Allow me to start with a plug. Be sure to watch the Herbie-themed episodes of “Star Cars” hosted by CraveOnline‘s own Athena Stamos. Eventually, everything comes back to me.
Before I get started on this week’s wrap-up of the six extant Herbie movies (continued from last week’s installment of The Series Project), let me share with you some interesting facts that I looked up online. Yes, I became so engrossed in this long series of Disney-produced live-action G-rated kid flicks about a friendly living Volkswagen Beetle, that I began to become curious as to the actual history of the Beetle itself. If you will indulge me, I will share with you the following facts.
The Volkswagen was infamously commissioned by the Nazi party back in the 1930s, to make a small, cheap mode of simplified transportation intended for the people (hence the name; “Volkswagen” means “People’s Car”). The engines to Volkswagens were famously simple machines that were intended to run for a long time. The Beetle was an early small version of the Volkswagen, and was designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (who also designed the car to bear his namesake), often considered one of the world’s best engineers, and who died in the 1950s.The Bug’s official name is the Type 1, but The Beetle is just as acceptable. Beetles were, at one point (sometime in 1951), one of the single most popular cars in Europe, fetching over a quarter of the car market. Although the New Beetle was introduced in 1998, manufacture of the Type 1 model continued in South America all the way up until 2003. Thanks to their cite shape, the infamous Punch Buggy game, and if we’re honest the Herbie movies, VW Bugs are one of the more popular car models. I recently acquired my very own VW Bug (a 2010 model), and, thanks to Herbie, I have a little more pride in the thing. In spite of its dubious political origins.
Why did I share all that with you? I guess to reveal how these Herbie movies are getting under my skin. Herbie is just a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, but over the course of six films, you really start to get a sense of the little car’s character. He’s the perfect silent hero that little kids can easily project themselves onto. I’m not a car guy, but I think I might now be a Herbie guy. Which is a frustrating place to be, as I found most of the films in the six-film series to be a little boring and/or dumb.
When we last left Herbie, he had just won at Monte Carlo, and Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) was celebrating his victory with Don Knotts. Something I forgot to address last week is that Jim Douglas was a married man (he married Michele Lee’s character at the end of the 1968 original film The Love Bug). His marital status is not mentioned, and the pseudo-romance he has with Julie Sommars was appropriately chaste. Jim Douglas (and Dean Jones), it turns out, will return for a future installment of Herbie, and he’ll mention that he’s still married. It wasn’t until this happened that I remembered his marital status in 1977. I don’t recall him wearing a wedding ring, so it’s entirely possible that he and his wife had a falling out, and then reunited sometime before 1997. I’m guessing the makers of Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo merely forgot about the wedding same way I did.
We’re going to pick up this week in 1980 – twelve years after the original – to find what is handily the worst film in the series. It’s goofy. It’s broad. And it has an insufferable little Mexican kid in it. Let’s get our hands covered, dear friends, with…
