Watching Newsies this afternoon and I still know every lyric and line. This movie came out in 1992 when I was 12 years old and my sister was 9. We had been thoroughly trained to love all things musical and this had the added benefit of kids. (I can’t remember if we were interested in cute boys at the time or not.) We watched and watched and watched till our VHS tape got all wobbly.
Then we started dancing. We trooped to the basement, set up milk crates and chairs and brooms and proceeded to re-choreograph every song. I mean, the dancing in the movie was awesome, but we were only two kids so we needed to retool everything to our limited troupe size…also our limited dance abilities. This was before the age of mp3 players or laptops with DVD players so we worked hard to memorize the lyrics, music and moves before we’d head downstairs to make up something new. I have no idea what we did, although I remember almost twisting my ankle while trying to step on a chair and tip it back. Don’t think I ever got the hang of that move actually.
Sure it’s a silly movie, but it’s much more than that to me. It’s sitting hip-to-hip with my sister in front of the tv, in easy reach of the rewind button on the VCR. It’s talking in bad New York accents while playing in the backyards of Michigan. It’s jumping on milk crates while trying to make sure we didn’t hit our heads in the basement, grabbing arms and twirling around while singing about newspaper strikes. And since we’ve spent the last half hour text messaging the lyrics to each other…it’s still a connection between the two of us.
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