What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
How do you define a TV series? If you mean ALL the episodes of, let us say, Coronation Street, I have to admit that I haven’t watched the whole series once, let alone five times. However, since I can recall Ena Sharples, Minnie Caldwell, and Martha Longhurst, and since I can also recall Ken Barlow as a schoolboy, I guess I have seen more than five, individual episodes over the last sixty years or so. I remember watching it on our black and white tv, very grainy, during the school holidays. Lots of strange, new advertisements, and ITV the only rival to the BBC.
Other TV series, of which I have seen at least five separate episodes, include Dr. Who, Last Tango in Halifax, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders, and many others, including Watch With Mother, The Woodentops, Muffin the Mule, Sooty, Bill and Ben, and The Magic Roundabout. I can’t imagine watching Sooty hit Harry Corbett with a hammer five consecutive times! In the same show, yes, but I don’t think Harry Corbett, or I would survive watching a continuous loop of the series five times. “Oh no, Sooty. Don’t hit me with the hammer.” Whack! “Ouch!”
The same with films. I used to love going to the movies with my daughter. I took her to see Bambi one night. That movie was sold out so we watched Rocky instead. I can’t remember what number it was, but I do remember us chanting Bambi! Bambi! Bambi! as the blows in the boxing ring flew thick and fast. We were still chanting it when we drove home.
Another movie that we watched several times – The Time Bandits. I still have dreams of the horse breaking through the bedroom wall and into the child’s sleeping room. Scrooge, in one of its many reinventions, is a Christmas favorite, as is The Sound of Music, and A Child’s Christmas in Wales. I guess I might have seen them more than five times, though I usually get bored with the repetition and take a break and move away. Stagecoach is another family favorite and I have seen it in black and white as well as in color. But whether I have seen it more than five times is a good question.
Having said all of that, the one movie that my daughter and I did see on at least ten separate occasions was Labyrinth. I was researching in Spain at the time. We went to see it several times in Madrid. Then, when we moved to Granada, we saw it there, at least three times. At the beginning, I had to translate every phrase. “What are they saying now, dad?” But during our ninth viewing, in Almeria, I started to explain something in English and my daughter said: “Hush, dad. I’m trying to listen to the movie.”
So, there you are. Labyrinth wins, hands down, with ten full viewings, all in Spanish. But I have never seen it in English. And that’s today’s trip down memory lane. Thank you for reading this far (if you have) and goodbye.
rogermoorepoet 