sounds like only) parent was, or if she was ever coming back for her.
If your point (which I am having a hard time parsing) is that she's exaggerating the trauma, then I would kindly suggest you think about this story a little harder.
@Nicole Cliffe: I am being an ass. I think I was just really haunted by The Deep End of the Ocean when it comes to kidnappings.
I have no doubt it was traumatic and terrifying for a six year old, even if there was no hostility involved. It just doesn't rise to my Fievel-level, the author's very dramatic prose notwithstanding.
@gobblegirl: What a wonderful suggestion. I took you up on that, and did a little googling. This is the kidnapping story from the mom's perspective:
And her mother recalls the story, too. "We were on our way to Spain and my mother didn't feel I should go," Frances Andrews says. "She wanted me to stay and marry this man. She drove us to the airport and said, 'Go in and check your bags. The baby can wait.'
"I go in and get my boarding pass. I come out and my mom is gone. I thought she must be circling the block. I waited two hours. Then I gave up and went back to my mom's home and sat and waited. She came back without my daughter. She said, 'You need to settle down and stop chasing the world,' " says Frances Andrews. "I am a lesbian. My family thought I should not have had a child."
She promised her mother she would settle down. "Just bring me my child."
Her mother brought Helena back and Frances left town with her daughter for an island.
Again, surely traumatic and dramatic and terrifying. Just not quite on my Fievel-level.
@karion Rereading my comment, I realize that it had a more aggressive tone than I intended. For that I apologize. My point was only that however we may view it, this child remembered this event from her childhood as extremely traumatic and transformative. I just think it’s a little weird to be saying – and this was only my first reaction to your comment and it could easily be wrong - that that it wasn’t as big a deal as something that happens to a mouse in a cartoon somebody made up.
I hope we're not Internet-enemies now. Disney films at dawn?
@Nicole Cliffe I once had to be dropped home from a group sleepover early because the other girls were playing Robbie Williams songs too loudly and it was scaring me.
@karion I dunno, I'm thinking typically a kid is going to be a hell of a lot more traumatized by getting stowed with a stranger for five days with no warning or indication that her mother is not, in fact, now in Spain and never coming back than an adult is going to be at having her child snatched by her mother.
The experience you've got with what's possible, probable, and likely (and why all that is) when you're seven is...not that great. Like, maybe your mom really did decide she didn't want you anymore? I mean, that last tantrum you threw a few days ago was pretty intense. And maybe your grandmother really isn't ever coming back to get you? Is this what adoption is sometimes? Can you be left with a baby-sitter for years? And none of this is helped by the fact that you typically don't have a lot of say over your own life at the best of times?
I mean, it doesn't compare to that same 7-year-old accidentally being shuttled to Ireland instead of Spain by the airlines and wandering out of the airport and into the gutter with no contact information, but it's still pretty awful.
@gobblegirl: @gobblegirl: Ha - no worries. I have thick skin and am not sure I had the superior argument, anyway. I was being a little bit of a shit, discounting her experience. As I said more than once, I am sure it was traumatic and terrifying, and that should be the end of my editorials on it.
I just had to snark it up when I read the excerpted blurb (which I reproduced above) and realized that we were talking about 5 days with grandma. Which was assholerific of me.
So what I am saying is yes, Disney films at dawn.
@karion I worry you will be better armed than me, as I was never allowed to watch the scary/tragic ones. So I'll probably be bringing Aladdin
In the category of Emotionally Traumatic Childhood Films may I submit, for your consideration:
Mufasa's death scene in The Lion King
Return to Oz
@NeverOddOrEven
Mufasa's death torn me up far more than Bambi or Littlefoot's mom ever did.
@NeverOddOrEven I can't even handle how much I love The Lion King and how upsetting it is. Mufasa's death scene! Trampled by antelope! Then Simba blames himself and goes into exile! Nooooooo omg NO James Earl Jones, you can't leave us!
@NeverOddOrEven Ahhh with the Simba snuggling under Mufasa and the blaming himself and the crying! Every time with the crying.
@emilylouise Dude, my best friends and I used to watch that movie like every day, just so we could write trivia questions about it after and try to stump eachother.
We did this repeatedly. It got down to shit like "how many birds fly overhead in the opening sequence".
I also still have all of my drawings of characters based off the trading cards. Of which I still have the complete set. Series one AND series two!
@NeverOddOrEven Return to Oz is just straight-up nightmare fuel. It makes kids cry for totally different reasons.
@NeverOddOrEven What about when Simba flops down in the sand and the dust spells "S E X" ?! That part was already really titillating for us. "You guys, I think I see it!"
@NeverOddOrEven The Lion King came out about two years after my dad died (I was 8) and I happily saw it in the theater at least a dozen times. I don't remember ever getting sad about the fact that HIS DAD DIES. Like, maybe it seeing it repeatedly was some strange child-like coping mechanism or something? I don't know. Anyway, I watched it as an adult a few years ago and all I could do was sit there and silently scream while I watched him fall off the cliff. UGH, my heart. I also never understood why so few Disney characters have two parent homes. Was Walt raised by a single mom/dad? What's that about?
@hulia Yup. The snuggle just kills me.
@Aeroplane Exactly. Not so much in the death realm, but definitely fucked.
For a while there my sister and I thought we may have made it all up, since nobody else seemed to believe there was a sequal.
@NeverOddOrEven Sequel, gah! Edit button why don't you work?
@emilylouise Oh yea, we played that back only about 8 times.
How about Alladin? There's the scene on the balcony when he's trying to fight off Raja and the mumbling/growling sounds like "Good kids take off their clothes."
@NeverOddOrEven Yes OR how about when the priest in Little Mermaid has a boner! Oh man, I loved Disney urban legend things as a kid.
@NeverOddOrEven Oh god, it was YEARS before I stopped fast-forwarding that scene. Someone was playing it at work (call centre, one of the test tvs was on the movie channel) and I had to take an unscheduled bathroom break.
@emilylouise
BUFFALO.
Sorry. Respect to his memory etc.
@lil.orphan.shannie The single-parent thing is definitely weird. But then, how many fairy tales start out with single parents, or no parents. Or kids books, even.
God, Return to Oz. Terrifying. Mombi! And the Wheelers! I was terrified of the wheelers and daleks. Why it never occurred to me that I could just climb a tree, I do not know.
@Inkcrafter AUUUUGH! I'm so embarrassed. I've never been so ashamed on the internet. I apologize to the memory of Mufasa.
@emilylouise Dude! You're BOTH wrong. Wildebeest.
Though I had to look it up. 11 year old me weeps.
@NeverOddOrEven
Oh.. now I'm even more embarrassed because I thought those animals were the same animals, but I wasn't for certain how to spell wildebeest. (Simba mentions buffalo later, so I thought oh, those things are also buffalo!)
I just broke out of my lurk status to say that the song, "It Changes" from Snoopy, Come Home absolutely smashes me to ribbons.
Wait, there's an HBO Family? Isn't that an oxymoron?
Where the Red Fern Grows. That is all.
A few years ago I stumbled on a YouTube clip from the Land Before Time and thought to myself "Oh I barely remember anything from this childhood movie, let's refresh my memory." It was Littlefoot's mom. I had not seen this movie in about twenty years. So I clicked and about five seconds in managed to tap some deep well of childhood sadness and had to call my mom.
"Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitlefoot...." [♪♫♪ haunting music begins to play, winds begin to whisper ♫♪♫]
@Princess Slayer Oh my god, SERIOUSLY - it's been about twenty years for me, too, and I couldn't even get to the end of the Youtube clip because I was about to start sobbing at work. I need to call my mom, too...
@Princess Slayer The part in TLBT that absolutely kills me is right after the mother dies, and Little Foot is so depressed, and the baby pterodactyls are fighting over the cherry. When their mom presents them all with cherries, one of them tries to give one to Little Foot, placing it closer and closer to him, not understanding, and Little Foot just turns away. Oh, man, tearing up just typing this. THE BABY PTERODACTYL DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHY.
@Princess Slayer To this day I cannot even think of his mother's death scene without tearing up. I used to watch it all the time as a little kid because my mother kept telling me his mom went to sleep; then I turned 6 and figured out his mom was actually dead and just started completely losing it every time. Finally my parents put the kibosh on that and sold our VHS copy at a garage sale.
The last time I tried to watch it I was 19 and I had to quit at the part where Littlefoot finds the leaf. I was (still am?) a mess.
@wee_ramekin You're a sadist. Let's be friends.
Wait, how is it that I'm incapable of guesting here without eliciting mentions of "Where The Red Fern Grows"? And I know that's on me, and my oversensitive childhood nostalgia. Maybe I could re-read it and shake the pain.
@Nicole Cliffe
It might be even worse now. But when your child is old enough to read it....
@Nicole Cliffe
i was super sick one day when i was ten and decided to read "where the redfern grows." my sister came downstairs in the afternoon to find me absolutely bawling on the couch. she almost had a panic attack thinking i was in pain or something, until i calmed down enough to tell her that the dogs were about to freeze to death. she was sympathetic. That book is traumatizing.
@Nicole Cliffe I mentioned it mere minutes before you said that. That movie scarred me and continues to scar me. Ugh. It's just...ugh.
Follow that bird is the single most devastating film I've ever seen. My mom reminded me that she came into the room to find me sobbing, saying "Big Bird didn't know! They missed him! They were so close and then....Big Bird didn't know!" I shudder just thinking about it. I saw it for sale on DVD at target the other day for $5 and I almost bought it for my nieces...until I remembered the pain. That shit stays with you.
For me, the only thing that combats the sadness of Somewhere Out There is the Community version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGN_LAt86A8). It provokes the exact opposite reaction of the original-- that is to say, by the end I'm just grinning.
Oh, God! "Somewhere Out There" used to torment me! My mom would be driving me around, it would come on the radio, and I was reduced to shaking sobs. Pretty soon it became a Pavlov's dog sort of reaction with my mom--she'd recognize the first few notes of the song and immediately had to change the station.
You are so precious to me
Sweet as can be
Baby of mine
Remember when Charlotte finished her "magnum opus?" Yeah. *blubbers*