[00:00:00] clip: Oh, and what's 

this gadget? 

Well, that's not quite right yet, but eventually I hope to transmit moving pictures by wireless. Oh, really? Yes. Really.

I may be allowed to explain. Sir. You have exact good. twenty seconds.

[00:00:27] Matthew: Hello and welcome again to the Inter Millennium Media Project Podcast, the IMMP. My name is Matthew Porter. 

[00:00:36] Ian: I am Ian Porter. 

[00:00:39] Matthew: I am his dad. He's my son. And, uh, and I have described this podcast sometimes as , your place for nostalgia, media criticism and misuse of parental authority. And I do think all of those are in effect.

This, uh, this week 

[00:00:54] Ian: I should have listened to my wife. 

[00:00:56] Matthew: Oh, to your wife. 

[00:00:58] Ian: Yes. 

[00:00:59] Matthew: Yeah, 

[00:01:00] Ian: because she warned me about this film. 

[00:01:04] Matthew: Oh, so you had not seen this movie before, is that right? 

[00:01:07] Ian: No, I had never seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I knew it existed. It was one of those big, it's a children's film on the corner in the periphery of my media knowledge.

But I'd never felt compelled to go towards it. And now that feels like a self-preservation instinct out of a protagonist in a horror film. 

[00:01:37] Matthew: I never showed this movie to you when you were a child. And thank you. I will pat myself on the back for that.

That was not an, an accident. But I figured at some point we should talk about this. And if, if we were going to talk about this, we would, it makes sense to talk about it as part of our holiday road trip theme. 'cause we're heading into Christmas. Uh, last time we talked about the Great Race, uh, the movie with Tony Curtis and, uh, and Jack Lemmon, not the other things that might share that title.

And now we're talking about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which I think this movie stands as evidence for two propositions. One, it is, it is a children's movie. And two, there were many people in the 1960s who did not like children. 

[00:02:25] Ian: That is extremely accurate. I, I will say it's kind of weird this being part of our road trip film because it feels like very little time is spent on the road. 

[00:02:35] Matthew: Well, I guess it is an automotive. 

[00:02:37] Ian: Uh, yeah, 

[00:02:38] Matthew: automotive. If, if not, uh, road trip. 

[00:02:42] Ian: Chitty chitty Bang Bang is the story that is sitting at the bottom of that old bottle of NyQuil in your, in your, in your, uh, linen cabinet.

Chitty chitty bang bang is a half remembered dream on the way back from the dentist after they removed your wisdom teeth. 

[00:03:06] Matthew: There is something, fever Dream about this isn't there? 

[00:03:09] Ian: Oh, yeah. It, it, it is, it is medically enhanced fever, dream levels stuff we're dealing with here.

The fact that I had this little idea of the periphery, I assumed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a story of a guy who made a car that was filled with all of the things he was going to need, because he was just that on top of it. Or to put it a little better, I assumed Chitty Chitty Bang, bang was, you know. A story written by someone who would make a, a dashing lead character who had gadgets and tools available.

You know, Ian Fleming, oh wait, Ian Fleming put all the weird in this bucket. So all of the, I've got a car with all the gadgets, could be in that bucket called James Bond. That relation makes too much sense and too little. 

[00:04:09] Matthew: Well, you interesting, you talked about the kind of, there seems to be some kind of medical inducement towards this.

Yes. Ian Fleming wrote the children's book. This is based on when he was recovering from a heart attack and he was under enforced arrest. His, his wife confiscated his typewriter so that he would rest and not write another James Bond book. So he started writing this longhand. Now it, he says it was based on stories He would tell his kid when his kid was little.

Then he turned it into a children's book. But I mean, this is a movie based on an Ian Fleming novel. It involves a car chockfull of all kinds of unlikely gadgets. It involves spies and regime change in a foreign country and stealth.

[00:05:02] Ian: Yeah. If, if, if you take an episode of Get Smart and put it through a centrifuge and then you get two distinct layers, you can remove the James Bond parody layer and the remainder of Get Smart in that, in that test tube Yeah. Will be Chitty Chitty Bank Bang sitting at the bottom 

[00:05:24] Matthew: and the guy who sells our hero.

The car at the beginning is played by Desmond Llewelyn. Better known for playing Q Major Boothroyd from the early James Bond movies. Okay. 

[00:05:37] Ian: What in the world? Yeah, there's a lot of that in here. Then I, I'd never known anything of this and I, I, anytime you said to me a film I ask, Hey, hey, Jen. Hey my darling, do you wanna watch this film with me?

And most of the time I get a, that's an old movie. I don't want to, before I finished the name Jen yelled, "NO!" With a loud force, strong enough to scare our cat from the living room up to the bedroom to hide in a corner. She saw this when she was a child and had nightmares for weeks. It is still trauma for her because this movie is this weird.

[00:06:30] Matthew: I am not surprised, and I'll admit, I, I usually talk a bit about how I first saw this movie. I did not actually see this movie beginning to end until long after I was a kid. 

[00:06:42] Ian: Okay. 

[00:06:42] Matthew: But when I was a kid, it was this thing to some extent, this was true of The Great Race. And it was definitely true of this.

It is such a long movie, especially for a kid's movie. It felt as if it would come on tv. It would be put on on a Friday night, and that was the entire weekend. It would just never stop playing until I had to go to school because it was such a long movie. And therefore, I had seen almost every scene of the movie at some point, because once or twice a year it would come on tv.

Some of my brothers kind of liked it and they would put it on and I saw this and yeah, there were a lot of scenes of this that creeped me out. And if I had seen the whole thing at that age, I probably would have been traumatized by it as well. , 

[00:07:24] Ian: Give me Poltergeist all over again. It's, it is less scary film than Chitty, Chitty bang bang. 

[00:07:32] Matthew: And yet its overall tone, how it is made, what it is trying to achieve is very storybook, celebrating sweetness and innocence and such. They just turn into so many weird corners as they do.

[00:07:50] Ian: Yeah.

[00:07:51] Matthew: And this movie, it stars Dick Van Dyke as 

[00:07:56] Ian: Yes. 

[00:07:56] Matthew: ...an Englishman, who's a kind of a crackpot inventor, unlike in Mary Poppins, there is no effort to give him an English accent,

[00:08:05] Ian: thank goodness. 

[00:08:07] Matthew: And, uh, and not only was this your written or, or based on a novel by Ian Fleming, it was also produced. By Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who produced all those early James Bond movies.

[00:08:18] Ian: Yeah, I mean there's actually a lot of crossover here, apparently. The initial opening scenes showing the original car that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang gets built out of the stunt driver was George Leach. 

[00:08:30] Matthew: Is that right? 

[00:08:32] Ian: Yes. Who also did stunts for not a there, of course, you know, Thunderball Goldfinger and the Guns of Navarone.

[00:08:40] Matthew: Oh wow. We're Ty tying themes together and we don't even know it 

[00:08:44] Ian: exactly. 

A lot of connections here just on the production. This, in the same way it sounds like he, it was, uh, you can't make another James Bond. So Ian Fleming builds this. It's a, you can't make another James Bond film, so you make this,

although this was produced after Mary Poppins, 

[00:09:03] Matthew: it was, it was maybe Mary Poppins is what persuaded them to say, you know, Dick Van Dyke is good. He can sell movies. Don't try to get him to do that accent again. 

[00:09:14] Ian: Yeah. That's, that's almost a plot point in Chitty, Chitty bang bang. I'll say, because I mean, the start of the movie is, the start of the movie is highly distressing in its own right?

It is. You mean the prologue with all the races? The prologue with all the races and then the kids. 

[00:09:37] Matthew: Yes. We, we get these, this, this montage and this is an old movie, so of course all the credits are upfront. They need something to show under those credits. What we get are Grand Prix races from like 1907 1908 1909.

Mm-hmm. All across the UK and Europe. And this one car is winning race after race until a fiery wreck. 

[00:10:00] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:10:01] Matthew: Where there's a kid who's chasing a dog across the race course and the, to miss the, to, to do, to, uh, avoid hitting the kid. The driver goes off the road. There's, there's no equivalent of GI Joe parachute here.

I don't think we see anybody leave that car before it crashes and explodes. 

[00:10:22] Ian: Yeah, I think, I think a man died. Wait a minute, I've played enough five minutes at Freddy's games that explains something. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is haunted by the ghost of the, the driver. 

[00:10:36] Matthew: The whole movie makes so much more sense now 

[00:10:39] Ian: actually, between that and another theory I have, both of them are good answers.

[00:10:44] Matthew: It is. I think you may have cracked this. 

[00:10:48] Ian: Okay. 

[00:10:49] Matthew: Because the next thing we see is apparently some number of years later they don't really clarify how many. Yeah. I don't think there are a couple of of little kids playing in the burned out Hulk of this car pretending to be drivers.

[00:11:07] Ian: Yeah. Because you know the best place for the two kids to be playing during the school day is the old junkyard 

[00:11:15] Matthew: run by Q.

[00:11:16] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:11:18] Matthew: And Little Jemima and Jeremy. Oh, Jeremy, did you know a man died here? I didn't know that. Jemima, 

[00:11:26] Ian: I must say every time they said Jeremy in the scrap yard, I kept on thinking, Clarkson,

Did you know someone died in this car? Oh, no. Anyway,

[00:11:40] Matthew: that's it. This is the young Jeremy Clarkson story. Wow. Yes. 

[00:11:44] Ian: Oh goodness. So much. So 

[00:11:45] Matthew: again, you've you've explained so much in one observation. So much. 

[00:11:48] Ian: Thank you. But they're playing around the scrap yard and they hear that the car is being sold to be melted down by the most aggressive scrap merchant ever.

[00:12:00] Matthew: Yeah. It just relishes describing what's going to happen to their beloved play thing that is going to be crushed up. And melted. 

[00:12:09] Ian: Yeah. You know, I never got a good childhood, so I'll make sure these kids don't 

[00:12:13] Matthew: Yes. Makes them stronger. 

[00:12:16] Ian: Yes. Like what in the world, dude, that, that, these are the early warning signs.

It's like these are kids in major danger of tetanus not being properly cared for and randomly threatened by adults. 

[00:12:31] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:12:32] Ian: Chitty, Chitty bang, bang, establishing shots. This is the show. 

[00:12:38] Matthew: And yet these kids, they maintain this sweet, angelic disposition through the entire movie. They're just models of little blonde well-behaved, , perfectly brought up English kids.

[00:12:52] Ian: They are not individual characters. Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall are playing one entity, a two-headed entity of the children known as Gemma and Jeremy, who are. One unit narratively that doesn't change. 

[00:13:12] Matthew: You can absolutely hear them saying in unison, come play with us Truly. Yes. 

[00:13:20] Ian: Yes. because they, they do immediately cause, uh, chaos by almost getting run over by, uh, Truly scrumptious is her name.

And driving into the same pond multiple times is her shtick. 

[00:13:35] Matthew: Not to overdo the comparisons we're making here, but that is also a bond girl name. Isn't it so good?

[00:13:43] Ian: It really is. 

[00:13:45] Matthew: So yes. Truly scrumptious. A very proper, uh, well-to-do. Lady in her motorcar almost hits these kids and drives off the road into the pond. 

[00:13:55] Ian: And then gets very understandably bothered by the fact that there's kids running around disheveled on a school day. What's going on here? 

[00:14:06] Matthew: Speaking to her very, very politely.

Yes. So she, gets her car out of the pond, tells the kids to get in because I'm going to drive you home and have a word with your parents about the fact that they're letting their children run around here on a school day. So, uh, we've, we've got the lesson of by all means, get into a stranger's car.

[00:14:25] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:14:25] Matthew: Now it was easier 

to get out of cars in those days, but still, 

[00:14:28] Ian: yeah, there's less of an in and more of an on. 

[00:14:32] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:14:33] Ian: She drives them to their house, which is this. I will also say it makes a lot of sense that this screenplay was partially written by Roald Dahl. 

[00:14:44] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:14:44] Ian: 'cause 

there's something extremely Charlie in the Chocolate factory.

Uh, I'm, I'm a guy who makes very weird poem books about some of these environments such as the cobbled together expanded house. 

[00:15:00] Matthew: Right. It's this weird ramshackle house with most of it is a giant workshop and various experimental and scientific apparatus because their father, who is raising them on his own with the grandfather we'll talk about in a moment, uh, is an inventor and he doesn't really invent successful things, but he's ambitious.

Yeah. Caractacus Pott. Yes, Caractacus which I probably is the closest they could come to crack. So he's crack pot inventor. 

[00:15:35] Ian: Yeah, 

[00:15:37] Matthew: and this of course is, uh, is Dick Van Dyke. We first see him trying to test out his combination of roller skates and rockets to allow him to get powered flight.

[00:15:49] Ian: Yeah. Which kind of work if they had a proper mechanism. That's the thing. Every single one of his devices is shown to be like 80% of the way there. 

[00:16:00] Matthew: Yeah. He's just the tiny bit ahead of his time, or a tiny bit lacking in resources because he almost invents a functioning home vacuum cleaner. He almost invents television.

[00:16:11] Ian: Mm-hmm.

I'm just trying to think of the other devices he could have back there. Do you know, oh, oh, what's this device? Oh, I'm not sure. I'm hoping to be able to store many, many songs on it and. Upload it directly. 

[00:16:27] Matthew: Right. 

[00:16:27] Ian: I call it an Ip-Odd. 

[00:16:30] Matthew: I know all the songs are there, but now I need to invent something that'll let me hear them.

Exactly. He's gotta work on the headphones. 

[00:16:38] Ian: That's the sort of scenario we've got every time. Everything's almost there. 

[00:16:44] Matthew: Truly never really gets quite the chance to get through to him her complaints about how he's raising his children, because she's so distracted by and, and bewildered and possibly a tiny bit charmed by him, but also by what he's doing and all these strange contraptions, including a sweet-making machine, which Yeah.

Has problems with it because the suites come out with a bunch of holes in them 

[00:17:09] Ian: and we immediately see her being kind of, this, I wanna call her a, a distractible scientist in that sense, because she immediately starts diagnosing the problem with it. 

[00:17:22] Matthew: And we do find out why she is able to immediately pinpoint the problems with his sweet producing machine.

[00:17:29] Ian: Yes, she's the heiress to the giant scrumptious candy company,

and these improperly made sweets developed by his crazy strange contraption. Those holes mean that they whistle, and this is where we get into the, the pitch of selling the Toot Sweets and the first of the musical numbers. 

[00:17:53] Matthew: Well, the first of the big, big production numbers. 

[00:17:58] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:17:58] Matthew: We've already had some musical numbers by this point.

At least one because we got the Oh, yes. 'cause. And that's one thing about this movie. There are so many songs, it's a musical. I, I'm down with musicals. Some people don't like them. I, I, I like them. But there are so many songs. I don't think five to 10 minutes goes by without another song queue. And we've already had, at least one song about, the three of them.

And I've Got You Two. And it's this charming little song about how they're a family together.

[00:18:32] Ian: I forgot about that one. 

[00:18:34] Matthew: And I don't know if there are any other songs before we get to, the Toot Sweet song, but they come thick and fast after this. 

[00:18:43] Ian: Constantly 

[00:18:44] Matthew: and Toot Sweet is this big.

Large set, large company singing and dancing production number set in the scrumptious candy factories. He's trying to persuade Mr. Scrumptious to buy the rights to make his musical candy, 

[00:19:00] Ian: which does kind of start to succeed by the end. Doesn't quite, but does pretty well. 

[00:19:07] Matthew: It does pretty well until it turns out that in addition to nice little melodious whistles, ,

these whistling candies are also producing high frequencies that attract every dog in the neighborhood to overrun the factory. 

[00:19:22] Ian: Yes. So there goes that pitch. they're not gonna get the money to be able to buy the burned out car to make the children not sad. 

[00:19:31] Matthew: Yep. 

[00:19:32] Ian: Because that's the problem. Like that's the initial start is the, oh no, the car's gonna be sold.

You need to get money. And we don't have money. Yeah. They need to be able to buy the old car. 

[00:19:44] Matthew: They, they managed to persuade Mr. Coggins at , the junkyard don't sell this car until tomorrow. And if we can come and bring you the 30 shillings this other guy promised, can we have the car? Well, sure. But this family has not seen 30 shillings in a long time.

[00:20:01] Ian: Yeah. So the kids go to bed. Oh, thanks. You tried your best. And we get, I think another song there too. Wait, 

[00:20:11] Matthew: another song Hushabye Mountain, which we hear a few times during this. 

[00:20:16] Ian: Yeah. Which, that, that song has this weird, like it's supposed to be this. Melodious gentle goodnight song. And instead it feels like something out of a modern, YouTube horror series.

It's like Hushabye Mountain mountain. Sounds like it came outta Marble Hornet. It's not outta chin shape. Bang bang, 

[00:20:41] Matthew: sleepy time. It's time to dissociate now.

[00:20:44] Ian: Oh goodness, this movie. 

[00:20:46] Matthew: But it's, uh, that's right after another sweet scene with the kids where the kids have their little box of treasures that they found with, and they wanna offer them to dad because these are so valuable. But then there are things like,, mismatched skate keys and a, little, a tiny shard of ivory and things like that.

And you can sell these, of course, you can get 30 shillings for these. And you don't even have to buy the car. You can use it for your inventions. So again, yeah. Perfect kids. Somehow

[00:21:15] Ian: Perfect kids. 

No, no word as to where their mother is. 

[00:21:20] Matthew: No, they don't, they don't mention, they kind of allude to the fact that she's just gone and missed.

Mm-hmm. Uh, but it's not, um, it's not a Disney movie where they, they make it clear Oh, yep. Parent died. 

[00:21:34] Ian: Yeah. No, this was, yeah. This was produced by United Artists. Yeah. Which means that theoretically it's under Amazon, A MGM now as of time of talking. 

[00:21:44] Matthew: Yeah.

[00:21:46] Ian: This is where I think the funniest part for me came in, which was, Caractus Pott, looking out the window, wishing that he had a way to help his kids. And he sees that a, carnival has come into town and is set up for the evening. So he goes over to try to use one of his inventions, and of course it goes horribly wrong, as in his inventions do, they'd already established that well enough.

I'm like, I saw that coming from a mile away 

[00:22:13] Matthew: though. Back to the scene where he sees the carnival. There's a movie that we haven't talked about on the podcast, but I know I've shown it to you. And the way he sees this carnival on the ridge of a hill a little ways away, sated in the, uh, near the sunset.

That seemed to me like it was right out of The Seventh Seal. 

[00:22:34] Ian: Oh, goodness. I, I admit, I, I thought Something Wicked This Way Comes when I saw that. But it's, uh, okay. 

[00:22:44] Matthew: I say, is he gonna play chess with death soon? What's going on? Oh, 

[00:22:50] Ian: that, that, that, that could have fit into this movie. Oh, goodness. I find it funny that the, the plot line of that entire section though is, Caractus Pott gives up trying to be the inventor and realizes he can make enough money just by being Dick Van Dyke for an entire scene.

[00:23:10] Matthew: Yeah, sort of accidentally, because the invention he comes to use is a dangerous mistake. But then one of the best dance bits, I think in this is The Old Baboo there's this dance song and dance troupe that's already there performing at the carnival and he just sort of stumbles in and becomes their leader.

Not quite sure how that worked. 

[00:23:31] Ian: Uh, charisma Role. Nat 20. That is all it is, you know? I think so. Oh, gi gimme a charisma and performance role. Twenties on both. Yeah. You're playing Dick Van Dyke. Go for it. You got the money.

that was the best song in this entire thing is Me Old Bamboo. 

[00:23:50] Matthew: And a lot of really innovative dancing because the whole, the theme of the dance as well as the song is, uh, having fun and doing all these interesting dance moves with, and every dancer has a big poll of bamboo, not a, a fan. Mm-hmm. Not a fancy umbrella or cane or, or anything else.

Just me, old bamboo. 

[00:24:10] Ian: It's, it's very much, there's something very bo-staff fighting about this, about this entire thing. 

[00:24:19] Matthew: Yes. That's it. There's secretly kind of a British Shao Lin, martial arts school that travels around as a Carnival act. 

[00:24:27] Ian: Okay. If, if someone can get me like a Kung fu movie or an anime music video set to me old Bamboo, I would be, that would be brilliant.

[00:24:37] Matthew: That would work very, very, very well with the finale of the Return of the Master Killer, where he is using all of his, the knowledge that he gained building scaffolds to fix roofs. And he's using that in his kung fu? 

[00:24:51] Ian: Yes. Oh goodness. That would work. Oh, 

[00:24:54] Matthew: see what I can do? 

[00:24:56] Ian: Okay. Um, but he gets the money. Yay.

Yes. So he buy, he buys the, uh, old burned out husk of a car and brings it into his workshop.

And, and this is where kind of one movie ends and the next movie begins. 

[00:25:13] Matthew: Yes. Because he becomes, for whatever reason, maybe it's because the kids love this car, he becomes obsessed with not just having saved this car from the, the, the scrap yard, but. Rebuilding it and making it run again. And we see him from the point of view of the grandfather and the kids who are just kind of minding themselves as the dad is spending days in the, the workshop working on this car.

[00:25:40] Ian: This project takes him and he's like a man possessed in some scenes just walking through, grabbing supplies, walking out a different door, 

[00:25:49] Matthew: and they are spending, the kids are spending time with their grandfather and we've seen a little bit of their grandpa before. And yeah, their grandfather, grandpa pots is a little bit odd.

He, uh, he is always dressing up in his like colonial British military uniform and marching off and saying he's on his way to India to have tea with the Maharaja. And then he wanders into a hut, which the later they describe as a hut. I thought it was an outhouse at first. 

[00:26:18] Ian: Same. 

[00:26:19] Matthew: And another time he's dressed in furs and carrying a rifle and snowshoes and saying he is going to, I think he said Alaska.

And again, he just wanders into his hut. And also, um, yeah, I guess given who he was, the time this is set, the time this was made, grandpa's really racist also. 

[00:26:41] Ian: Yeah. Grandpa's really racist. 

[00:26:43] Matthew: Some of the things that he says in describing things and describing his exploits when he was serving, in the Royal Army, in, in India and the way he describes the people they were colonizing.

Yeah. Pretty awful. And again, I guess, yeah, it was accepted to some extent as a depiction of early 20th century English people and to some extent it was accepted in movies in the 1960s. Um, yeah, to some extent it's not a shock given the fact that Roald Dahl is one of the people who wrote this and whatever else you say about Roald Dahl, 

even the role Doll Museum acknowledges, his racism was undeniable as they put it. 

[00:27:20] Ian: Yeah. Let's, let's also not forget that this book was written by Ian Fleming, and if you've ever read the original James Bondon books, those are very, 

[00:27:28] Matthew: uh, yeah, yeah, 

[00:27:29] Ian: yeah, good point. But both of these are some British guys.

It's some problems making a children's story and a lot of those problems first start rear rearing their head in. Grandpa. Yeah. 

[00:27:42] Matthew: So grandpa's this combination of, uh, he loves his grandchildren. He's a little bit crazy. At least a little bit racist. Probably a lot more, 

[00:27:52] Ian: yeah. Lot of bit racist. 

[00:27:53] Matthew: And, and, and I mentioned these things about grandpa because he factors more into the plot later on because, gosh, there's, there is so much plot.

There is more plot than this movie he needs. 

[00:28:03] Ian: Please do not confuse a lot of plot for. Cohesive, reasonable or engaging. This is the golden corral of plot. Plentiful, but not of superior quality.

[00:28:27] Matthew: But eventually, after all these days, we finally see the results of Caractacus' efforts when the car rolls out of the workshop and it looks amazing. 

[00:28:43] Ian: Yeah, he's replaced the main body with a boat like the, the cab with a boat that he has polished to this nice oak finish. It's got brass fittings and a shined silver body.

And distinctive red wheels.

[00:29:05] Matthew: It is a beautiful car, 

[00:29:08] Ian: beautiful car, 

[00:29:10] Matthew: and it runs. He's worked on the engine too, and it runs nicely. 

[00:29:14] Ian: It runs, but it does have its blooms of weird smoke and its strange sounds and such. 

[00:29:22] Matthew: It does, and, and I think we might be dealing with an Automobile of Theseus here, because given everything he did on this, I don't know how much of that original Grand Prix race car is left in this car.

[00:29:33] Ian: Automobile of Theseus. We're dealing with an automobile of Pandora. I don't know what he hasn't unleashed out of this. Uh, I will say a lot more of the movie makes sense when you look at it as we've got a bunch of children who we've not seen eat much, except they have had a lot of these strange and previously noted, defective candies that one of his things made.

And then they sit in the open top back of his new vehicle, which is belching out weird smoke from the engine compartment every once in a while. And some of the rest of this film makes more sense. If you think those two things might have had a chemical reaction in inside all the people because all four of the people in the car, which is the kids Caractacus and of course Truly who shows up because, well, she's got a crush on the guy now and.

Cares for these kids and is showing up to see how they're doing and is astounded at their car.

[00:30:32] Matthew: So they have this seaside picnic and as you say, Truly has joined them now. And uh, and it's amazing what a good, uh, musical production number because it seems like it was during his visit to the scrumptious candy factory and the, the toot sweet, uh, extravaganza that she really falls for him

[00:30:55] Ian: really is over there. Just like, I love it when a man can sing at my dad that he's wrong. Like, okay, 

This is also where the kids start getting weirdly aggressive about the you should be with Dad. Yes. 

[00:31:11] Matthew: And, and start singing songs to her about how much they love her. Yeah. And so yeah, we get more, even more songs and, but it is this idyllic seaside picnic with no one else near, near them on the seaside.

[00:31:29] Ian: Oh. 

[00:31:30] Matthew: And eventually they prevail upon their dad to tell a story and he starts telling a story. And this, I'd say, you were talking about where one movie ends and the next begins, I'd say this might be the beginning of another movie, third movie coming up. 

[00:31:47] Ian: It's time for Baron Bomb Burst to try to steal their car.

Yes. The, 

[00:31:53] Matthew: the Baron of Vulgaria and his pirate ship is after the car. Mm-hmm. And while they were distracted by all of this, the tide came in and they were all cut off and, and suddenly they realized the car is also a boat.

[00:32:13] Ian: Insert transformers noise here,

Chitty, Chitty bang bang, roll out. It just, it just inflates a giant thematic, balloon. And it's like, I love how the engine's running up front, but there's obviously the wake of a small outboard motor off the back. Yeah. 

[00:32:39] Matthew: And, and it's an interesting, combination of practical effects. I would say making a boat that kind of looks like the car, but also, kind of really rough rear projection work to show the closeups of, the four people in the car as they're driving around.

[00:32:55] Ian: Yeah, this is where Chitty Chitty bang bang to, to reference back to the movie we watched, uh, last episode. This is where Chitty Chi Bang Bang really does start to feel like an invention of, uh, Dr. Fate instead of Caractacus Potts. Like Professor Fate would've made this one, but, you kind of can't believe that Dick Van Dyke's character succeeded in this because it's all this story he's telling his kids.

Meanwhile, the other film was just like, oh yeah, that's, he was ready for this. 

[00:33:27] Matthew: And there are other ways in which this story he's telling is reminiscent of what we got in The Great Race because we also get these like pedal powered airships, and we get two spies who are trying to get this car after the boat.

Car gets away from, uh, Baron Bomburst and his, his ship. He sends these two spies to England to infiltrate and get the car from them. 

[00:33:54] Ian: I do appreciate these two spies, pretending to be British. 

[00:33:59] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:34:00] Ian: Which does give this small moment where the production crew gets to laugh at the British the same way they've been, unfortunately laughing at everyone else.

There's yeah. A small bit of equal opportunity insulting this. 

[00:34:12] Matthew: Yeah, that's a good point to this 

[00:34:13] Ian: moment 

[00:34:13] Matthew: because the Vulgarians, , are obviously a, Germanic kingdom 

[00:34:18] Ian: with 

[00:34:18] Matthew: Yes. All the appropriate uniforms and accents and everything else, and they're trying to be British and tried to dress like British people.

So, they come out from behind the bush and they both look like cartoons of, Sherlock Holmes. 

[00:34:29] Ian: Yeah. It's, there was something very, this third film within this film feels. Weirdly enough, like an episode of Bull of, uh, Rocky and Bullwinkle. 

[00:34:41] Matthew: Yes, it does have that, that kind of feel with Rocky and Bullwinkle versus Boris and Natasha.

[00:34:50] Ian: Yeah. It's got that kind of strange back and forth. Oh, we keep, we they keep getting away. Kind of cartoonish style. 

[00:35:01] Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:02] Ian: Right down to an attempt. An attempt using a giant fake wall on a poster. 

[00:35:09] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:35:09] Ian: To capture someone in their car. 

[00:35:11] Matthew: Very Acme Corporation.

[00:35:12] Ian: Extremely acme Corporation

and. I think all of this just winds up boiling down to, the baron finding their house and stealing the grandfather by hooking his little shed up via a cable and carrying it away. 

[00:35:29] Matthew: Yes. The spies eventually find out where the pots live and they find Mr. Pots and assume he's the inventor. So when he goes into his hut, they hook him up to the, the airship and they haul him away to Vulgaria, 

[00:35:43] Ian: which results in another weird song.

[00:35:47] Matthew: Yes. while he is in his hut being carried across the ocean, by an airship. We get a whole song from grandpa about his, love of posh travel. 

[00:36:02] Ian: , like describing of, you know, traveling the good life and jet setting around the world. Yes. While he's being shaken around and dragged across the ocean.

[00:36:13] Matthew: But fortunately, Caractacus and the kids and Truly have, were able to see this happening. They see him being mm-hmm. Taken away in the air and that's when we learned that Oh yes, Chitty chitty Bang bang. That's of course the name of the car. Chitty chitty Bang Bang can also fly.

[00:36:31] Ian: Well, we do not know that until they fall off a cliff and, and dive headfirst straight into an intermission.

[00:36:41] Matthew: That's right. This is, a movie with an intermission and , apparently flying is one of those superpowers where only if, . Your life is in peril. Will the car exhibit this ability

[00:36:52] Ian: new from Hyundai? You have appreciated our automatic braking systems. In case of an emergency, we've now added automatic flight mode. This will only activate if we detect downward velocity of a certain of certain rate, but the wings will deploy from the side and this will no will suddenly act as a high powered glider.

It's yeah. What in the world? But now they can fly to, they can fly after the, uh, the airship to Vulgaria and we enter a fourth movie 

[00:37:29] Matthew: all set within the Kingdom of Vulgaria. And this is when we get into the espionage and regime change part of this movie. 

[00:37:36] Ian: Yeah. Have you ever wanted the Santa Clauss coming to town scenes with Burger Meister, Meister Burger, yet somehow more cartoonish and live action at the same time? Yes. Welcome to the fourth section of Chitty Chitty. Bang bang. Why?

That's what this is. It's, it's, it's straight up burger Meister Meister burger. This is a town that has banned children and all the toys go to the leader. 

[00:38:10] Matthew: Yes. And is that why children are banned? Just because there'll be no one else to take any of the toys.

[00:38:17] Ian: I think so. It gets vague 

[00:38:20] Matthew: and creepy.

Yeah, because the, the baron is this big blustering, rotund man, boy or man baby, who, uh, wants all the toys for himself and doesn't wanna be bothered by anybody else. And now that he is captured, who he believes is Professor Pots the great inventor, he wants pots to build him a flying car. And of course the grandfather has no idea how to do any of this, but he is assisted by this whole group of inventors and scientists who have been imprisoned and tortured by the Baron to make things like flying cars that he wants.

And these guys ex described to Grandpa how they've been tortured over the years. Again, kids movie, 

[00:39:07] Ian: kids movie. 

Yet they sing that one of the most upbeat songs. 

[00:39:12] Matthew: Yes. Up from the Ashes Grow The Roses of Success.

[00:39:19] Ian: That's another song like I, I wanna Hear Roses of Success put to like, scenes from Fallout or something. It had that very like weirdly post-apocalyptic kind of feel. 

[00:39:28] Matthew: It did. All these guys look like they've survived in Apocalypse. They're these absolutely gaunt figures in black with scraggly beards and haunted eyes.

[00:39:39] Ian: The council has decided musical number,

[00:39:45] Matthew: but, uCaractacusrus and Truly, and the kids, they arrive in Vulgaria and they are in great danger because they've got kids and kids are against the law. 

[00:39:55] Ian: Yeah. And 

[00:39:56] Matthew: there's actually a, there was a royal kid catcher. Charged with enforcing that. But fortunately, they are befriended by a toy maker, 

who is forced to make toys that all go to the Baron. And, , this toy maker , who helps save them and their kids is played by Benny Hill. 

[00:40:16] Ian: It's Benny Hill. Yeah. Playing the one competent man in the entirety of the film. 

[00:40:22] Matthew: And anybody who has seen Benny Hill in almost anything else, including the Italian job, including his British comedy TV series, uh, you know, this is not the guy to whom I would go for help, especially bringing along my new girlfriend and my little kids.

Yeah. But, uh, but so weird. He's, he's a nice guy. This character, he is kind of sad, but he, and he has to make these toys, but. He wants to help protect them. He's got a, a whole place where he can help them hide in a, in a basement and he then leaves Truly in the kids so that the, the toy maker and Caractacus can go and scope out what's happening at the palace so they can see about getting, uh, grandpa rescued and Truly who's there to protect. The kids decides, well, I, I need to go out and get some food for these kids. Leaves the kids alone and they are enticed outside by the kid catcher in a very, very, very creepy scene.

[00:41:27] Ian: Creepy, creepy scene. But then the kid, the child catches the creepiest guy ever to exist. Yeah. What did they do to this actor? Who is this man? Oh goodness. The actor Robert, Helpman, seems like he's crying out for help, man, in this role, I must He is apparently a, like a well-known dancer, 

[00:41:54] Matthew: and that makes sense to him.

There is a certain weird, creepy fluidity to the way that the child catcher moves. 

[00:42:01] Ian: , he does kind of glide from corner of the room to corner the room in a creepy way. It's like he wandered off the set of the dark crystal and into the Chitty Chitty bang, bang.

It's so odd and yes. Off putting in the right, wrong way, nah. 

[00:42:20] Matthew: And, and he's got this, this long curved prosthetic nose as part of the way he's made up and dressed. And you know, these, a lot can and should be said about the, the way some of these sort of horror tropes, uh, play upon some really unfortunate representation of various kinds.

Yeah, that is true. We've talked about that in the context of, uh, Nosferatu, for example, the original. Yeah. But that is very true. But yeah, very creepy scene where he is literally luring kids out with promises of candy and treats so he can lock them in his van 

[00:42:58] Ian: directly. That.

[00:42:59] Matthew: And the kids are probably thinking, well, well, last time we got into a stranger's car, it worked out fine. Yeah. How was I to know know this would be a problem? 

[00:43:13] Ian: The, the movie Chitty Chitty Bank Bank is sending mixed messages alongside a whole lot of weird messages. Yes.

But now we've got a scheme to rescue the kids and save the town because they found where the townspeople keep all their kids in the underground shelter. 

[00:43:35] Matthew: Yes. All of the kids in town live in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Ride 

[00:43:42] Ian: Temple is, you're right, it is. 

[00:43:43] Matthew: They're, they're down in the sewers below the town, but it looks exactly like Pirates of the Caribbean.

Without the animatronics as far as I could tell. 

[00:43:53] Ian: Yo ho, yo ho, a children's life for me? 

[00:43:58] Matthew: But we don't get that. We do get another reprise of, uh, Hushabye Mountain because that's what the kids living on scraps in the sewers need is a lullaby. 

[00:44:09] Ian: Yeah. I mean, I guess the idea is here's some hope in the form of song.

[00:44:16] Matthew: Yes. And that's kind of what that represents. They, they haven't been with their parents and they, they're kind of isolated. So I, I could see why they added that. Finally, somebody's acknowledging these children as children. 

[00:44:28] Ian: Yeah. But they're also some 

[00:44:30] Matthew: weird a fighting force. 

[00:44:32] Ian: Yeah. They, they're, they are the, the resistance ready in the underground to attack Now that they've got guidance.

And we get to see that there's political unrest inside of Vulgaria's court. 

Not everyone's happy. There's some internal problems. 

[00:44:54] Matthew: Yeah. Not everybody's pleased having this man, baby as their leader and the man baby Baron is not entirely happy either because he is married, of course, to the Baroness who is this tall blonde woman.

And we get another whole musical number in this kid's movie in which they are singing cute little pet names to one another, and the baron is all the while trying to kill his wife. 

[00:45:21] Ian: Yeah. Repeated assassination attempts.

What in the world? I don't know even what to think about that. It was very Looney Tunes. It was very bizarre. 

[00:45:35] Matthew: Yes. And she will narrowly dodge gunshots and fall through trap doors and all these things and come back and never seeming to really twig to the fact that he keeps trying to kill her. 

[00:45:47] Ian: Yeah. She, he is incredibly inept.

And she is Bewilderingly Unobservant. 

[00:45:55] Matthew: Yes. He's just still her adorable little chichi. 

[00:46:00] Ian: And I was already so weirded out by this film and it's so long. It is. This is a movie. This movie, long movie. This movie is almost two and a half hours long. Yes.

At this point I was flagging. We've watched long movies, but this one just was draining by this point. 

[00:46:24] Matthew: It is simultaneously so packed and sometimes so slow moving that it, it does seem interminable. 

[00:46:33] Ian: So by the time we get to Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howe's grand musical number of defeating the Baron and trying to escape, it's, it's lost some of its steam

in going over and over with these same comedy bits and this same back and forth of the, oh, I'm not the inventor. Don't say that. They'll kill me. Oh, yes I am Mr. Mr. Potts and oh, look, where are the kids? Oh, the kids are down there. Oh, the kids are down there Just. 

[00:47:10] Matthew: Yeah, grandpa is, is definitely stalling for time.

And meanwhile, they've actually captured the actual chitty chitty bang bang in trying to get him to teach them how to use it. He has no idea how to use it and make it fly. So he's he's successfully stalling. 

[00:47:26] Ian: Yeah. The, the, uh, oh, let me press a button. And of course, remember this is written by Ian Fleming Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has an ejector seat, which does lead to a weird moment where the Baroness gets launched into the air and floats like Princess Peach. 

[00:47:43] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:47:45] Ian: Which the Baron uses an opportunity, opportunity to try to shoot her out of the air, like a duck hunt.

I just expected to hear that little like, and the little, little screen flash, the little white square where she was, where she was, where he, when he misses. Like, okay. They're, they're, they're doing the jokes. They're keeping it going. I still do not understand how the, how the final fight happens. 

[00:48:15] Matthew: Well, there's, they have a clever way of infiltrating the palace on the Baron's birthday.

And that's the reason why the toy maker had such a rush to make all these toys and why there was a, an extra push to make sure there were kids outta the way because, it was the Baron's birthday. So the toy maker brings in this grand, present for the Baron, and it's these two big boxes, and it turns out to be pots and Truly dressed up as dolls, singing and dancing in a way that is very doll like.

Just real realistic enough to be what a remarkable doll this is. And the Baron is delighted and it's the kind of song and dance number that this is another one of those where it's, we get, we've seen so many things like this before and I think especially since with the dancer and the singer made up to be a doll.

But I think it's done very well here and we get a very nice song from Truly and from pots. We get the kind of dance that Dick Van Dyke is made for the sort of barely under control ragdoll dance. 

[00:49:26] Ian: Yes. There's something about just the way Dick Van Dyke moves through a moment.

It was, it's wild. 

[00:49:35] Matthew: And they managed to give that some narrative with the, the ragdoll falling in love with the music box doll and all of that. So I think, again, it goes on longer than it needs to, but I think that's kind of a cute and fun scene. 

But it gets them into the palace. 

[00:49:49] Ian: It does. And then I, I guess they act as a distraction and a guide for an invasion.

[00:49:57] Matthew: Yes. Because at this point, Jeremy and Jemima are locked up in a cell somewhere in the palace and they need to get in to find them, but they've also marshaled all of the kids from down in the Pirates of the Caribbean to infiltrate the palace through its secret passages and its air ducts and I don't know what else.

Uh, I think they recruit John McClain at some point,

[00:50:20] Ian: say, just crawling through air ducts, you know, 

[00:50:23] Matthew: come to Vulgaria, we'll have a few laughs.

And then it becomes kind of a big chaotic slapstick fight scene with giant hoards of kids. Outwitting a bunch of bumbling soldiers. 

[00:50:42] Ian: Yeah. And, and they, they successfully overthrow a local government. 

[00:50:49] Matthew: Yes. And at one point, the now fully autonomous chitty chitty bang, bang, rolls in and helps rescue 

[00:50:56] Ian: them. Yes.

It, it's fully autonomous. It is moving on its own. Honest to goodness proof Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is haunted 

[00:51:06] Matthew: Skynet 1911. 

[00:51:08] Ian: And so, everyone piles into the car, the town waves goodbye. And they fly home to England. 

[00:51:14] Matthew: They do. And they get home to England and or the story that dad's been telling finally ends. 

[00:51:23] Ian: And then we are back in the second movie. Yes. The, remember the last over an hour of this 

film, it hasn't meant anything because we're back. How many musical numbers ago? 

[00:51:42] Matthew: Very many 

[00:51:44] Ian: We're back. Uh, yeah. Well we have gone through 1, 2, 3, 6. We've gone through six, yeah, six musical numbers. We were on musical number 12, out of the soundtrack, and we're back at musical number six 'cause we've rewound half the film.

And it's just the kids asking, well, will you marry dad to Truly again 

[00:52:08] Matthew: yes. 

[00:52:09] Ian: As they drive back home. 

[00:52:10] Matthew: And that's, that would be fine with her because as we learned a dozen musical numbers ago I think it was might've been right after the visit to the scrumptious candy factory in that number, we get a long ballad from, Truly scrumptious izing about what a lovely man he is and how he needs someone.

And now my mission is to, make him understand how he needs me and I need him. But when he drives her home after this mm-hmm. Uh, picnic and this long, long story and sees what kind of a house she lives in, this gigantic estate and what she is accustomed to and realizes how poor he is, he sees her to her door. Makes some jokes about, I hope you weren't embarrassed by the ridiculous thing my children were saying wouldn't that be just , crazy.

You know, you and I getting married and she's obviously heartbroken and so is he. But his pride won't allow him to do anything else. 

[00:53:11] Ian: And they head back home, , dick Van Dyke is all sad. The kids are asleep. Then we get the, the neat little bow on the end of the story, which is it turns out grandpa , knows Lord scrumptious.

They were in the war together. 

[00:53:29] Matthew: Yes, this was my brigadier That's who he served under. 

[00:53:32] Ian: So suddenly, Lord Scrumptious is offering to buy the candies again 

[00:53:40] Matthew: because he realized this can open up a whole new market candy for dogs. 

[00:53:47] Ian: I looked it up after that. Yeah. Dogs aren't a, you shouldn't give dogs candy certainly shouldn't give them 

[00:53:56] Matthew: chocolate.

[00:53:58] Ian: Yeah, no chocolate. But, uh, sugar is way more dangerous for dogs in the, in quantities like candy. 

[00:54:06] Music: Ooh. 

[00:54:06] Ian: They can take a little bit if they get. A small piece of something, it's not as bad, but don't give them a full piece of candy. It can be dangerous to their health. So that's Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. 

[00:54:18] Matthew: Or maybe Lord Scrumptious knows this and just doesn't like dogs very much.

It would be in keeping with a lot of else other things we've seen in this, uh, in this movie, 

[00:54:28] Ian: it really would. Oh goodness.

[00:54:31] Matthew: Uh, but now that Scrumptious is going to buy, pot's candy invention and Pots is now going to be rich, apparently now it's okay for him to go back and, meet up with, Truly again, and they are going to now get married and everyone will be happy.

[00:54:48] Ian: Uh, wait a minute. I hadn't realized this. What's that? Had we mentioned who plays Lord Scrumptious? I don't think we did. I don't think we did. Yeah, because that's James Robertson Justice. 

It's Jensen and the narrator 

from The Guns of Navarone. 

[00:55:10] Matthew: I can hear it now that you mentioned that. I can too. One of these, this stable of sixties actors and here he is, half a dozen or more years later playing in, uh, in this, 

[00:55:23] Ian: the time periods are all wrong, but I'm way more confused and bewildered by whatever Grandpa Pots was tasked with doing back in the war when he served under him.

Now that's a very different story.

We've got a candy production facility on the other side of this island. Sorry, I'm doing anything I can to not be in Chitty chitty bang bang. Yes'. I'm taking every off ramp I can find. 

[00:55:50] Matthew: Can this please be a different movie, 

[00:55:52] Ian: sadly. Oh. Because even the ending here is weird and contrived and awkward. 

[00:56:01] Matthew: Yes. Finally, they're in love.

They're going to get married. They drive off together in Chi chitty bang bang, which, lifts off and starts flying. Yeah. So are we in an alternate reality? Are we in another story that pots is telling? Did pots get home and Lord Scrumptious was not there? He just put the kids to bed, fell asleep and had a dream where Lord scrumptious showed up and offered him a whole bunch of money and he was able to marry Truly.

[00:56:36] Music: Yeah. Maybe 

[00:56:38] Matthew: a lot of grim possibilities. But what we get is kind of like at the end of Grease where they're in a car and the car flies away as a, as a, a representation of how well things are going and how everybody's happy. 

[00:56:49] Ian: That sounds like a robot Chicken scene where there's a mid-air traffic collision between the car from the end of grease and Chitty Chitty bang bang.

The police have to come over, try to file an incident report. 

[00:57:04] Matthew: Oh, wow. The NTSB, this is the third one of these flying car collision we've had this month. Something's gotta be changed. 

[00:57:14] Ian: Hell yeah. A Delorean speeds past them.

[00:57:20] Matthew: Yeah, there is a lot of movie in this movie. 

[00:57:25] Ian: There's a lot of movie in this movie, but at the same time, not a lot of movie to go around. 

[00:57:33] Matthew: Oh, I don't know. There's, it's not as if there were big gaps where not a lot happened. Yeah. There was just, it was a big stretches where it was hard to keep track of what happened or where I would rather this not be happening, but it was happening.

[00:57:48] Ian: Please stop happening. 

[00:57:49] Matthew: Yes.

Um, oh, goodness. I think we, we may have telegraphed some of our answers to final questions. I think 

[00:57:59] Ian: I, I think so. I, I, I, I will say, um, sometimes we talk about how you can watch this movie. I wound up watching this for free, but with ads. Yeah. Where did you see it? On? I, I found it on a tubie. Oh. The only thing worse than sitting through all of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is all of Chitty chitty bang bang with five minutes of ads every 20 minutes.

[00:58:26] Matthew: Oh, that's not good. It's long enough 

[00:58:28] Ian: that it's long enough. This took me so long to watch. 

[00:58:33] Matthew: I saw it through the Kanopy Service that's Kanopy with a K and that I get free of charge through my library as a service from a li my library. So if you like movies, and this is not a paid endorsement of any kind, it's just sharing a tip. if you like movies and you've got a library card and why wouldn't you, check to see if your library is connected with Kanopy because we get a certain number of credits per month, and you can spend those towards watching movies and streaming movies as well as.

some other kinds of programming. So, you know, a fair number of the things that I can't find elsewhere to show you on this, podcast. I wind up being able to see on Kanopy. 

[00:59:10] Ian: It does say something nice that no matter what, there is a way if Kanopy doesn't work in your area. Yeah, I had trouble getting it. started in mind. There's other ways to watch plenty of these things. Yeah. Older movies can become hard to find, but there's also plenty of places and people out there trying to preserve them, all of them no matter what, because it, it's worth it. And that's a great piece to know.

[00:59:36] Matthew: It was, it was certainly not hard to see this movie when I was a kid because like, I I say it, it seemed like two or three times a year this would show up and it would take over the weekend on some local TV station. 

[00:59:48] Ian: Did those stations intend it or did Chitty Chitty Bang Bang make them do it? 

[00:59:56] Matthew: Maybe it was that, pots had finally perfected his way of transmitting moving pictures by wireless and was, over overtaking the signal hacking into the signal for, uh, WOR in New York.

[01:00:09] Ian: Just, just interper inter interper bits of, uh, Caractacus pots and the opening from, uh, hackers where he's changing at the tapes. It's the same device. 

[01:00:22] Matthew: Well, with that, we will be back with, uh, our final questions in just a moment. Mm-hmm. So, stick around as we talk about, you know, whether we recommend this movie, what else we might want to see done with this idea or this movie. But first, if you are enjoying the Inter Millennium Media Project podcast and you would like more, please go to immproject.com.

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[01:01:43] Ian: Yeah. More people here, the more we can chat.

And hey, if you've got suggestions or ideas, we love to hear 'em. 

[01:01:49] Matthew: Absolutely. 

And Ian, where can people find you? 

[01:01:54] Ian: I can be found most places as ItemCrafting. Be that ItemCrafting.com or as ItemCraftingLive on Twitch. I try to stream every Thursday if I can. Playing games, building props, painting minis.

Come on over. Hang out. Have a good time. 

[01:02:10] Matthew: Are you still visiting the Chow Garden? Periodically. 

[01:02:13] Ian: Ah, every once in a while, but not as often. Now we're kind of letting them be, besides, we're playing a lot of longer games and doing a bunch of variety, so. 

[01:02:21] Matthew: Cool.

[01:02:22] Ian: Switching it up every time.

[01:02:23] Matthew: I like that. 

[01:02:24] Ian: Well, thank you. How about you, dad? 

[01:02:27] Matthew: Well, you can find me as ByMatthewPorter pretty much anywhere. I'm ByMatthewPorter@mastodon.social, ByMatthewPorter on Blue Sky, and you can go to ByMatthewPorter.com where you will find links to those and to anything else I'm doing, including my YouTube channel, which features the Drafthouse diary, where I record a diary entry, which is both a movie review, a food review, a whole theater experience review for every one of my visits to an Alamo Drafthouse cinema.

Sometimes here in Colorado where I live, and sometimes elsewhere in the country when I'm traveling. 

[01:03:00] Ian: Some of those, some of those ones when you're out and about are amazing. They really help you see the, the differences between the theaters and it lets you just. Get ideas when you're in a new place of what you can go find.

[01:03:12] Matthew: It is fun because it, it's fun to see how that one chain has such different theming and different feels in different parts of the country. 

[01:03:20] Ian: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:23] Matthew: Well, with that, I think it is time for final questions. This is a movie. So our first question is screen or no screen. What are you recommending? 

[01:03:37] Ian: No screen. Oh my goodness. No. 

[01:03:43] Matthew: Yeah, I am. I think I'm with you there. I'm gonna say this is a no screen. It is just so long and maybe there are a few scenes or musical numbers that will be enjoyable if you like that kind of thing.

But there's just so much else packed in around them that I don't recommend sitting down and watching this as a movie. So I say no screen. 

[01:04:05] Ian: Are you zero to 13 years old, you're too young for chitty chitty bang bang. It will traumatize you. Are you 13 years and one minute old or older? You're too old for chitty chitty bang, bang.

You know better.

There's no middle. 

There's none. Oh goodness. 

[01:04:30] Matthew: So there isn't even a two hour and 25 minute window where, okay, you gotta start the movie right now, because by the time it's over, you'll be too old for it. 

[01:04:40] Ian: Yeah, I don't think so. 

[01:04:42] Matthew: I, I agree. I say no screen.

[01:04:46] Ian: Oh goodness. 

[01:04:48] Matthew: Well, then our next question is, revive, reboot, or rest in peace.

Do you want a sequel or a prequel? A revival of some kind for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 

[01:05:00] Ian: Would that even be? It's like someone finds the, does someone find the burnt out wreck of Chitty Chitty Bang bang, buy it and build a car out of it? 'cause we did that already. That's Chitty chitty bang bang. 

[01:05:14] Matthew: Either that or it would be moonraker.

We've already had our chitty chitty bang bang sequels in the form of many scenes from many James Bond movies. I, I don't, and I don't think we need, I mean, the only thing I can think of as a prequel would be a story about the amazing Grand Prix run by the person who drove this car originally, and then that ends in a fiery wreck.

So that's not a cheerful movie either. So I don't think I need a, a prequel or a sequel to this. I say, um, uh, that, that leaves us reboot. Do we want a reboot of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? And what else could you do with it? Could you tell the same story but not make it a. A musical, do something else with it.

[01:06:00] Ian: Okay. I described about how so many things are so creepy in Chitty Chitty. Bang bang. Yeah. And maybe it's just 'cause I've been, uh, you know, watching a bunch of things like a Night Mind on YouTube. Do give me an actual horror film version of Chi Chitty Bang Bang. Or at least the first half of it where it's this, this young lady finds this family living on a hill.

The grandpa is insane, the father is obsessed. And there's these two perfect children who seem to act in unison. 

[01:06:35] Matthew: Yes. 

[01:06:36] Ian: And there's no mother. And you could have the weirdness of like. No, they just wandered up from the shore one day and said, you're our dad. And everything started happening and now the car seems to be gaining sentience and I can't escape and give me a horror version of the first half where the Yeah.

Are you going to marry Dad is in, is in the, oh no, they're trying to capture me. 

[01:07:07] Matthew: Yes. 

[01:07:08] Ian: Kind of creepy. That would work. 

[01:07:10] Matthew: You alluded earlier to five nights at Freddy's and, and yeah, we've mentioned other horror things. I think maybe if we're gonna get anything, we need a Blumhouse reboot 

[01:07:20] Ian: oh goodness. Just if, if you see Blumhouse suddenly announce a movie called Hushabye Mountain, you know, things have gone the right, wrong way.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. 

[01:07:33] Matthew: They have gone the wrong way in the best way possible.

[01:07:37] Ian: Exactly. 

That name even works for this. 

[01:07:41] Matthew: It does. That is very chilling. But yeah. At, at most what I, I, I agree with you. I wanna horror reboot or let it rest in peace. 

[01:07:50] Ian: Yeah. Uh, melty Chitty Chitty Bang Bang down into a block of iron.

Like the guy said. 

[01:07:58] Matthew: Yes. All of this could have been avoided. 

[01:08:02] Ian: Oh. If only Victor Mattern hadn't played The junk Man as so mean a dude. Yep. Oh, well. 

[01:08:13] Matthew: But I, I think it was valuable for you to have had this experience. But I, once I figured you were old enough, I could subject you to chitty chitty bang, bang goodness.

Okay.

Maybe I should have led with this, even though it was, I did 'em chronologically. Maybe I should have led with this and let you see the great race afterward, because we enjoyed that movie more, I think. 

[01:08:39] Ian: Yeah. That could have, that might have been, that, that could have worked as a, a pal cleanser. Oh, what, what madness from the Mind of Man have we unleashed in the Form of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Oh goodness.

[01:08:59] Matthew: But it was a worthwhile episode, I think, a worthwhile movie to see. And, and wasn't this festive as the second of our, our two part Christmas theme. 

[01:09:09] Ian: Absolutely. Oh goodness. 

[01:09:14] Matthew: And listeners, we hope you have enjoyed this. 

[01:09:17] Ian: We do hope you have, 

[01:09:19] Matthew: and we hope that you are having a wonderful Christmas or whatever holidays you celebrate at this time of year. and we will be back in the new year with new movies, with new themes, well new movies to Ian movies that were important to me as a kid.

And, we hope you'll join us then because we've got a lot of fun things in store. And, hey, it gives me a chance to, to talk to my boy Ian, here about movies. 

[01:09:47] Ian: Well, I thank you. Happy Holidays from all of us here at the Inter Millennium Media Project. And if you go do find something. Go find something new to watch.