What I Learned about Life from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

 Any parent will tell you there are a few movies that are go-to favorites of the kids. In my family, one of those was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. When my sons were kids, we watched it so many times I had dreams of blowing up the car and watching all of the characters choke on Toot Sweets. However, this past Christmas, and mind you, the kids are adults now, we decided to reminisce and watch Chitty go bang one more time.

And there is no doubt that watching it from an adult perspective with other adults (even if we did sing all the songs and turn around on our music boxes in front of the TV) made me realize what amazing life lessons can be learned from the show.

Here you go. What I learned about life from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

1. Children need love more than anything-That seems pretty basic, but one of the interesting things about this show, from 1968, is that it is about a poor single father with two children. He adored his children, sang to them, told them how much he loved them, played with them, and despite their lack of funds---they were happy. Very happy.

2. Imagination is a wonderful thing-In this day of technological everything, sometimes we forget to just let our imaginations run free and see where they lead us.
 
3. Never give up-A significant underlying theme of the movie, without a doubt. The father, an inventor of many strange things, finally improvises on one and sells it. It wasn't his only invention, nor his first, he continued to try and try again. He never gave up. His father, nutty grandpa, sings one of the best songs in the movie, Grow the Roses, which is about being thankful for your failures because "from the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success."  If you've never heard it, or it's been a while, you might want to listen again (It's my new writing theme song).

4. Love and respect your elders-The major plot of the movie is rescuing nutty grandpa from the Vulgarian king. It would have been easy to say, "oh, well, Gramps is old and what can we do?" But, no, Grampa Potts was a valuable part of their family, and they went to save him. Go, Potts family.

5. Sally Ann Howes was amazing. Okay, maybe more of an observation, but the woman was stunningly beautiful, had a voice that was incredible, and from what I've read about her, she was nice. Hey, I'm all about giving props to those that are genuinely nice people. Truly Scrumptious.

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