Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa Pop

Tonight after watching way too many hours of DVR recordings back to back than necessary, i found myself flipping aimlessly through the channels of live TV recording. When what to my eyes i find.. The movie BIG. I was in LOVE with this movie, and swear i watched it about 1,000 times in my childhood. Maybe because it was second on a VCR recording after The Great Muppet Caper and god forbid you fast forward any VCR recording without it taking approximately the same amount of time to get through it as if you had just watched it on play. I don't know if it was the childlike vision of what it would be like to live life all grown up, or the adult like vision of taking a step back and living life as if you were a child again. One thing i know for sure, I'll always remember the scene when they play chopsticks on the floor piano in the toy store, and the real life trampoline inside his apartment, and the amazement at the age of 7 as i reveled in my innocence and enjoyed such a simple movie over and over again, without even really getting the "BIG" picture. When did we stop singing:

"The space goes down, down baby, down, down the roller coaster. sweet, sweet baby, sweet, sweet, don’t let me go. shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. shimmy, shimmy, rock. shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. shimmy, shimmy, rock. I met a girlfriend - a triscuit. she said, a triscuit - a biscuit. ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top. ooh, Shelly’s out, walking down the street, ten times a week. I read it. I said it. I stole my momma’s credit. I’m cool. I’m hot. sock me in the stomach three more times."

Initially this blog popped into my head as i noticed it was on VH1. A neighbor to VH1 on our cable lineup happens to be MTV. Then i realized how long it's been since i have watched anything on either channels and thought to myself, am i officially out of the target audience age group for the programming that i have fed my dying brain cells with since i conned my mom into getting cable when i was in high school. I still remember my very first episode of TRL and how i would find myself annoyed that they never played the entire video, but loved it all the same! Now, it's not even on. Instead, we find such shows as From G's to Gent's. Leading me to wonder what a "G" really even is.. Also, only as i fast forward through my weekly recording of The Hills (yes, some guilty MTV pleasures remain!) do i find previews for the now-a-day episodes of The Real World featuring the first transvestite (you go girl! or boy!) but also past seasons of The Real World Hollywood where they literally had a stripper as a roommate. Then i remind myself shit, these are just kids who are like 19 or 20 years old. Of course i watched it when i was their age, it was a bit more relateable. Well.. Minus the whole transvestite and stripper gig. I may have stripped at that age, but I'll be damned if i did it for money. Ha..Yes, that was a joke. Now, watching isn't even an option. In fact, i only watch The Hills on MTV and everything else i happen to catch is during the fast forwarding and habitual rewinding once i fast forward too forward..if that makes sense.

As BIG was on a commercial, i started pondering this notion of growing up via television standards. When did i move from target audience to target audience. When did hours of Real World marathons turn into recording an episode of Paula's Home Cooking just because she was making a Quiche and i would like to try that some morning? It's not just the Food network either. I found myself torn on flipping between Property Virgins on HGTV or Bringing Home Baby on TLC during my commercials of BIG.

Which brings me back to BIG. I think this is the first valid time that i have watched it since my adolescence. It makes me sad. Sad to know the difference in the thought process of a child versus an adult. Watching it as a child i was in awe of the story line involving the toys and the freedom of fulfilling your childhood luxurious dreams because once you were big enough you could have everything you wanted. Except they didn't tell you in the movie that when you actually become big enough to get those things, you trade in the over sized trampoline for the over sized car payment, you substitute the floor piano for an area rug, and worst of all, the scene you swore to one day live out involving them gorging themselves in all the sweets you could imagine, has officially turned into banning all food past 8pm and only indulging in 90 calorie special K bars "on occasion".

The story of BIG is simple. A 12 year old boy makes a wish at a fairground machine to be big. He wakes up the next morning to find his wish has been granted but is the same 12 year old kid on the inside in an unfamiliar world of grown ups and jobs and responsibility. Except once he's stuck in the body of a 30 year old all he wants to do is go back to being a kid. They don't tell you that it'll really happen. I'm still determined to find a floor piano and bust out that scene where they play chopsticks :) Dream "Big"!