Posted Oct 6, 08 09:41 AM
Children Should Play With Dead Things
Hey, remember that 1972 wake-the-dead horror cheapie, CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS? (Actually, kudos if you don't.) That warp of a title's the lone thing the movie e-e-e-e-ver did for me. But on some perverse level, it's a channel to boyhood memories. And the "life is good" type. And I'm not talking moldy, freshly-rejuvenated cadavers mumbling "life is good" while chomping spleens like watermelon quarters.
Let's go back to... (CUE PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDTRACK AND FOG MACHINE.) ...The Way I Were. Age five, neck-to-toe pajamas (the ones with the enclosed footies), the Fisher-Price Camper tucked safely under my wrist. Mom's and Dad's attentions swapped the Opinion and Local pages of The Bismarck Tribune. But they noted, with soft-sighed reassurance, their youngest of four -- shy, small Mikey -- quietly passing them on the way to the top of the basement stairs.
K-r-r-ash! ... Bum-BOOM-BUM-BAM... K-r-r-ash!
"... You okay???" Mom called out instinctively.
I was. I just hurled the Fisher-Price Camper down the steps, that's all. Time to race down to see who survived. People pegs trapped in the upper bunk warranted an understood survival. Caught under the plastic sink or toilet (with the flipped-lid), not so much.
Ah, kids.
Fisher-Price sure made some cool stuff to foster growing imaginations. The Fisher-Price Yacht frequently capsized in shark-infested waters (that albino-white girl peg with the red plastic bowl cut and the Joan Crawford eyebrows never managed to get rescued -- heh heh). Non-benevolent forces frequently haunted the Fisher-Price Castle. The Fisher-Price Airplane crash-landed underwater every other flight while the Fisher-Price A-Frame was usually in the path of an arson-set forest fire. And the Fisher-Price Hospital usually had the worst weather outside with some disgruntled unidentified patient inside monopolizing the 2-story elevator.
Not much activity at the Fisher-Price Schoolhouse. Hmm, maybe if I could go back and envision it on a college campus...
We see kids playing all the time. But what are they thinking, really?
Me? When I was way-young, I probably emulated media images I was tempted with, then filled in the rest -- newspaper ads like that bat flick Nightwing, or the Jaws preview where the boards of Quint's hull get pounded by an unseen shark and start furiously taking on ocean water. Going to the movies, though, was usually an impulse once-a-year shot... but Dad picked, which usually meant The Apple Dumpling Gang or Unidentified Flying Oddball. At least my consolation was choosing Sprite and a box of Dots.
Tension and terror started taking on a luster, although back then, I didn't know it. I just knew I couldn't have them. So I'd go back, speculate, and think. Dad was usually at the office, Charlie-Andy-and-Theresa were in school, and Mom worked nights. That translated to much of the daylight hours of my fifth year of life spent in silence next to my Mom, who slept on the sofa to prepare for her late shift as a nurse. I became audience and entertainer in an arena silent to observers, but in 70 MM Dolby Stereo in my mind, which spared nooooo expense. Including rocker seating.
The face cards of a standard deck became my cast. Spades got top-billing (the Queen reminded me of Mom), and any images that reminded me of Shelly Winters, Donald Pleasance, or Ellen Burstyn got spared. Hearts were discarded -- I thought the Jack had a real attitude. Through the narrative musings of a five year-old head, ALL of the characters made it out alive. But then things got repetitive, boring. So through underage creative conferencing, Hearts took on a body count.
With the deck returned next to the marbles board, I'd peruse my brothers' and sister's game shelves. Charlie accrued stacks of tactical war games, Theresa was embroiled in a stuffed animal phase, but Andy's was duh muthah lode. Weird as it may seem -- even now -- I'd take out his JAWS game. That sucker was ingenious: a plastic full-body shark that sat upright with it's -- well -- jaws held precariously open by rubber bands. On it's mouth lay a collection of sea swallowables like a chewed boot or a broken wagon wheel. The object was to take this long hook and surgically lift item by item from the creature's mouth. When the jaws snapped shut, the player "got eaten" by the shark. Playing JAWS with Charlie, Andy, and Theresa was one thing -- just inquire to my pulse, sweat and heartbeat. But on my own, I actually took the plastic thing out of the box, assembled the pieces, and then stared deep into it's mouth for profound imaginative inklings I can't even recall.
That was the year in which my imagination truly was conceived. The most innocent offerings of Milton Bradley and Kenner transformed into catalysts the manufacturers couldn't have intended. I took the real world's make-believe world and created a third. And sometimes, even play things didn't make it out alive.
Posted by Mike Kalvoda at 09:41 AM