Sunday, October 27, 2013

Witchy Good

Tis the season…

No, definitely not that season! I don’t know which is worse, commercials with a Christmas theme before Halloween or a skinny Santa in those commercials before Halloween!

No matter that’s not the season I was thinking about. I was thinking about the second most important celebration on the calendar, Halloween.

Now there are those who believe with strong religious conviction that Easter is the second most important celebration on the calendar and I would dare say nothing against those with such convictions even though I think that the bunny thing except where Hugh Hefner is involved has been over done, but for folks with a less convicted view of celebration you have to admit hat the season of spookiness in just about the bestest thing since indoor plumbing. (Anyone who doubts the wisdom of indoor plumbing just get nekkid at three AM and trot out into Nature and spend a bracing ten or fifteen minutes in a sitting position in our delightful Oregon climate and see how wonderful you think outdoor plumbing really is!) So next to indoor plumbing Halloween is just about the funest thing there is and if you think that the fun part is limited to children you have never really spent a dark and stormy night with Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and some terrible horror movies or gone to a costume party for adults and if you think about it one of the funest parts of going to a costume party for non-kids is seeing just how much wildness is left in those non-kid type female, lady women and how they want to shuck off the drab dress of ordinary life and put on some glad rags of a less PTA approved sort and get their Ghostess with the Mostest, (although Marion Kirby was always very tasteful and stylish and never ever showed any slink or kink but was a spooktacular spirit anyway), going on in the most wild and crazy sort of way and that is why the non-kids can have a lot of funest good times on Halloween and perhaps it is a good thing that the kids have been sent to bed or off to a PTA approved Halloween party were they are supervised by Tarsus the Good and not filled with worthless high-sugar treats and allowed to get wild and crazy with the adults in their party clothes or lack of clothes depending on how wild and crazy the non-kid sorts get.

But let’s suppose you want to stay within the confines of the PTA approved, Tarsus the Good sort of Halloween celebration and yet still be part of the funest sort of good times, then what you can do without ever leaving your own living room, is watch the Good Witch movies on the Hallmark Channel.

The Good Witch movies star Catherine Bell which is in itself a pretty good reason to watch the Good Witch movies, unless you don’t like female, lady women sorts of persons in which case there is a pretty good chance that you aren’t going to get approved by the PTA or Tarsus the Good so you can go ahead and stop reading right here. But if you do like female, lady women sorts of people then the Good Witch will be right down your alley.

The Good Witch movies are right out of Frank Capra’s universe and if you don’t know who that is then you are probably too young to understand the rest of what I am going to say anyway, so back to Frank Capra who told gentler stories in a time before The Bomb and serial killers and the Good Witch movies are just the sort of story Frank Capra would be telling if Frank Capra were telling stories today.

You see Cassie Nightingale might be a witch…but she might not and that is part of the magic of the Good Witch movies, you just won’t ever know and like Miracle on 34th Street, the only true and absolutely necessary Christmas movie, you just don’t know and that is why it is such fun to watch.

Now here is the Ron-Bob disclaimer and if you don’t get that then you have never heard of Joe-Bob Briggs and this will be completely lost on you but for those in the know, there are no breasts, no bombs, no car-chases, no creatures, no witch-foo, just magic, magic everywhere and Ron-Bob says check it out!

There is no violence, everything gets resolved without threats and meanness and when something odd happens you, the viewer has to engage your brain and decide if it was magic or just one of those things.  

I know that’s a lot more work than you expect out of an evening of watching television. But it is really worth it. And I am not the only one who thinks so because there are seven Good Witch movies in the can and an eighth scheduled for 2014. Somebody has to be watching.

Maybe you gave up believing in Santa Claus a long time ago and with the way Congress does business I can understand why you might be cynical. But don’t let the way some people behave steal the joy of child-like belief from your heart.
Make popcorn, hot chocolate, put on warm socks, get out a fuzzy blanket and settle down in front of the telly and let magic, pure magic fill your night with joy. Sure it’s simplistic and optimistic and maybe, just maybe there’s a touch of magic.

No comments:

Post a Comment