Like you, I watched this every time Spotlight, The Movie Channel or Showtime aired it — usually during low-viewing times of the day like midday during the summer of 1983. HBO seldom aired it. Why this happened probably relates to it being a lower-budget production from Australia and the young cable networks didn’t have monster licensing budgets to exclusively splurge on Hollywood titles.

It was a joy to watch it at age 10, like a bright pinhole in the dark curtain in which I was tightly wrapped back then. It’s just as much a joy to watch it as an adult, perhaps a lot more so. Having an MP3 of the CD soundtrack on my library playlist certainly helps (and is what was my 52-day iTunes library, in its 26th day of a non-stop library marathon, was playing when I woke up this morning). It’s special, in fact, because the CD was never put to sale, but just as a promotional-only run.

Mabel: “So true! Soooo true!”