Oklahoma!

When Ayron and I were kids, our parents didn't spoil us with lots of media outlets to divert our attention.  We had four movies.  So when we got bored on a Sunday afternoon, or we stayed home sick from school, or we just felt lazy and self-indulgent, we chose from four diverse viewing selections.  Our choices were The Princess Bride, Willow, Victory at Sea, or Oklahoma! 

The Princess Bride is that modern fairytale where the adorable hero Westley fights to save the love of his life, beautiful Buttercup.  It's that wonderful movie where the main character utters the line, "As you wish," and thousands of young, melodramatic teenage hearts melted.  I might know every line by heart. 

Willow, however, is an odd fantasy flick with a young Val Kilmer.  This movie is kind of a lame precursor to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  A reluctant dwarf (not played by Kilmer) is asked to protect the life of a baby and must ask for help from the unlikely hero, Madmartigan, played by Kilmer.  It's a good movie, but I can't figure out why this was one of the movies we had if four was the absolute limit.  It definitely served to stoke the fire of my love for fantasy.  And I wonder why I can't get enough of those darn Twilight books?!

Victory at Sea was, of course, my dad's favorite series at the time for World War II battles. It is super pro-American and has awesome swelling music to capture every enormous wave hitting the sides of the battle ships.  I love these documentaries and appreciate them now, but at twelve years old, I would have rather raked leaves all afternoon than sit through the propaganda and testosterone filled viewing.

Now Oklahoma! is the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.  This selection makes complete sense.  It is of course, a classic theater musical, with wonderful, happy, mostly wholesome, uplifting music.  I mean, who can resist humming along to Surrey With the Fringe on the Top?  Not me.  Ayron and I still can't help singing along with huge smiles on our faces when we get even an inkling of an Oklahoma! tune.  At this very moment I am humming "Okla-homa, Okla-homa, Okla-homa!  You know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand, so when we say.......YOW!  I-yip-ai-yo-i-yay!  You're only  saying, you're doing fine Oklahoma, Oklahoma, OK!"  Ahh....that felt good.  I needed to get that out of my system. 

The only funny thing is that my parents had taped the movie from another disk, and they had completely cut out the entire dream sequence that is supposed to be right smack dab in the middle of the movie.  Just a few years ago, I caught a few minutes of it at a hotel and felt completely aghast when the dream sequence came on.  I was in shock, like, "What is this?!!! What have they done to Oklahoma?!!"  Only to find out that the dream sequence was included with the original, but my parents weren't too sure about it.  Maybe they thought the director had been on a drug trip that day or something, and they were not going to expose their young impressionable daughters to such filth.  Never mind that we were happily singing along with Ado Annie to "I Can't Say No," a song expressing her inability to say no to the boys when they wanted to kiss her and do who knows what else.  Anyway, I digress.

The point is these four movies are sort of classics in the Schoneman household.  Ever since the girls started watching TV, I have been waiting until the day when I thought they could handle watching one of these.  Now, Oklahoma! is the obvious first selection, since it has tons of dancing, singing, and beautiful scenery.  The classic love story and friendly cowboy/farmer rivalry is charming and innocent as well.

So the other night, I briefly explained the story line, described that there would be singing and dancing, and pushed play.  Here's what happened.  

My oldest is completely in her element.  She smiles contentedly and quickly hums along to the tunes.  Cowboys singing love songs to beautiful country girls is a total reality for her.  Now my #2 daughter is basically wondering when Dora the Explorer is going to show up.

Good ol' Curly.  "Oh What a Beautiful Morning!"

Try to ignore the mess of my living room.  Hey, the kitchen remodel is almost over, and our lives will return to neat and tidy order!  Ok, I'm kidding myself, but at least I won't have three random unplugged lamps sitting in the family room.   

Curly's singing, "Hush you bird, my baby's a-sleepin..."  I love that line. 

What did the girls think?

Cubby's like, "A bird's going to start talking? Good, finally something interesting!"

"Cowboys are so sweet!" E thinks. 

My cowboy thought it was a good time for a stretch.  And yes, I am pushing him to learn all of these songs on guitar so we can have a family sing-a-long. 

The movie ran a little late, so we had to shut if off after we got a third of the way through.  The next night, the girls' had another couple of viewers.

Little G was only fascinated when a horse was on the screen, to which she would yell, "Eeee-heee-heee!"

Needless to say, J.D. wasn't into the movie in the slightest.  He was probably thinking, "Why are all those cowboys just standing around singing?  Why don't they get to work?  I better grab my hammer, just in case  I need to show them how it's done."

The big cowboy on screen held his attention momentarily, then he moved on to pester his dad.

G on the other hand, appreciated the scenes with animals and danced a little to the singing.  All in all, the movie was a positive experience.  Oklahoma!  is a new family classic!  Now that I've downloaded the songs to my Itunes, it's probably time for a little family sing-a-long!!!  But the important question is, which Schoneman family classic movie is next on the list?  Hmmmm....