Tuesday, June 17, 2008

This is a story about dancing.

We took the kids to the movies on Saturday afternoon to see Kung Fu Panda. It was totally hilarious until the electricity went out.

So I took the older kids back to the movies on Monday night to try our luck again. (Sophie said she had already seen enough thank you very much.) We went to a different theater in the same chain so our rain checks would work. The first theater, the one with the faulty electricity, is brand new, with nice comfy seats. The place we went to on Monday night is old skool and sticky, with blinking video games in the lobby, stained seats in the theaters, and long aisles that run inexplicably down the middle of each theater where the best seats should be. We traded cleanliness for working electricity.

We were the second family to arrive in the theater. Andrew led us halfway down the aisle and chose our seats. He grabbed a seat on the aisle as close to the middle as he could get, and the rest of us filed past him into the row. While we listened to the commercials during the "pre-movie sit" (the screen was blue; there was nothing to watch), several other families came into the theater and took seats behind us.

The lights dimmed and the show started.

We had already seen all of the previews and the first half of the movie, so when the preview started for Madagascar 2, Andrew knew what was coming. It was almost like he had planned for it.

If you saw Madagascar 1, you had the "Move it move it" song unpleasantly and permanently seared into your brain. Well, this song figures prominently in the preview for Madagascar 2. The preview begins with a loud thumping, and the animals are shown tapping their feet and bouncing their backsides in time to the music. Then you see the zebra and he says, "We like to MOVE IT MOVE IT." Then you see the lion and he says, "We like to MOVE IT MOVE IT." Then comes the crescendo, and all the animals say together, "We like to... MOVE IT!"

It was on that last line when I looked over and knew something was up. When the animals got to the pause between "like to" and "move it", Andrew shot his arms into the air and yelled, in unison with the animals, "MOVE IT!"

And then he was in the aisle. Dancing.

And when I say dancing, that doesn't really convey what happened. He was a 13 BMI blur of arms, legs and head, moving like Napoleon Dynamite doing an 80s robot, except sped up to an unnatural speed and with lots of hopping. I don't think any of our fellow theater goers complained about the high price of their tickets that night; they got a show they will not soon forget.

When Ethan first saw Andrew wiggling in the aisle, he had a look on his face that said "WHAT. is. he. DOING?" And then he started to giggle. I have to admit my initial reaction was the same. Then I started to laugh. And then I thought, now THAT is a confident young man.

The funny thing is, later in the movie when Kung Fu Panda embarrasses himself, Andrew ducked down between the seats saying "It's too embarrassing! I can't watch this part!"

8 comments:

Jenny said...

way to go andrew! wish we could have seen that dance! :)

Brent said...

Great post. That is funny.

James and Emily were more sedate than Andrew when I took them to Kung Fu Panda yesterday afternoon after Judy dropped by. But there were four or five large groups of children with a few adult leaders that looked like they must have been from schools or day camps that were in our viewing--lots of children's laughter througout the movie.

stephanie said...

oh dear. we love that andrew.

The Queen said...

I so wish you had had a video camera with you!!!

Anonymous said...

Funniest...story...ever...

Leslie said...

that is hilarious. i can just see him doing that. :)

Carla said...

I wish I could have been there to see Andrew at his best~ do you think he's channeling the chicks? :)

Lyle said...

wow, that is soooo funny!

I must say I'm impressed with the confidence. Forget about everybody else--I wanna dance!