Rough Stone Rolling

As a big fan of a) movies, b) “smart” goofy humor and c) Jack Black, i am so looking forward to seeing “Be Kind, Rewind.” Unfortunately, I’m the only one in my family who feels this way, and since movie-going time is such a precious commodity for us these days, it’ll take some effort to find a window where I can justify seeing one without them. But hey, it’ll happen. I’m the priesthood holder in my home, and I say, I am going to “Be Kind, Rewind.”

I believe I’ve already mentioned our one major ward celebrity. Out of good taste I don’t say his name, but you’d have to be one of the three Nephites not to know who he is (I guess that’s what you would call passive-aggressive name-dropping). Anyway, he’s also our ward Sunday School president and has recently been bequeathed the honor of totally re-hauling our meethinghouse library. This means all the old filmstrips, Improvement Era magazines and yellowed-page copies of “The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith” and “Heart Throbs of the West” must go– either to any takers or get tossed. In half-jest-half-seriousness I told him if he found a copy of the filmstrip, It All Started with Thad in the clutter, to please set it aside for me. “Thad” was an extremely dorky message-tale about a precocious boy who starts inviting all his neighbors to hear the Gospel. As missionaries, we had to show the filmstrip in members’ homes to get them to invite their neighbors over for lessons. It’s cheesy, it’s dated, it’s a classic (trivia: The kid who starred in it was really named Thad).

Then I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be great to do what Jack Black is doing in “Be Kind, Rewind,” and re-enact all of the old Church classics– It All Started with Thad, Man’s Search for Happiness (the old version with the crew cut boy struggling to haul the scriptures to Grandpa), The Mailbox, Johnny Lingo, Tom Trails, John Baker’s Last Race, Uncle Ben– only, instead of doing it on video, doing it as filmstrips. All of these shows had filmstrip versions, presumably for Sunday School and Mutual classes as well as the missionaries. The technology might be hard to replicate, so you’d probably have to lay it down as a DVD of stills with a suitably nerdy, clean-cut voice (add hiss for that “dated” authenticity) and the obligatory *beeps*– Roger is always so cheerful and confident…I wonder why. *BEEP*...

A great excuse for doing a project like this (as opposed to, say, dropping Mentos in Coke bottle) would be our annual ward film festival. Because we have so many members in The Industry (genuflect)– in front of and behind the camera– the activities committee started this event a number of years back, and we get to see either stuff they’ve done professionally, at home with their families, or something they did in college. It’s a lot of fun and (naturally) popcorn, hot dogs and Red Vines are served. Of course this isn’t a project I could do alone, so if I’m going to get serious about it, I had better start scouting.

How about you, reader? Are there any dear & hokey LDS filmstrips, movies, musicals (anyone remember Latter-Day Ruth?), etc. from your past you’d like to touch on? Anything I leave out?