Episode 295: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Myth Movie Night)
/It’s Eric’s birthday on the show, so we sit down to watch one of his childhood favorite films: Bedknobs and Broomsticks. And boy, it sure is a film! We talk WWII flavored magic adventures, con men, and an incredibly long dance number in this underloved Disney movie.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of war, Nazis, fascism, death, misogyny, displacement, and child endangerment.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends The Bear on Hulu!
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Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
ERIC: And I'm Eric. Not on an urban legends episode.
JULIA: Whoa, Eric, what are you doing here?
ERIC: Well, a few months ago, I think on that episode, I said a reference to this movie, Bedknobs and Broomsticks where Angela Lansbury is a witch and she transforms a whole museum of armor to fight the Nazis, and then you two were like, "What the hell are you talking about?" I was like, Myth Movie Night. Let's do it.
JULIA: For your birthday, no less.
ERIC: Yeah, I'm so excited. I feel so old on this day. That is definitely my birthday were recording on.
JULIA: Hmm. Well, I mean, does it make you feel less old knowing that this movie turned 50 last year?
ERIC: Wow. No. I don't know. I mean, I watched this movie a lot as a child, like I've probably seen this upwards of at least two dozen times. It was a classic, well-used VHS at our house. So I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it makes me feel older or younger.
JULIA: Okay, well, fair enough. I wanted to see. Eric, can you start by giving us our two minutes summary of this movie?
ERIC: Yes, I will do my best to do it in two minutes. This movie goes through a variety of locales, themes or genres. So I will sum them all up as quickly as possible. And I've been there's barely a plot it's more a bunch of sub-pieces. So I think I could do it. I think I'm ready for it. Never done this before.
AMANDA: You got this, bud.
ERIC: So it is 1940, It's the Battle of Britain. World War Two. You've got three children. They're named Charlie, Carrie, and Paul. They are evacuated from London, I believe during the Blitz seems about right And they end up with a reluctant Miss Eglantine Price and she is a witch secretly. They observe her being a witch, at first, they're gonna run away then they're like, Oh, she's a witch. Maybe this will be a fun vacation. So they decided to stay she is a witch and training though. She's like sending letters like getting like mail order witch classes or course.
JULIA: She's in correspondence schools, which is incredible.
ERIC: It's a correspondence school for witches in the north of England, I guess. And so she decides that she's going to find the guy that can like train her into being a full witch. She makes a bedknob out of brew- no bedknob on a bed not on a broomstick. That comes later. Actually, it already happened. But she'll be on the broomstick throughout the film. The bed is now essentially their TARDIS. It's what makes them travel through space and time.
JULIA: Sure can.
ERIC: And dimensions in some senses. They go to Portobello Road, and they meet this guy. He is clearly a con man. He's doing a three-shell game. We'll get through this real quickly Portobello Road, just an extremely long dance number.
JULIA: It sure is.
ERIC: It sure is there's just like, let's show off all of the different dances and ethnicities of England. Here they all go they'll each get two minutes to show off a dance.
AMANDA: It sure is safe to be doing loud and bright things in London right now.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah, absolutely unhinged stuff. Then they get the guy who's clearly a con man. He's just kind of along for the ride now. He is the dad from Mary Poppins, I think. They traveled to a lagoon where they win a dance contest for just a while. Then they go to a cartoon eyelid where they have to get this medallion from this lion who is like the king of the jungle or something along those lines.
AMANDA: Don't worry about it.
ERIC: They play a football match, I believe a soccer match. And they when they get the medallion, and they book it out of there. They get back to England, the Nazis are invading via the shore and they run to the local museum that has a bunch of old Knight's armor, she magically animates all of the Knight's armor and the arbor fights off the Nazis while she flies around on a broom and that is pretty much the whole movie.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: That certainly is the whole movie.
AMANDA: And then the final scene is the man who runs the correspondence school who these fallen in love with Angela Lansbury leaving for war. I'll be back and I'm like, I don't know if you will.
JULIA: They were like, are you going to be our new dad? He's like, yeah, but first I gotta go to war.
AMANDA: Exactly. Also, they have parents. Their parents are just in London.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: I think it was like heavily implied that they might have been orphans, but I'm not sure.
AMANDA: I sure hope so because I was thinking about-
ERIC: I hope they were orphans.
AMANDA: If they weren't orphans, this is fucked up.
ERIC: Also, I'm just doing some quick pocket math. He was born in 1970. This film came out in 1971. So like, quite old to be going off to war even during World War Two. Like-
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. So all of the old men, Eric, you may be forgiven for not knowing the context of like Second World War era England.
JULIA: Which like, we'll talk about that in a second. Because like, how are children watching this supposed to know the context for World War Two?
AMANDA: Julia, I couldn't tell you the audience for this movie if I tried, highly entertaining, and I'm really glad we watched it.
ERIC: I mean, it was definitely Midwestern children in the 90s.
JULIA: Young boys in Ohio.
AMANDA: Well, the Home Guard Eric are like the people who were not sort of like, quote-unquote, fit enough–
ERIC: Oh, right.
AMANDA: –to go abroad to war. That's why they're all old men.
ERIC: Because they show up in the first half to where they're just kind of walking around the cities.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Exactly. And so they you know, that was kind of having to be begins like, oh, you know, we're checking on our preparations. Like, did you paint all the signs over? Like, you know, do you have your supplies? It's like the air raid shelter. Okay. There were like civilian, a civilian Corps. I think they were part of the Army, but they were like, people who not like the fittest and finest, which is why he was yeah, he you know, he was like a, you know, middle-aged to older man. And that's why it's all about your grandpa's who I thought at the beginning of the movie, they had like a marching number. I was like, maybe some of them were in World War Two, they produce a lot in the late 60s. And if all of these men are in their 60s and 70s. At the time, they could conceivably have been older Army enlisted in the World War Two.
JULIA: Yeah, I had assumed at the beginning of the film that these characters were like, veterans from the Great War. And they were like, well, we can't fight in this one. But at least we're gonna help out a little bit.
AMANDA: I think you're right, Julia. Yeah, I think I think there were.
ERIC: Both are probably true.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Excellent.
AMANDA: Now, Eric, I have to know what was your favorite part of this movie as a kid? Like when you rewatched it? What was the part where you're like, ssshhhhh, shhhh, shut up. It's coming.
ERIC: Okay, so this is a weird like, Mandela Effect thing I had with this. I swear there was a dance number with like, the Russian guys who like do the arm cross or do the light kicky dance?
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: And that just wasn't in the movie. I swear that it was so I don't know what movie I saw someone dancing like that guy did it. But I do like I do really like just like, I think that my favorite part, it's hard to say what my favorite part is. I think that it's just this pieced-together strange thing is my favorite part. Like it's just like, a dance thing, a cartoon. essentially, like Jason and the Argonauts, but Disney just like a bunch of like strange, like confluence of just things thrown together by kids would like all of these things, but we need to fit it into like 70 to 80 minutes.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Oh, it was a full two hours, bud. I felt every minute of it.
ERIC: Was it a full two hours? I mean, it goes by so quick.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: Would having some context for this film help us better understand that. Do we think?
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Okay. So basically, this was a movie that there was a lot of problems in making Mary Poppins in the early 60s, right? So they were like going through negotiations, they were having a real hard time with it. And so like kind of production on that stalled, so they began to develop something very similar, which was Bedknobs and Broomsticks. So basically, also a book series by a female author centers around young children and they're like, kind of magical caretaker. Music by the Sherman Brothers, which like this will be the music is fine. The music's okay like it's Sherman Brothers, but it's like not any of their real bangers.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: it's no Chim Chim Cheree it's no Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which was my worn to shreds VHS in my house growing up.
JULIA: I get you. So it's fine. I was like, I feel like Angela Lansbury is being underutilized. It's okay. We get more of her later in Disney. It's fine. So they really really liked Bedknobs and Broomsticks. But they liked Mary Poppins more like Walt Disney was like, I want Mary Poppins. And so when they finally were able to move ahead with Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, because it was so similar kind of got shelved, and it didn't see the light of day for like 25 years.
ERIC: Whoa.
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
ERIC: That's wild.
JULIA: Yeah, actually, originally, Julie Andrews had been offered the role of Miss Price, but turned it down because she was like, I already has already played Mary Poppins, like, oh, I don't really need to be like this kind of type cast in person. Like I'm good, actually. And when she changed her mind, they offered it to Angela Lansbury. And Angela Lansbury was like, I love it. Let's do it.
AMANDA: I just gotta say, Dame Angela Lansbury. 96 years old and she has a day live in her life out in England. God bless her.
JULIA: God bless her. Bless her Heart,
AMANDA: Those cheeks, man. I've only really seen older Angela Lansbury. Like those are the pieces that really stick with me. And damn, her face really looks like that. Like she looks like the teapot she plays in Beauty and the Beast. Amazing.
JULIA: I also like to during the film, he referred like the professor referred to her as this young lady. I'm like, she's like 40 years old. I don't know if that's a young lady anymore.
AMANDA: I also don't love that the plot of the movie is She wants like a career to help with the war effort. And then a guy cons her. And then she's like, that's okay. You're cute. And then in the end, her [10:08] gets destroyed. And she's like, okay, I'll be a mom now. I'm like, okay, I mean, we don't all right, I guess.
ERIC: Very postwar and 70s ideals being displayed right there.
AMANDA: It sure is, Eric. Yeah, it's a real confluence of those two things.
JULIA: Yeah. I just like Disney loves a con man character, don't they?
ERIC: They do.
AMANDA: They do.
JULIA: Disney sure does. Like there's that whole scene where he like opens up the like big briefcase and it folds out like four different times, which is a great practical effect, by the way.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah, it is.
JULIA: I really, really like that.
ERIC: I think it's because calm man is like something that an adult can find villainous because adults hate losing money.
JULIA: Famously.
ERIC: And children understand playing a trick is bad.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: But it's never like, too nefarious. So I think it's like this perfect kind of middle ground for like villain archetype. Or it's just kind of like, well, it's bad, but it's not like I've murdered someone bad.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Sure.
AMANDA: Totally. I mean, Eric, the people who are bad in this film are the Nazis.
ERIC: Exactly.
AMANDA: They fully show up in this, in this film.
JULIA: Which like we were talking about this a little bit yesterday, but they like start seeding the Nazis in right away.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Like the fourth word in the movie is Nazi and it's like, okay, you know, village man who's painting over the road signs like, okay, I get that, you know, you've been told not to tell me when we're directions are, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, the specter of Nazis hangs over this film. I didn't expect them to show up in a U boat.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: There are Nazis in the opening credits.
AMANDA: Yes, there are-
JULIA: Opening credits!
AMANDA: -there are. Which is very like Pilgrims Progress. You know, like medieval tracks. Like the credits are beautiful.
ERIC: Yeah, they're very nice. Yeah, this movie and the Coen Brothers Hail, Caesar, surprise U boats!
JULIA: Yeah, that's fair.
ERIC: Both movies where you're just like, didn't expect a U boat and then, a U boat.
AMANDA: And here we are. Most times the Nazis are depicted in movies these days. I'm like, did you really need a Nazi in this movie? Like, if you can't punch a Nazi in the movie? Why is the Nazi there is kind of what I think.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: But in this case, like, okay, alright. Like I get it, I get why they were there. Something I didn't expect to really like in this movie, was the idea that the magic, the spell that Angela Lansbury tries to do was just kind of random words. And I thought that was really fun. And the fact that she can like cast spells on kind of mundane objects. And there is no like, inherent magic to her necessarily, like, I don't know, it's kind of maybe implied that like, either it was dumb luck, or maybe she's just particularly good at it. But that was really cool. I loved as a kid, Diane Duane, so you want to be a wizard series, which is like you find a book in a library. And if you study long enough, and know the words, you can become, you know, magical. And that idea really speaks to me, as opposed to the kind of Chosen One, you know, or like, inherent magic archetype.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah, I think that is really interesting. And I think that's kind of highlighted much later in the film, where the professor like, is like, I don't believe in magic. But I do need to turn myself into a rabbit right now. And like, manages to do it, even though he was a con man selling these, like, what he assumed were fake spells to people.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So I think it's like really interesting to be like, yeah, anyone can do magic if they believe in it. And that's the like, point of the first song of the movie, which is like the age of not believing. If you can move past the age of not believing and like actually believing in a thing. You can do the thing, which I think is like, oh, fun message for a Disney film. I do like that. This is a very different character from Mr. Banks to in playing that and I'm just like, oh my god, this is a more fun character. I personally, much like Disney also love a con-man character. So I'm like, you're a fraud and I love that for you.
AMANDA: He has heart of gold, which I think really makes it sweet. He also spends a lot of time like on all fours with his butt in the air. Sure. Does, having just been turned into a man from a rabbit. And I'm like, wow, okay. Unexpected.
JULIA: Can we talk about the background magic of this film?
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Because it kind of like weirdly dark at one point. And I know like, this is a movie where Nazis are the bad guys. So it is gonna have like an inherent darkness. And it's also the shadow of the Blitz in World War Two.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: But there is one point when they're talking about where they meet, like the book man and he has the other part of the book. And he's describing, like, where the spells came from. And it's from like, a secret wizard or whatever. And he's like, yeah, so like the last, the last spell that this guy was working on was he was doing experiments on animals to make them more like humans. And then the animals realized that they were being experimented on and so they killed him and they're like, "Oh."
ERIC: Yep.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: That guy.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Also just in a very creepy like, I don't know basement of a tenement building. It does very spooky vibe and the stories he saw like also extremely spooky, just like, oh, wow, this is extremely weird.
JULIA: I want to talk about is this a specific genre of like, we send children to the country to escape the war and then magic things happen to them because like, that's the same plot as Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yes, exactly, for people who were adults in the 60s, they were of age to do that or know people who did that or I think there was like a kind of romanticized feeling and notion of that time for kids were obviously was very, you know, scary and displacing and all of that, especially for the city kids who like never left London, and we got to talk about the sort of like incredible, like, soot-faced makeup of, of these children and their wild London accent. I'm sure they're like, trained in acting on these tilt like their child actors and to put on those accents. I was just very proud of them. But yes, it is a genre and I think displays to the country removed from your normal life. It's the real kind of pastoral fantasy of England in so many ways. That's something where you know, magic is not too far of a reach.
JULIA: Yeah, this one is less portal magic style than let's say, The Lion, the Witch in the wardrobe, but magic existing in the world makes sense. And I mean, we do go to kind of like a magical island where there's animated lions that were-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -repurposed from other Disney products, but-
ERIC: Very much so.
JULIA: Oh, every single animal I'm like, I've seen you in a different film.
ERIC: Yeah. They're just like, get, get- I mean, Disney did this a lot. I think Babu from The Jungle Book is also used in another animation, like a lot of the original [16:24] were then just drawn over. So very common thing. I love that this one where they're like, drop them all in, we got them all we're gonna use, we're gonna use all of the animals we've ever used, and throw them on here, put [15:34], different guy now.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But going back to this kind of portal fantasy or magical fantasy in order to escape reality, I think it's like a really interesting way to deal with like you were saying, Amanda, the trauma of war and like displacement and you know, being removed from your home to put you somewhere safer.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But it's still like an unknown. I think that's a really interesting genre. And I think we don't have that as often now, because we are now pretty far removed from World War Two.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But I think it would be cool to like, see more of that, I suppose. And I'm sure that there is like, an event or a setting that we could make it a little bit more modernized nowadays.
ERIC: Make summer camps not about getting murdered by a guy in a scary mask, and about finding the magic within yourself. There's a place that kids go, their parents aren't with them, they get sent off there. I mean, there's definitely places we could kind of recreate these stories without having the fog of war looming in the distance.
AMANDA: Yeah, at least for us, Americans, I felt a couple of times, like early in the film. You know, Angela Lansbury, kind of like stops to pick up a package with this sort of like general store manager, who's also you know, taking all these kids from the train. And the manager is like, well, you know, Angela is really like, you have a house all to yourself, you know, everyone has to do their part. Like, it's a lot like you have to take some children because you have a house. And I felt myself as an American, I was like, you can't tell me what to do. And then I was like, No, this is what we should be doing. And so I think we would have to have a like culture and country of supporting, you know, like refugees and people in need, and community care and all that before we allowed a narrative like you're describing Julia, but I want that and I want to be the kind of place where, like, of course, you have a place to go. And maybe it's even such a kind of escape and you're so supported that you know, you can have a bit of adventure while you're there.
JULIA: Also, imagine like, your children get sent out of the city to live in the country and like you don't get to like know anything about this person that is taking them in-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -and you don't know the like state of their home or like who they are as a person. I'm just like, I'm not a parent, but ugh.
AMANDA: No, it was intense.
ERIC: Yeah. Well, let's go get some more popcorn, get some more soda and get back to our movie talk after this refill.
JULIA: I've got a Freezie and I put some tequila in it. Hey.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the refill. I made little like tea sandwiches. I have never made these before. I hope they're okay. I bet you'll enjoy them. Even if you aren't enjoying the little tea sandwiches that I cut the little crusts off and everything and turn them into little triangles. I bet you're going to love our Patreon content and we want to welcome our two newest patrons. Claire and Robert they join the incredible people who help make this show a reality each and every week, such as our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Brittany, Daisy, Froody Chick, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Lily, Little Vomit Spiders Running Around, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi and of course, our legend level patrons, they have like a full tea service and I don't know where they got it from, but it's very cool. 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JULIA: Alright, so for this movie, I was doing a morning watch because I don't think I could have convinced Jake to watch this with me.
ERIC: I somehow convinced Kelsey to watch it. I think I think I have the leverage of like, I love this movie as a child. It won't be it's not one of these weird movies that I sometimes take you to the art house theater, and it will. I mean, it was definitely a weird movie. But it wasn't like the current weird movies that I usually take her to.
JULIA: It's weird through the context of time-
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: -rather than artistic choices.
AMANDA: What did she think?
ERIC: She liked it. She liked it overall. But I mean, it's definitely showed its age in ways and most other Disney films haven't, I would say even Mary Poppins I feel like I haven't seen it some time but feels like because it's a beloved classic. It holds up to modern sensibilities a little bit better than this one does. I think the main thing this movie has where he gets it is the very log dad seat at Portobello Road. It's just extremely long-
JULIA: That's what you think it is?
ERIC: -and no plot is developed throughout any of the dances.
JULIA: I will say yes, that was an extremely long scene. And I also think that the soccer scene was way too long. Those are the scenes where I'm like, can we move, guys, we gotta move on. We gotta move on.
AMANDA: I felt every moment of the animated section maybe because that's just like not a thing I go to often for entertainment, but I was like, good god, why is this happening?
ERIC: Yeah. I think the animated one at least has like the benefit of children being like, this is fun. I don't know maybe kids at the 70s saw a bunch of people dancing. I was like this is equally as fun as a cartoon. But I don't know if I'll probably not. But yeah, for an adult either are particularly great in terms of length.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I just wanted more lyrics to Portobello Road. Like I really was enjoying the like ways that people are conning you-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -song. Yeah. And then it just happened to be that dance number and everyone was in uniform. And I'm like, what is happening? Why aren't you guys fighting in the war? Why are you here?
AMANDA: Exactly. It felt so much like one of those grand old Hollywood movies where it's like we have 150 extras on payroll and big sets and we're gonna use them you know, no matter what we say. Maybe they were trying to sort of bridge that gap like Mary Poppins has, you know, grants numbers and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has, you know, big group seems like I guess it's not totally out of character, but I was still thinking to myself, like they couldn't save a lot of money by cutting down this Portobello Road scene. Cutting down the amount of animation but I'm glad to hear that it had such an impact on the American you know, such a big part of your family life.
ERIC: So this was a morning watch to, we're about to describe a drink for us. I was watching like Portobello Road you're just you see something and you're you just get distracted.
JULIA: Yeah, no, it was a Sunday morning Jake was outside watering the lawn while I watched this in classic Jake form and I had some cold brew that I got from my local farmers market and just like a little bit of bourbon, a tiny bit of bourbon.
ERIC: Little bourbon.
JULIA: Little bit of bourbon.
ERIC: That's funny because prepping for this episode, I had forgotten that I was like going to have to bring a drink recommendation as we normally do for our Hometown Urban Legends episode. So I had recently had like a Coffee La Cour Bourbon drink when I was out somewhere I was gonna suggest try and one of the don't have a specific recipe. So there you go. So there's there's a little trick recommendation that pretty much matches Julia's drink that she had while watching it.
JULIA: Honestly, a cold brew concentrate where you're supposed to water it down a little bit like a one-to-one ratio.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Just put in a little bit of coffee creamer and then I mix that bad boy up and then I'm good to go for the day.
ERIC: Yep.
AMANDA: Delicious.
JULIA: Can we, okay, so Amanda, you were talking earlier about the spell that Angela Lansbury is trying to research that was supposed to be the final spell, which is going to help her fight the Nazis.
AMANDA: Substitutionary locomotion.
JULIA: Which is a great thing that I was like, what the fuck does that mean? I'm like, I know locomotion means movement. What the fuck do those two words together mean, right?
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: And then she gets the spell after she has taken the necklace off of the Lion King. Which by the way.
ERIC: It's the lion king. That's a different lion.
JULIA: The king lion.
ERIC: They'll come later
JULIA: Did you know that that actor is the guy who was the original voice of Scrappy-Doo and also Grimace from all of the McDonald's commercial?
ERIC: How could we possibly know that?
AMANDA: No! Julia, I was gonna say from the Wikipedia article did you know that the clergyman who has like a weirdly prominent sort of like one-liner in the beginning of the film, in Deleted Scenes also is like a romantic rival for Angela Lansbury. Like likes her wants to marry her for her property.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Which is not kind to clergy, I guess. But-
JULIA: That's, that's great. I love that. Anyway, going back to the spell. They do the spell and like there's a whole like big dance number kind of thing. This is their Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious basically.
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: And all they do is make shoes dance and move and I'm like, how the fuck is this going to stop the Nazis? Like, I'm like racking my brain I'm like, how is this going to stop the Nazis though? You are dancing stockings are not going to stop the Nazis.
AMANDA: None of us could have seen a museum of old armor really come to life because you guys all know that armor famously, a good offensive weapon surely not built to save the like meat sacks wearing it? No, no, no. Useful for weaponry.
JULIA: That was also another scene where I'm like, alright, this fight with the armor and the Nazis is going a little too long.
AMANDA: I'm glad Angela Lansbury is on a horse. But like beyond that, you know, I'm kind of okay.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
ERIC: I also don't understand how they were holding stuff. Because most of like the head stuff armor does it, is it like full figures?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: It's like just the officer figures with like, oh, they're throwing spears and stuff. Who knows?
JULIA: That's fine. It's they, it's magic.
ERIC: They won.
JULIA: Eric, it's magic
ERIC: They won, that's all that matters.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Eric, they do an entire dance number that is underwater, and it's never explained how they're breathing underwater. It's magic. Who cares?
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Oh, God, I just-
AMANDA: I am happy to report that the song Substitutionary Locomotion does have an extended cut.
JULIA: Oh, how?
AMANDA: And these lyrics are available to us. And as the Wikipedia article says, had been performed by several YouTubers.
JULIA: Oh no.
AMANDA: I would just like for each of us to kind of this is like those chain letters from the 90s where it would be like learn a word a day like use the word pulmonary and you're in an email today, let's all find a line of the song to sort of deliver deadpan to maybe like a friend who's having a problem. Just like hit them with your wisdom. Okay, so I'll give you an example. Cosmic wizards of timeless times teach my tongue the transcendental rhymes. Sounds mean. It sound like-
ERIC: Quite.
AMANDA: -it has some meaning behind it.
JULIA: I mean, Amanda mystic power that's far beyond the wildest notion. It's so weird, so feared yet wonderful to see Substitutionary Locomotion come to me.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's true. It can cause the forest Julia to keep our country free.
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: Big claim.
ERIC: It's so weird. So feared yet wonderful to see.
JULIA: Yep.
ERIC: Substitution Locomotion, come to me.
AMANDA: There you go.
JULIA: See the key to guide the tide that's stronger than the ocean.
AMANDA: Uh-huh.
JULIA: I mean, I want substitutionary locomotion.
AMANDA: Yeah, I think here to keep your cover. You can't say a line that includes a phrase substitutionary locomotion.
JULIA: I don't know.
ERIC: That's the problem.
AMANDA: Anything just before that line, that phrase, put in an email today.
JULIA: Only one precise solution is key.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Substitutionary locomotion, it must be.
AMANDA: It's true.
JULIA: They really good to put that as a PS at the end of your email where it has to say some line referencing substitutionary locomotion.
ERIC: I'm now just imagining and I hope this was real, but it probably wasn't like the 90s message boards at Forbes. I just like really gaudy signature JPEGs.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: Like where people have like a whole nice block of pixels full of just a weird art.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Just the big Disney servers and there's one thread it's all about Bedknobs and Broomsticks. And all of those people have just like one of these lyrics like a very ugly script font with a gradient behind it. That is what I now imagining.
AMANDA: Eric, if I know anything about the internet, I know that anytime there was a thread referencing Mary Poppins or even kind of hinting at Mary Poppins like talking about like a bag with you know, a bag I can hold anything or like an umbrella or like a governess.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: That somebody was like, but I'm gonna group six is actually really better and it's like way underrated. Like you really gotta love it.
JULIA: Incredible. Eric, I have some important information for you.
ERIC: Oh, great.
JULIA: Did you know that there is a staged musical version of this film?
ERIC: I did know this when I looked at the Wikipedia article yesterday.
JULIA: God dammit.
ERIC: Only yesterday but I'm excited but I only breeze that it existed. What facts? Can you tell me about it? Is there anything interesting there?
JULIA: Yeah, so it made its world premiere at the Theatre Royal in August of last year.
ERIC: Wait, it's a new. Hold on. It's a new, someone-
JULIA: It's a new musical.
ERIC: So someone, literally 50 years later was like, you know what the world is now ready for? The Bedknobs and Broomsticks Musical.
JULIA: Apparently. So it was on tour throughout the UK and Ireland until May of 2022.
ERIC: Those lucky bastards.
JULIA: I was, I was looking to see if there's like any news about it coming to like the United States. I'm sorry, guy. There's no news about that just yet.
ERIC: It's okay. It's okay. My passports ready. I'm just gonna wait until they restarted up and I am I'm there.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I visited a friend who was studying abroad in Buenos Aires at the same time that the Spanish language edition of Next to Normal was playing in Buenos Aires and I didn't go to see it. But I did see it. And it was great.
ERIC: Nice.
JULIA: Excellent.
ERIC: Nice.
AMANDA: I'm just saying, people have traveled for, you know, more frivolous reasons.
JULIA AND ERIC: Yes.
AMANDA: While I'm deep in the Wiki, did you guys know that Cindy O'Callaghan, who plays the sister of the children was a working actor for much of her life and then became a child psychologist and is now a practicing child psychologist in Dublin.
ERIC: Wow.
JULIA: Good for her. I love when child actors get like real human jobs afterwards.
AMANDA: Well, it seems like a really good career for a kid as a child actor. Like hopefully she you know, she's really like working through stuff.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: I also want to point out that this movie did with at Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
JULIA: Sure did in the 70s. It was very impressive.
AMANDA: There were a lot of visual effects.
ERIC: I mean like Academy Award waiting Bedknobs and Broomsticks is what we should have led with at the start of this episode.
JULIA: Do you know what we haven't spoken about yet?
ERIC: A lot.
JULIA: The cat. The cat has the greatest pet name I've ever heard in my entire life, which is Cosmic Creepers.
AMANDA: And Angela Lansbury was like, they're like, oh, what's the name of the cat? Like, oh, that's silly. I just call him like, I'm not gonna assign him a name. I call maybe came in with Cosmic Creepers. And I was like, oh, boy.
JULIA: Are you just gonna call a cat? Are we gonna do like a Breakfast at Tiffany's thing? Nope. His name is Cosmic Creepers.
AMANDA: It is really good.
JULIA: They imply that the professor sent that to her. Like, they were like, oh, he sent you this long package that we find out it as a broom. And then they were like, didn't he send you a cat last time? Where the fuck did he get this cat from? Did he just pick it up off the street and somehow send it to her like off of Portobello Road?
ERIC: I mean, I think it's pretty established. You could definitely get a Portobello Road. Without a doubt.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It looks like a real fucked up cat too. So-
AMANDA: I was thinking the cat was a person the whole time and the movie ended up like hope the cat's not a person.
ERIC: That's the subtext you really got to look for. It's like, oh, that cat is cursed the whole time. They just never resolve that C plot at all.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: You know what, Amanda, that's a real 90s kid thing.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Because after watching and falling in love with the cat/boy from Hocus Pocus,
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I understand that I feel you. And they had similar energy.
AMANDA: They really did. And the cat was like, it was the most puppet-ass looking cat I've ever seen in my life.
JULIA: Which like, it was a good puppet because it looks like the real cat that they use for the real shots. And I'm like, yes. Okay, you got both the fucked up puppet and a fucked up cat. I love that for you.
ERIC: It's a great puppet that looks so realistic. But luckily, the cat is also real weird looking.
AMANDA: Something that really kind of twisted my brain, you know those memes? I don't know why I'm thinking so much about early 90s like email memes. But the meme that was like, you know, this historical figure lived at the same time as this historical figure. And if you know them in different contexts it you know, it can be really mind-bending. I hate to tell you that George Lucas began working on Star Wars the year this movie came out.
ERIC: Wow.
AMANDA: And that just really if that doesn't tell you a lot about the 70s I don't know what does.
JULIA: Oh, god.
AMANDA: Star Wars came out six years after this film. And man did our technology get better, yeah.
ERIC: Yeah, the visual effects one to one.
AMANDA: I know Star Wars was like very, you know, pushing boundaries nd this was a period film.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: You know, that was set 30 years before it premiered. But still Just wowy!
JULIA: I will say like, I do find some of the like, effects very charming in a way.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Like there's the scene where he's taking them to Portobello Road. And you see, like, a transition from what is clearly a painted backdrop.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And then it transitions into a tunnel again painted, but then there's visuals of like actual film happening down the tunnel.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: And I'm like, that's like really quaint. That's like a very, like, good way of doing the thing that you were trying to do without creating like an entire soundstage of World War Two London, you know?
ERIC: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. And the battle with the armor while I thought went on too long, pretty impressive like that. That was really It looked in a lovely way like one of those kind of grand Hollywood set peace movies where it's like, wow, they really employed all these horses and camels. Ah, like it it felt very grand in a way that I was pretty impressed by.
JULIA: As someone who trained in like museum studies and preservation and stuff like that watching all of those armors get shot with bullets did upset me quite a bit.
AMANDA: Yeah, that's fair.
JULIA: This was just like a broken down castle but they turned into a museum that was just hovering over the hill of this village, which is also buckwild because-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -that's just how England is, Amanda.
AMANDA: It is. And Julia now it's like a an artifact with additional historical context, which is, you know, it was a-
JULIA: The Nazi shot these.
AMANDA: It was painted by German bullets during Battle of Britain. Yeah.
JULIA: Look at that. So the way that this article from observer describes the movie says Bedknobs and Broomsticks is just as unhinged as it sounds. The 1960s through the 1980s was a period of decline for Disney and the internal drama at the studio plus the Mary Poppins-related delays are evident in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a film that's all over the place. At first, it strikes the same chord as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and then veers into West Side Story territory with extended dance numbers. The scenes where the group travels using Miss Price's magical bed, or bizarrely psychedelic all of the tunnel scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-
ERIC: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: -which premiered the same year.
ERIC: Wow, there's another movie with a similarly like curmudgeonly old man who ends up with some weird magical stuff.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah, that was just like, a theme. I guess. That was just like, we're just going to impart these children-
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: -into the hands have magical people who don't seem to understand what responsibility is.
ERIC: And at least one thing is going to be like weirdly traumatic.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Like, I mean, that scene in Willy Wonka in the tunnel is absolutely unacceptable my modern standards to show to a child.
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: Not even close. A lot of this movie. I don't think it ever gets like terrible for a child to watch. But like there are some moments where like, this is different sensibilities for what kids could handle.
JULIA: I mean, there is a scene where this one like weird guy who's working for the Bookman who is also I guess, a con artist of some kind comes up and is like offering like, basically the equivalent of like, Rolexes fell off the back of a lorry.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And he's like, no, thank you. He's like, maybe this will be of interest to you and then pulls out a knife on them.
ERIC: Why not?
JULIA: And he's like, hmmm.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: That did happen.
AMANDA: That man has identified as a spiv word I've never heard before. And I just want to direct you again to the Wikipedia of spiv, which shows a man in 2011 at a historical reenactment of some kind.
JULIA: I was gonna say he is dressed exactly like this guy from the film so good historical reenactment.
AMANDA: That's right, Julia. He is putting his human life to use reenacting a spiff from the 40s in 2011.
ERIC: I want to read the whole caption for the photo.
AMANDA: Yep.
ERIC: "A man dressed as a spoof selling goods and then in 'from the back alley of a lorry'". I don't know why that person quotes I guess because it's not real "at a 2011 historical reenactment complete with a lookout watching for the law."
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: That's right.
JULIA: I also want to read this paragraph from the Wikipedia which is, "The crucial difference between the spiv and the classic Hollywood gangster was the degree of sympathy the spiv gained as a intermediary in the transfer of black market goods to... a grateful mass of consumers."
AMANDA: That's right, Julia.
JULIA: Incredible I, oh my goodness.
AMANDA: Well, yeah, like as sort of post-war like this is kind of anticipating the post-war figure of like, hey like rationing is happening I can get you you know a thing you're not supposed to have yet and people are like yay for me in the way that all of us are happy to you know get our like phone screens repaired by guys in the mall even if it voids our warranty.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: So I have no qualms with those guys you know they're making a living just like me.
JULIA: Listen man. Laws are only laws when they like you know don't go against the moral compass of society.
AMANDA: Exactly.
ERIC: There we go.
JULIA: Eric was gave me a look be like where is this gonna go?
ERIC: I was just so excited to find out what Julia's take on the law. But it was a good take
JULIA: laws are only laws when they should be laws. That's my hot take.
AMANDA: Exactly, it's a good thing to break a law when the law is unjust.
JULIA: There you go. That was probably what I was trying to say Amanda but I said what I said.
AMANDA: So I think that's my whole message that I took away from Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Incredible. This movie was a lot, Eric and I'm glad I watched it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Because it certainly feels like a certain like placed in both our history and Disney history-
ERIC: Yes.
JULIA: -and like the history of like magic in film?
AMANDA: I thought you're gonna say, man, and I was like, wow, Julia, was an assertion.
JULIA: Magic and film. But yeah, I think those really, really interesting and I'm glad that we were able to all watch it together and have hot takes about it.
ERIC: Yeah. It's just a fun film. It's weird. Obviously. It's not something for everybody. It's not something everybody needs to rush out. And I'm pretty sure it's on Disney+ I'm not entirely sure.
JULIA: It is.
ERIC: But I mean, it is just one of those things, which is kind of like, what were they up to before like the mouse became the mouse we know today and it is just a literal machine that churns out Star Wars, a Pixar film, a Marvel film and all of that. And this was kind of like, we're just gonna do some weird stuff. See what happens. And sometimes you get a Mary Poppins and sometimes you get a Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah, you can put the Disney Magic into anything, but it doesn't mean that the product is always going to be super magical.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Exactly. I can't say I'll watch it again necessarily, but I am glad I did. So Eric, thank you for bringing it to us today.
JULIA: I might just like lovingly put it on Portobello Road for like 10 minutes and then-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -call it a day.
AMANDA: That's fair. I'm gonna read all about kind of blitz-era trains in London because I still don't believe they were able to get a train into London when trains were being used to evacuate children. So-
JULIA: That's true.
AMANDA: TBD on that.
JULIA: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
AMANDA: And next time you get one half of a magical tome that cuts off exactly at the spell you need the most to defeat the Nazis and save your country. Remember-
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Incredible.
[outro]
AMANDA: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
JULIA: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website. As well as a form to send us in your urban legends and your advice from folklore questions at spiritspodcast.com.
AMANDA: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast, for all kinds of behind-the-scenes goodies. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more. Like recipe cards with alcoholic and nonalcoholic for every single episode, directors' commentaries, real physical gifts, and more.
JULIA: We are a founding member of Multitude, an independent podcast collective, and production studio. If you like Spirits you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
AMANDA: Above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please text one friend about us. That's the very best way to help keep us growing.
JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye!
Transcriptionist: KM