My 80's Childhood Wouldn't Have Been the Same Without...
Welcome to a nostalgia-driven new blog feature that will hopefully become a regular part of this site. Basically, as the title suggests, in every installment I'll be looking at something/anything from the 1980s (and early 1990s) that played a major role in defining the childhood of us 80's kids.
First up is Witchcraft & Wizardry. Now before the fundamentalist Bible bashers throw up their arms in despair, and anyone else starts muttering "What the hell kind of childhood did she have?" I'm not talking about the performance of occult or pagan rituals. I'm talking about the degree to which magic or, more specifically, spell casting popped up in the pop culture I used to ravenously consume.
There's no doubt about it - old school fantasy was big in the 1980s, especially for kids, and it managed to permeate basically all cultural mediums. Why there was so much magic-themed entertainment around, I'm not quite sure. The world (especially the United States) was busy crawling out of a recession, of course, but the need to escape into fantasy to forget financial woes would be completely irrelevant to Generation X and Y. Also, in the pre-CGI era, any fantasy film production would typically require a big budget to cover the costs of building impressive sets, as well as the creation of special effects and special make-up. Still though, the filmmakers went ahead with these demanding endeavours, bringing beautiful, memorable worlds and characters to life.
Whatever the reason for the explosion of witchcraft and wizardry-themed entertainment in the 1980s, there can be no doubt there was far less of a backlash against the "Evil" it depicted than there is today. Or perhaps it's just a case of the Internet giving these nutters more of a voice today?
Anyway, I apologise in advance for forgetting some important books, shows and films. I'm just examining the first things that came to my mind. Perhaps you can leave a comment highlighting your magic favourites, and anything else you think I've forgotten, at the end of this post.
Books
Long before Harry Potter was struggling with the demands of life at a magical boarding school, Mildred Hubble was in a very similar situation - contending with teachers who hated her, competing against snooty classmates, bungling her spell casting and getting into all kinds of trouble with her friends. Although I think they've been largely forgotten now, The Worst Witch series of books by Jill Murphy, were at one stage popular enough to spawn a made-for-TV film (starring Fairuza Balk, Tim Curry and Diana Rigg), and in the late 1990s - as the Harry Potter phenomenon was fueling a hunger for anything magical - The Worst Witch became a pretty decent live-action British TV series.
If one sweet-hearted, somewhat incompetent girl witch wasn't enough, there was also Dorrie the Little Witch, written and illustrated by Patricia Coombs, and for Harvey Comics readers, Wendy the Good Little Witch, who would only use her magic to help others (much to her evil aunts' annoyance). South Africans will also remember the tales of Liewe Heksie, by Afrikaans author Verna Vels, although this absent-minded little witch is probably best remembered for her 80's TV series, with its extensive use of marionettes.
Lest we forget that not all witches in the 80's were nice, Roald Dahl's The Witches presented these magically-gifted women as wretched, deformed beings, intent on one thing only: the murder of children, who, to witches, "stink like dog droppings." This 1983 book was in turn adapted into a wonderfully dark 1990 film, with Angelica Huston playing the Head Witch. I'm sure many a child at the time was traumatized by the film's opening scenes, where kids were kidnapped by witches and subjected to horrible magical tortures, like being forever imprisoned in a painting. Last but certainly not least, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis featured The White Witch, a powerful sorceress who was all for seducing little boys with Turkish Delight and hot cocoa, and later attempting to slit their throats. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe has, of course, been adapted several times, most famously as an award-winning 1979 animated film, a 1988 BBC serial and the 2005 film.
Now you could rightly argue that many of the books mentioned above were written well before the 80's. However, they played a major part in my childhood reading and were widely available at the time, implying many other kids of my generation were being exposed to them as well. Today many of these same books are out of print and very difficult to come by.
Television
Magic also played a major role in several animated series during the 1980s. In Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Zummi (my favourite character), turned from a quiet librarian into a tongue-tied, mostly incompetent magician once he gained access to the spells in the Great Book of Gummi. 12 year old Presto in the dark, surprisingly mature, and frequently controversial, Dungeons & Dragons series (which I would love to see again BTW) was a similarly nervous wizard, continually pulling useless, conjured items from his magic hat.
Pitting good magic against bad, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull backing the bronzed, buff hero, while He-Man's arch-nemesis, Skeletor could turn to his reliable second-in-command, sexy witch Evil-Lyn to unleash her dark magic in his favour.
Finally, it's worth remembering that Mumm-Ra, the main opponent of the ThunderCats, was a powerful, practically immortal sorcerer. Yet, despite the fact that his spell power was apparently almost without limit, he was always defeated by Lion-O and his friends. The same goes for Gargamel, the Smurfs' main adversary, although this villainous sorcerer-alchemist was about as big a magical bungler as you can find.
Film
Although there was a lot of magical fantasy films in the 1980s, only a smaller percentage of them featured spell casters, wizards and witches. We've already touched on the Witches adaptation, but there were also some notable others.
In terms of animated films, much of the hatred and "uncaring" unleashed on the world in The Care Bears Movie, stemmed from an evil spirit who dwelled in an old magic book and channeled her abilities through a young wannabe magician who turned his back on humanity after much bullying and loneliness.
Disney's The Sword in the Stone was already over 2 decades old by the 1980s, but I remember watching it several times during childhood. Although Merlin is the chief spell caster in the film, he does pit his skills against Madam Mim in a very memorable wizarding duel.
In fact, thinking about it, Disney animated films are a fantastic place to look for spell casters - from the wicked queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Maleficent, the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty to the jovial fairy godmother in Cinderella.
Good magic was also pitted against bad in George Lucas' special effects-driven Willow, directed by Ron Howard. Who can ever forget that scene where evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) transforms the heroes' army into pigs? And it's also difficult to forget the scene in Return to Oz - one of my all-time favourite, very dark, childhood faves - where Dorothy discovers the collection of magically preserved human heads kept by sorceress Princess Mombi (also, coincidentally, played by Jean Marsh).
Finally, although it was released in 1993, Hocus Pocus was one of those fantasy films my sister and I watched over and over again - a dark action comedy from Disney that pitted contemporary teens against a trio of dangerous 17th Century Salem witches, recently resurrected.
Witches and wizards were all over the pop culture place in the 80's and early 90's and for that I, and my imagination, are most grateful.
First up is Witchcraft & Wizardry. Now before the fundamentalist Bible bashers throw up their arms in despair, and anyone else starts muttering "What the hell kind of childhood did she have?" I'm not talking about the performance of occult or pagan rituals. I'm talking about the degree to which magic or, more specifically, spell casting popped up in the pop culture I used to ravenously consume.
There's no doubt about it - old school fantasy was big in the 1980s, especially for kids, and it managed to permeate basically all cultural mediums. Why there was so much magic-themed entertainment around, I'm not quite sure. The world (especially the United States) was busy crawling out of a recession, of course, but the need to escape into fantasy to forget financial woes would be completely irrelevant to Generation X and Y. Also, in the pre-CGI era, any fantasy film production would typically require a big budget to cover the costs of building impressive sets, as well as the creation of special effects and special make-up. Still though, the filmmakers went ahead with these demanding endeavours, bringing beautiful, memorable worlds and characters to life.
Whatever the reason for the explosion of witchcraft and wizardry-themed entertainment in the 1980s, there can be no doubt there was far less of a backlash against the "Evil" it depicted than there is today. Or perhaps it's just a case of the Internet giving these nutters more of a voice today?
Anyway, I apologise in advance for forgetting some important books, shows and films. I'm just examining the first things that came to my mind. Perhaps you can leave a comment highlighting your magic favourites, and anything else you think I've forgotten, at the end of this post.
Books
Long before Harry Potter was struggling with the demands of life at a magical boarding school, Mildred Hubble was in a very similar situation - contending with teachers who hated her, competing against snooty classmates, bungling her spell casting and getting into all kinds of trouble with her friends. Although I think they've been largely forgotten now, The Worst Witch series of books by Jill Murphy, were at one stage popular enough to spawn a made-for-TV film (starring Fairuza Balk, Tim Curry and Diana Rigg), and in the late 1990s - as the Harry Potter phenomenon was fueling a hunger for anything magical - The Worst Witch became a pretty decent live-action British TV series.
If one sweet-hearted, somewhat incompetent girl witch wasn't enough, there was also Dorrie the Little Witch, written and illustrated by Patricia Coombs, and for Harvey Comics readers, Wendy the Good Little Witch, who would only use her magic to help others (much to her evil aunts' annoyance). South Africans will also remember the tales of Liewe Heksie, by Afrikaans author Verna Vels, although this absent-minded little witch is probably best remembered for her 80's TV series, with its extensive use of marionettes.
Lest we forget that not all witches in the 80's were nice, Roald Dahl's The Witches presented these magically-gifted women as wretched, deformed beings, intent on one thing only: the murder of children, who, to witches, "stink like dog droppings." This 1983 book was in turn adapted into a wonderfully dark 1990 film, with Angelica Huston playing the Head Witch. I'm sure many a child at the time was traumatized by the film's opening scenes, where kids were kidnapped by witches and subjected to horrible magical tortures, like being forever imprisoned in a painting. Last but certainly not least, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis featured The White Witch, a powerful sorceress who was all for seducing little boys with Turkish Delight and hot cocoa, and later attempting to slit their throats. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe has, of course, been adapted several times, most famously as an award-winning 1979 animated film, a 1988 BBC serial and the 2005 film.
Now you could rightly argue that many of the books mentioned above were written well before the 80's. However, they played a major part in my childhood reading and were widely available at the time, implying many other kids of my generation were being exposed to them as well. Today many of these same books are out of print and very difficult to come by.
Television
Magic also played a major role in several animated series during the 1980s. In Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Zummi (my favourite character), turned from a quiet librarian into a tongue-tied, mostly incompetent magician once he gained access to the spells in the Great Book of Gummi. 12 year old Presto in the dark, surprisingly mature, and frequently controversial, Dungeons & Dragons series (which I would love to see again BTW) was a similarly nervous wizard, continually pulling useless, conjured items from his magic hat.
Pitting good magic against bad, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull backing the bronzed, buff hero, while He-Man's arch-nemesis, Skeletor could turn to his reliable second-in-command, sexy witch Evil-Lyn to unleash her dark magic in his favour.
Finally, it's worth remembering that Mumm-Ra, the main opponent of the ThunderCats, was a powerful, practically immortal sorcerer. Yet, despite the fact that his spell power was apparently almost without limit, he was always defeated by Lion-O and his friends. The same goes for Gargamel, the Smurfs' main adversary, although this villainous sorcerer-alchemist was about as big a magical bungler as you can find.
Film
Although there was a lot of magical fantasy films in the 1980s, only a smaller percentage of them featured spell casters, wizards and witches. We've already touched on the Witches adaptation, but there were also some notable others.
In terms of animated films, much of the hatred and "uncaring" unleashed on the world in The Care Bears Movie, stemmed from an evil spirit who dwelled in an old magic book and channeled her abilities through a young wannabe magician who turned his back on humanity after much bullying and loneliness.
Disney's The Sword in the Stone was already over 2 decades old by the 1980s, but I remember watching it several times during childhood. Although Merlin is the chief spell caster in the film, he does pit his skills against Madam Mim in a very memorable wizarding duel.
In fact, thinking about it, Disney animated films are a fantastic place to look for spell casters - from the wicked queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Maleficent, the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty to the jovial fairy godmother in Cinderella.
Good magic was also pitted against bad in George Lucas' special effects-driven Willow, directed by Ron Howard. Who can ever forget that scene where evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) transforms the heroes' army into pigs? And it's also difficult to forget the scene in Return to Oz - one of my all-time favourite, very dark, childhood faves - where Dorothy discovers the collection of magically preserved human heads kept by sorceress Princess Mombi (also, coincidentally, played by Jean Marsh).
Finally, although it was released in 1993, Hocus Pocus was one of those fantasy films my sister and I watched over and over again - a dark action comedy from Disney that pitted contemporary teens against a trio of dangerous 17th Century Salem witches, recently resurrected.
Witches and wizards were all over the pop culture place in the 80's and early 90's and for that I, and my imagination, are most grateful.
Comments
Willow also was a really good video game on the NES. If my connection still worked, I would bust that out to play some Willow.
MJenks, ah, of course, your fondness for Willow makes complete sense now. Curvy redheads always help to make fantasy films more enjoyable! As for the Willow game, I believe I have it on my PC somewhere as an emulated NES game. Perhaps you can find it online as well? From what I remember of it, the game was surprisingly complex.
On an unrelated note, thinking more about spell-casting entertainment for kids in the 80's and early 90's, I forgot a few obvious Disney films from that period that feature magic users. Although both villains, Ursula in the Little Mermaid, and Jafar in Aladdin, are notable witches/wizards.