Thursday, August 19, 2010

Disney Pixar's Cars with Braden

During the past two weeks Braden has developed a new fascination. The fact that this fascination is supported by the TV should come as no surprise as he is my child. Lately Braden watches the Disney Pixar film Cars all the time. By all the time I mean it is on a continuous loop at our house from the time he comes home from school until the time he goes to bed. He plays and does other things, but Cars must be on at all times. When the movie is over Braden always suggests, “Mo Car.” If you think he is not watching and try to turn it off you will hear “I wa Car.” He cannot be deterred.

So I have watched Cars a few hundred times now it seems. Since Arica and Braden get home a few hours before me each day, Arica has seen it even more. I am happy to watch Cars rather than that purple dinosaur Braden used to watch so I try not to complain. Still it gets old after about the third straight viewing.

Here is a little play by play of our movie watching experience. Braden loves Mack, the truck that hauls Lightning McQueen from race to race. As soon as he comes on the screen Braden starts pointing and exclaiming, “Mack, Mack, Mack” until you respond. Then he waits a bit and does it again.

His love of the Mack truck reminds me of a saying a French colleague of mine once told me about. He said in France they have a saying that translates to "pretty as an American truck." At first that sounds ridiculous, but if you have seen the small ugly things that pass for big trucks in Europe you might understand. Our Eighteen wheelers are huge and covered in about 500 pounds of chrome. So Braden finding joy in a beautiful American Mack truck is an understandable thing. Plus it's huge and powerful and all boys like that.

Right after Mack makes his first appearance he and Lightning McQueen leave on a trip for California amidst Braden's exclamations of "MACK!" The song “Life is a Highway” plays at the start of this trip. Braden dances with this song every single time. He loves it. See for yourself.



After that song is over Mack eventually falls asleep and loses Lightning McQueen. When McQueen wakes up he storms off looking for Mack. During this time Braden is looking for Mack too. Then comes the train that McQueen has to beat to the railroad crossing. Even before the train appears Braden starts saying “choo choo.” He has the events in the story down pat at this point.

After that the Sheriff chases our friendly race car through the countryside. Then the movie cuts to a scene of the sleepy little town of Radiator Springs. To show how sleepy the town really is there is absolutely no sound during this part. It is in great contrast to the high speed chase that precedes the scene. Every time this happens Braden says “Uh-Oh” because he thinks the sound is broke. Then he gets the remote and gives it to either me or Arica to fix it.

This little sequence plays out at our house about 5 times a day. The rest of the movie is filled with naming a few characters like "mamer" or "Doc". Braden also has learned the word speed and can point out the Piston Cup or "tin cup" on sight. Who says you can't learn things from watching TV.

Braden likes Cars so much that when I woke him up on Tuesday morning the first thing he said to me was “I wa Car.” I tilted him back from my shoulder to discuss this with him and I noticed his eyes were only cracked open the tiniest bit. He was not even half awake yet. Still, in his sleepy haze, Braden knew that he wanted to watch a little bit of Cars to start his day.

10 comments:

Brandy@YDK said...

I LOVE this post. he's just so darn cute. and just hearing about his day makes me happy

Anonymous said...

I'm with you, I'll take a Pixar movie over any purple dinosaur any day. My son was obessed with Bolt (not Pixar, but kid friendly movie) for several weeks. I think we watched it half a million times.

Manic Mommy said...

We went through this phase with Finding Nemo and later, Toy Story (1 & 2). I'm pretty sure I can recite every line from both. It's a testament to the movies and Pixar that I can still sit through these movies without removing my own appendix.

Tom said...

Hurray! You have a movie fiend on your hands. Ours did the same thing, with several movies - most of them Pixar, but a few really ANNOYING movies like "Shaggy Dog" which I could never watch for entertainment again.

My son used to freak out during the part in "Finding Nemo" where the screen is completely black for a short time. He'd demand we turn the movie back on and would cry until the picture came back. *shudder* the terror.

Otter Thomas said...

@Tom: I sense that you can definitely feel my pain.

We moved the afternoon Cars watching into another room to reclaim our TV for a couple days. That seemed to break Braden's trance for a while. But then this morning he demanded Cars as soon as he woke up again.

john cave osborne said...

"turn it up," indeed.

reasonably sound execution on the dancing, i might say.

i love how you're watching in the background.

one of the trips, jack, LOVES trucks and trains. and you're right. that's such a guy thing.

well done, friend.

SurprisedMom said...

Believe it or not, that Purple Dinosaur kept my girls entertained for hours and hours and hours and . . . And they even produced videos, too. I know. I still have everyone of them.

It wasn't PIXAR, but Disney when the girls were growing up. They loved the "princess" videos, Cinderella, Snow White, etc.

Braden is a darling! So, instead of sitting there, why didn't you get up and dance with him? Cool song, BTW.

I've never seen Cars. Would you like me to come over and babysit while you and Arica go out on a date?

WeaselMomma said...

A. Braden couldn't look any more like you if he were your twin.
B. I'm glad he has such great taste in music. Rascal Flatts did a great re-make of Life is a Highway.
C. It's a shame when a good movie, show, book, etc gets ruined by having to be watched ad naseum.

Rob said...

LOL. Cars is a good movie thought. "I'm not a Mack I'm a Peterbuilt". Don't feel bad Shae is like this but with Scooby-Doo. Only difference is we have 10 or so Scooby-Doo DVD's. Good luck and like you said it could be that purple creature all of the time.

seashore subjects said...

Adorable! I love the hand movements. We had many movie obsessions over the span of 3 kids, I'm not sure it gets easier...