Bad Night on Bald Mountain

Sixty hour work weeks are making drawing, even sketching a near-impossible task. What's more, I'm been typing up a rough draft to"my story" and am waiting to hear back from someone about editing. But I digress...

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When I was growing up in the eighties, the Disney Channel was a lot different from what it is today. (I prefer to think of it as having more integrity, but that's me.) Rather than all of these teeny-bopper shows they have nowadays, they'd always show short clips from many of their older movies (i.e. the dress battle from "Sleeping Beauty," "Snow White" as she was cleaning up the house, etc.), in addition to their vintage shorts.

One of my favorite clips was the one from Fantasia's "Night on Bald Mountain." It started right as the main demon was recoiling from the chiming of the morning bell. That was when all the skeletal spirits would slowly return to their graves before the sun came up. I was so entranced by it. You see back then, I was at that phase in life where I had this intense love/fear relationship with skeletons. So watching this skeletal glide through wisps of smoke and mist was pure heaven for me (it was one of the things that got me started in drawing).

After seeing this clip for about ten times, I made up my mind to ask my parents to rent the full movie for me. Now, as a kid, both my memory and reading skills were next to nil, the remembering what the little blurb at the bottom of the screen said was a challenge to me. Still, I did my best to describe what I'd seen to them. I told them I'd seen this awesome movie on TV that was called "Fanta-somethin," that it took place in a graveyard, and it had all these scary ghosts and monsters, along with this big, tall, dark guy, but that it was okay, because I had seen in on the Disney Channel, so it had to be decent for children, right? I kept pestering them until they finally relented.

Well, the night they brought the I immediately noticed that something was wrong. For one thing, the title wasn't spelled right. I was aware my memory was fuzzy, but I distinctly remembered that it was spelled with an F, not a Ph...

...putting it in the VCR didn't allay any of my concerns either. What I had seen on Disney was animated, this wasn't. The film here opened up in a graveyard, but instead of skeletons, there was this hot couple making out. All of the sudden, the woman stabs the guy.

"I don't think I want you to be watching this," my mom said. She and Dad had begun to realize something was up as well. My brother was just getting scared.

Well, my parents had done what I'd asked, based on all the information I gave them. But they hadn't rented "Fantasia..."

It was around when the older brother in the film noticed the cloaked midgets sneaking around the graveyard that I mentioned what I had seen was a cartoon. Right then and there, my parents knew they had royally screwed up. They stopped the film immediately, and we were spared seeing the silver ball of death in action. We watched a Richard Scarry animated book instead that night, and a year later, I was able to remember the title enough so that my parents got the right film.

Now, in my parents' defense, back then the Disney Channel showed a lot of things that would never be shown thses days. I distinctly remember such films as "Dances with Wolves" and the "Gremlins" series being advertised on it. And I'm not sure, but I think I saw an advertisement for "Red Dawn," as well.

Heh, funniest thing now that I think about it: The Disney Channel was the place where I first saw the original "Star Wars." How about that, huh?

Man....Star Wars and Disney....how the mighty have fallen...