You Never Forget Your First Time

The first movie I ever saw in the theater was "E.T." I don't remember anything about the movie except that I fell asleep.
My second (presumably) movie in the theater was two years later. I saw "The Natural." I loved it, it's my favorite movie ever. I even remember specifics about the movie-going experience including the guy who said "I've seen Kingman hit some shots, but nothing like that."

My first baseball game was also in 1982. Mike Scott pitched, the Mets won. But I don't really remember it.
A couple years later I would have vivid recollections of games. I even remember having tickets in the middle of August, presumably around Mama Poop's birthday and being worried the 1985 players strike would like to the cancellation of the game.

Note: the strike only wiped out two games (they were rescheduled). I even remember Papa Poop remarking that we didn't miss anything because both of the postponed games would have been on Sportschannel which we didn't have at the time.

With Chase, while we had the opportunity (as opposed to my parents who had me third and had no choice but to drag me along to these things) I wanted to hold off these special experiences as long as possible, so he would remember them forever.

We have somehow convinced him that you have to be 5 to go to a baseball game. And I do intend to take him on his 5th birthday (or thereabouts) and get a picture of his face the first time he sees the green grass and all the seats at CitiField.

But as far as the movie thing goes, the dam has broken. Cars 2 is coming out on Friday, June 24th. And we are taking him on Sunday at noon. And leaving Julian with BC and LCC.

Chase has probably watched 100 movies in his life, Madagascar once, Evan Almighty once (he still grabs a stick and yells "get in the ark now") and Cars 98 times.

His favorite song is "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts because it's in "Movie Cars" as Chase sometimes calls it.

Combine the fact that every character in "Cars" is a car, toy cars are so cheap ($5), we (and especially grandma) love to spoil him, the marketing geniuses at Disney are evil (we have a toy of Hank Haulsum who doesn't even have a speaking part in the first movie, he's just drinking motor oil at Flo's Cafe) and Chase is absolutely obsessed with the movie, we have so many toy cars our house looks like a miniature version of an athlete's garage on "Cribs."

We have 10 different Lightning McQueens ("why does Grandma always call him Steve?"), 6 different Cars that change color when you make them hot or cold, and 7 or 8 different Maters including a Dr. Mater and El Materdor.



Those last two come from "Mater's Tall Tales" which was a series of short films (4 to 6 minutes) they released during the 5 year break between movies. They were actually quite clever. Because they were only a few minutes long they got in a lot of funny jokes in a short time. One of our favorites was "Monster Truck Mater" where Mater and Lightning McQueen (Frightening McMean) become pro wrestlers and compete against the likes of I-Screamer (evil ice cream truck) and Patty O'Concrete (evil Irish cement mixer). We of course bought both of those villains. What else do you give a half-Irish boy on St. Patrick's Day if not Patty O'Concrete?

But the genius of the marketing people at Disney doesn't end with toys. The promotional tie-ins for this movie are incredible. Band-aids, Cheez-its (with a character imprinted on each cracker), macaroni and cheese (macaronis in the shape of Mater and McQueen), juice boxes, yogurt, tissues even a commercial for State Farm.



The plot of Cars 2 seems to revolve around McQueen going overseas to compete in the World Grand Prix (with stops in Italy, Japan and London). While in London, in addition to meeting The Queen and Prince Wheeliam, Mater gets mistaken for a spy.

I hope, for the sake of Mater's biggest fan, it is a movie experience he will never forget.