The Title is Strangely Apropos

Last night, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (hereafter referred to as M4) aired on TCM.  Whenever I catch part of this movie – and this happens more often than you might suspect, because it’s about 7 years long – I always get sucked in.  Last night I was cleaning the house, which also takes 7 years, so the combination was perfect.

I’m not sure why I love this movie, but I do. Usually I hate what I call “shenanigans,” which is the type of thing where people trip and scream and holler and ruin things and it’s supposed to be funny. That’s, like, 95% (or 6.65 years) of this movie.

But I do love it. Maybe because the first time I ran across it, my father said, “Oh, hey. It’s M4 [only he said the whole title]. That is easily the best movie ever made.” He was kidding, but he really does like it a lot.  So the first time I saw it was with him. He knew who every one was; me, I have a gap about 4 decades long in my pop culture awareness, and M4 falls smack in the middle of it. Mickey Rooney, I could pick out.  Or even Jack Benny. I had never heard of Phil Silvers.  I had never seen Sid Caesar under the age of about 75.

What’s my point? Well, I realized I liked it because of how I first saw it. And now I will always like it. That’s happened to me with other movies too – things I saw as a kid and still love, but would probably hate if I saw them for the first time now. (Counterexample: The Goonies.  I didn’t see this until I was 28, and it did not work for me. Before you protest, let me just add that I realize my opinion is incorrect.)

What’s your M4?  Or your Goonies? Does this “interesting psychological phenomenon” (thanks, Mr. Steyn) apply to anything besides movies?

Note:  This is the first time I put an image in a blog post.  About darn time, huh?