The kids and I are finally making progress on choosing some summer plans and getting started on them! I know it’s already July. But one kid was still wrapping up virtual learning a couple weeks late, and then I wanted to give him a week or so of that NO OBLIGATIONS OR PLANS OF ANY KIND feeling, and so anyway we are getting going now.
First plan: We are watching musicals. It is a mad mix right now, because we are not being picky/organized about it, except that for the purposes of this project we are not considering cartoons-with-singing to be musicals. So we’re watching mostly movies that were made of successful stage musicals. First we watched My Fair Lady, which I have seen countless times, and I wondered if it would be too dated for the kids, but no: big hit.
Then we watched Rent (the one with Idina Menzel and Sarah Silverman). I’d seen Rent on stage, and it was a very mixed-abilities production, with a couple of cast members who seemed EXCEPTIONAL (Angel, Maureen) and the rest of them doing a lot of yell-singing and thrash-acting, so it was fun to see a different version. Angel and Maureen were good in the film version, too, though not as transcendent as in the stage production I saw; but everyone else in the film was better than the stage version, and much better singers, so that made up for it. Seeing it a second time, I could appreciate parts of it more, while also still feeling like a large part of the plot is. Um. Dumb. (When the guy is like “Oh, babe, you’re suffering/dying but I have GREAT NEWS for you: I finally wrote MY MEDIOCRE SONG!! Here, let me play it for you, tell me what you think” and gets his guitar out!!!! We SCREAMED.)
Next: Annie. The Carol Burnett version. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, or maybe I saw part of it and didn’t like it and stopped watching it, because some of it was very familiar and some of it was utterly unfamiliar. I did not enjoy it, except for It’s the Hard Knock Life, which slaps. (I’m linking to my preferred version of the song, which is from the more modern movie with Cameron Diaz, which is also on our list to see.) A large part of it is that I am so heartily sick of the “Ug, an older woman still interested in men, how HILARIOUSLY GROSS!” trope. Also the “precocious precious special child” trope. And it felt like the people who made the movie were hoping to create The Next Shirley Temple, but it was the wrong era for that, so it didn’t work, and comes across as dated and odd. Fun to see Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters.
Then, for Independence Day, we watched Hamilton. I loved it. I had expected to at least LIKE it, because so many other people went so bonkers for it, but I loved it and definitely plan to make this a new 4th of July viewing tradition. The kids liked it somewhat less (though they DID like it) and had more trouble following what was going on. My grasp of history and historical details is Very Poor, so that wasn’t it; I had some trouble hearing/understanding lyrics, too, so that wasn’t it either. Well, we’re all interested in watching it again to get more out of it now that we know the gist. I spent some fun time on Wikipedia afterward looking up various people (the actors and also the people they portrayed) and finding out things about them (the actor who plays King George III also voices Kristoff in Frozen) (the Hamiltons actually had eight kids, not two like in the musical, and the oldest and youngest sons, born 20 years apart, were both named Philip; two of the daughters were named Eliza and Angelica) (Eliza’s sister Angelica also had eight kids and named two daughters Eliza(beth) and Angelica, AND had a Philip and an Alexander, which makes the whole “Oh dear, can I name my baby a name that is somewhat similar to the baby’s cousin’s name??” question we get all the time on the name blog seem even less important than usual).
That was more time than I’d intended to spend talking about the First Summer Plan.
Second summer plan: Baseball! None of us know anything about baseball, so I thought it might be fun to learn about something that is almost utterly foreign to us but is normal and familiar to almost everyone else. We could watch some games on TV to get used to it, and then maybe spend some time reading up on it or looking up Wikipedia articles on the players or following whatever caught our interest about it, and watching baseball-related movies, and then maybe we could actually go to a local game once we knew what we were seeing. I did some research, found what channel we needed to be on, found it was a free channel through our Roku; we got all set to watch, we clicked the button—and it made us do some sort of code verification, and then told us we did not have that channel through our cable provider. Which, what. We do not have cable, so I know we don’t have it through our cable provider, and that is why I looked for something we didn’t need cable for. But apparently that is not a thing that exists, so now I don’t know what to do. We are all discouraged. We USED to have cable, but finally we had only the VERY CHEAPEST AND MOST BASIC package (so that we could get PBS and, like, the news, and weather warnings, and presidential debates, and see the ball drop on New Year’s), and over the space of a few years the price of that service was raised from $11/month to well over $30/month, so we noped out and got an $800 TV antenna installed so we could watch all those free channels for free. Then right after that success story, we sold that house and moved. So I am despairing. I guess we need to start all over and get another expensive antenna (which will STILL pay for itself in just over two years’ worth of Very Cheapest and Most Basic cable), but I can’t face it. So I guess we will skip baseball for now. Maybe another summer.
(I asked about this on Twitter, and there were a lot of suggestions that we could go to local games, or listen to games on the radio. But…we don’t know anything about baseball yet! We need the good camera angles to show us where to look, and to zoom in on faces so we start to recognize players, and we need the replays, and we need the commentators to tell us what we’re seeing!—and we need to SEE it, while they’re commentating, because we don’t know anything about baseball yet, so we can’t imagine it in our heads while listening to the radio! And anyway I don’t in general enjoy the outdoors, or crowds, or figuring out parking! And we’ve found the thing where MLB posts a few select past games to watch for free, but we all agreed that did not appeal at all. We want to see, like, all Our Closest MLB Team’s games in real time, not a few already-over games between other MLB teams. I think this is just a problem with no work-around: we either need to pay a lot of money for something we’re only sort of interested in, or else we need to find a different summer project.)
Third summer plan: Baking! Not many of us are doing this. Elizabeth and William were both interested (they’ve already both made bread, and William made soft pretzels), and the plan was for them to do bake-offs, perhaps of things we had seen on The Great British Bake-Off, but then William bailed on the very first one. Elizabeth made a cake roll, chocolate with whipped-cream filling. I don’t know if she’ll keep going with it if William doesn’t. I am also doing a little bit of cookie-baking that might lead to more cookie-baking. I started by trying to find cookies that were good with Cadbury mini-eggs as the chocolate chips, but now I’m almost out of Cadbury mini-eggs, so that might be the end of it—or maybe I’ll start experimenting with another chocolate-chip alternative.
Fourth/fifth/sixth/etc. summer plan: We have a bunch of other things where only one or two or three of us were interested, and now we wait to see if anyone takes any action. For example, I am the only one interested in studying some of our recent presidents; but then at the end of my shift on Friday, I went to the Reagan section of the library to choose a book, and got overwhelmed and didn’t choose anything. For another example, ALL the kids are interested in learning ASL, but so far no one has made a move to START. For yet another example, we are all a little interested in a “learning swap,” where each of us teaches something we know to the others—but none of us has yet picked a thing to teach, or set anything up. For a final example, we were all kind of interested in watching some long-running show (maybe Buffy, or Grey’s Anatomy), but no one has yet picked a show or started watching it, and also, we’re already watching musicals.
Ugh. The baseball availability thing is really annoying. Why is it so difficult to watch America’s favorite pastime??? Your musicals study sounds excellent though.
The MLB app does one free game every day! So that is a way to watch a live game if you want. You don’t get to choose which one of course.
I’ve heard of PowerPoint parties where the guests each make a snappy PowerPoint on a subject of their choosing and present it to the other guests. Maybe this would be a fun way to do some knowledge sharing? The parties I’ve seen do not feel like school- the topics tend to be niche or humours (ie. “top three cults to join and ones to avoid”).
I also recommend the Sound of Music purely to watch Christopher Plummer rip the Nazi flag in half. It’s also interesting to watch as an adult. I missed the World War Two plot the first couple times I saw it as a kid.
Sound of Music was definitely my first thought!
Your plans are all great. I like the teach it to others one, I hope someone takes that up so you can write about it and I can read about it.
I bake like a fiend. I’m a little nuts about cooking. I have RULES. And I make the sandwich bread…I was going to list what bread I make, but the shorter version is: we, as of now, buy all burger/hot dog/sub rolls. And I make yogurt. And other stuff, but bread and yogurt are regular, everything else is sporadic. This is a great activity with six people in the house. Loads of eaters unless something totally fails. King Arthur Baking (formerly k a flour) has a lot of really good recipes and may have tutorials too. I also like Mark Bitman and Smitten Kitchen. I like Chetna from bakeoff, but her cooking site isn’t as baking heavy – I make her na’an and chicken curry, and she names everything THE BEST chicken curry (brownies, layer cake…) and there are often more than one for each – I think there are 3 chicken curries – and it’s hard to remember if the one I like is “the best chicken curry” or “Best ever chicken curry” or the third one (not actual names…but it is a bit of a problem. plus it’s on you tube so you have to write down the recipe as she goes because I haven’t found them anywhere. Having said all that, the na’an is super unfussy – it’s like stovetop na’an? quick stovetop na’an – there are a bunch of na’ans and I like it very much. I looked, it’s naan in a pan.)
As a baseball fan I feel your frustration; I’m sure there’s a way around it but not tech savvy enough to suggest. I do know that my local MLB team has a few games a season on local channel and through Prime. If you have a local minor league team in the area it’s a very fun way to spend an evening, even if you have no idea what you are watching (and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg). Maybe as an alternative check out some baseball-related movies (in keeping with your musical theme: Damn Yankees) or The Natural, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams. You don’t have to actually understand the mechanics of the game to follow and you might learn something! PLAY BALL!
A League of thier Own! (loved it)
Oh, please please PLEASE make Singin’ in the Rain one of your musicals! I love it to death and it is still one of my favorite movies. It really stands up (except for this weird “Gotta Dance!” extended dream sequence number with Cyd Charisse, which is visually interesting but goes on too long IMHO).
Also +1 for The Sound of Music.
Also: Chicago is just one of the top of all time, ESPECIALLY the soundtrack. I liked it very much, though of course it has Adult Themes (but I’ll probably let my kids watch when they are teenagers as it’s really not too scandalous). And it has a whole number about women killing the bad men in their lives which is fantastic. And Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah are just amazing (though Renee Zellweger’s voice is grating).
Do NOT see Sweeney Todd the movie. Tim Burton took one of the creepiest yet still funny and moving tragic musicals of all time and just made fun of it and schlocked it up. Ugh. Ptooey. Ptooey.
Also if you can get PBS Great Performances of musicals those are usually good.
Can you tell I have strong opinions on musicals? Haha
I was also going to recommend Singin” In the Rain!! It’s a favorite of mine. Make Em Laugh is one of my absolute favorite song and dance numbers.
Musicals! Let’s see: Disney channel will have the new musical of Freaky Friday, which is quite good actually, and very fun. (Maybe compare/contrast the plot afterwards with the modern Freaky Friday movie with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, which is mostly wonderful.)
1776 (kind of fun contrast to Hamilton). It’s long, but the songs are fun.
In the Heights, also by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is fabulous!! Out now in movie theaters, and so good on the big screen – one of the best movie adaptations of a musical I’ve ever seen.
Chicago.
Into the Woods.
Excellent films of the stage shows of Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park With George, and Sweeney Todd. And fantastic film of stage show of She Loves Me from a couple years ago – same story as The Shop Around the Corner, later adapted (plot changed a ton) as You’ve Got Mail.
Les Miserables.
The Music Man – some very dated plot points, of course, but Robert Preston is so good as Harold Hill.
(For Annie, I far prefer the late 90s version to the version that was out when I was a kid. Especially the actress playing Annie. The Miss Hannigan/Rooster/Lily trio in the original is very good, but so is the 90s one. I don’t remember the 90s one having the annoying older woman trope.)
Enjoy!
I second the Music Man because the songs are so catchy! So many ear worms!
Add the SpongeBob Squarepants (Amazon Prime) and Shrek (Netflix) musicals to your list! They are both filmed versions of the actual staged musicals (like Hamilton) which is 100x better than a usually not-great movie adaptation. The music is super fun and surprisingly good in each.
I am such a huge fan of Hamilton, I am simply blown away by the fact that Lin M-M wrote almost everything. My kids love it too even if they don’t understand it.
I’d love sport recommendations for roku because that’s tv I can get behind my children watching, they’re very active and I’d love for them to see some competitive sports and learn how they’re played. I personally am hoping the olympics go ahead because I always watch those.
If you didn’t watch Hamilton with the closed captioning on, I highly recommend that for a second viewing. It really makes a huge difference. By the time I saw the show on Disney+ I’d already nearly memorized the cast recording and had seen it in person twice, and I still picked up on lines I’d missed.
BroadwayHD.com has a week-long free trial and is only $9/month after that, so that might be a good way to find more musicals before the end of summer.
I was going to make the same suggestion about closed captioning and Hamilton. Makes a HUGE difference.
I was going to say this about captions. We watch nearly everything with captions because of how my daughter processes visual material, so we’re used to it, and I have become very grateful for it especially when listening to something very rapid or with a strong and unfamiliar accent (Scotland, I’m looking at you.)
I love watching almost everything with captions on. Hamilton is outstanding, some of the rhymes are so clever, that it’s definitely a must.
I came to say this too! Closed captioning made such a big difference with Hamilton!
West Side Story!! It’s one of those magic art works where everything came together perfectly- the music (Bernstein), the lyrics (Sondheim, the choreography (Robbins). Plus the Romeo and Juliet tie in. The well known older film version is the way to go, though the casting is mediocre except for Chita Rivera. It’s dated, of course (you’ll have to explain to the kids what a “social disease” is/was), but the music. THE MUSIC. Bernstein was a true genius.
Oh yes, West Side Story! Just the most beautiful music…
West side story is being remade, so it would be fun to see the original before the new one comes out.
Re Baseball. I recommend going to kid baseball games. You can sit close to see the action, parents will happily explain what is happening (if they know and sometimes they don’t!) if you know a player even better. U12 and U14 are usually most like pro baseball rules, U10 may allow extra pitches (kid and coach because kids don’t throw well enough yet) depends on the league. At the U10 and U12 level they play the game well enough it’s interesting, and the game moves faster than pro ball because kids hit the ball more (it’s not that they are better hitters but the pitching is slower). Plus the games may be played for time not innings so it’s shorter than pro baseball. Bring your own chairs! I personally think pro baseball can be slow and boring, while kid baseball can be a lot of fun to watch.
I second this!
A few rando musicals that I really enjoyed from my childhood were Little Shop of Horrors, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I didn’t learn until much later that we had a VHS tape of the latter because my mom had A Thing for Donny Osmond back in the day. More recent gems are: Legally Blonde, Mean Girls and Six. Captions are a must, especially on first viewings!
I’m seconding Singin’ in the Rain. When I was growing up my dad LOVED it, so watching it with him whenever it was on TV was a ritual. If it was on at 2am, we got woken up and asked if we wanted to watch it with him.
My Fair Lady was another big hit in our house.
I was too young to really “get” Fiddler on the Roof as a kid, so I rather naively just liked it and enjoyed singing along to the soundtrack on vinyl.
Rocky Horror Picture Show was, of course, a cult classic, though adult themed.
I know lots of people like Little Shop of Horrors, but it never really spoke to me.
Of course there’s Grease and the even more campy but fun Grease 2 (Michelle Pfeiffer’s first big role: bopping around on a step ladder and musically longing for a “Coooool rider! A cool, cool, cool, cool rider!” So fun. I also had this soundtrack on vinyl.)
My kids and really I enjoyed Sunshine on Leith on Netflix a couple of years ago – enough so that we bought the soundtrack on iTunes. And now that I think about it, I use quite a few of the songs as alarms for various things. My dog knows that when “Make My Heart Fly” plays from my phone it means it’s time for her to eat. Her head pops up at the first couple of notes.
I… did not know that Into the Woods was a musical until we were watching it, so there were a few WTF are we watching moments. It wasn’t my favourite, but I think I would have liked it more if I knew what to expect.
Another vote for Rocky Horror Picture Show (the creator is from my home city)!
Also Oliver! is a long-standing favourite – I haven’t watched it for a long while though so no idea how the themes will stand up these days. You have to apply a pinch or so of ‘those times were different’ to any vintage viewing I find.
Regarding baseball: I don’t care to follow it, and know only the most basic rules of the game, but going to games is fun! It’s the atmosphere and having a hot dog (which I rarely think to eat in any other circumstance) and a cold beer when it’s hot. Our major league stadium is just a few miles from my house, so we go once in a while. You would probably enjoy the In person version even without game knowledge.
I absolutely agree with this. We have a minor league in town and while I care 0% about baseball, I always go to a few games in the summer for the ambience and fun atmosphere. Plus, tickets are super cheap for minor league. And you can sit close and see what’s going on.
For the cooking part, I recommend taking a look at the book “Make the bread, buy the butter : what you should and shouldn’t cook from scratch–over 120 recipes for the best homemade foods” by Jennifer Reese, which I found quite fun to read through.. The kids might be interested to make things that most of us don’t tend to bother making.
I am going to see if my library has this in ebook!
I think I know why you feel the way you do about Annie. We had Annie taped from TV (to save money on renting videos) and I watched it a TON growing up. Then I saw it as an adult and there were at least 3 songs and many scenes I had NEVER seen before. Turns out they edited a ton when they showed it on TV. I suspect you are remembering that version.
Oh INTERESTING!! Yes, WE TOO had tons of movies taped off of TV!!
I highly recommend googling some of Lin Manual Miranda’s interviews about Hamilton, as it is very fun to hear how he wrote it. Also, this book is very very interesting to read as it goes in depth into how the musical came to life, possibly your library has it Hamilton: The Revolution https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1455539740/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_3W9FBZ9X2XTMCQAQXT99
Also, I highly recommend going to a baseball game in person, just for the fun of it. It is one of the more enjoyable events as a spectator, and they do a good job of describing what is going on. Even if you learn nothing and don’t know what’s going on, it will be fun. And the food is good.
Closed captioning helps so much for Hamilton!
My husband is not a musical theater person, but my daughters and I are. He found himself often confused at shows, so he has started reading the synopsis before watching, which helps so much.
Some others:
Netflix has a fantastic version of Shrek the Musical.
Chicago
Into the Woods (also closed captions help on this one!)
Cinderella (with Brandy and Whitney Houston)
Mamma Mia
Signing Time is for kids but it’s a great way to start to use ASL, numbers, colors, animals, polite words etc.
I was going to recommend Signing Time too! We have all of the DVD’s, and they are a great way to learn a lot of vocabulary. Now there’s also an online, learn at your own pace course available, geared more towards teens and adults, which helps you learn the actual language: https://www.signitasl.com/
I highly recommend the podcast Presidential to learn about the Presidents. The host is a reporter with the Washington Post and she interviews experts on each president. Each show is about 45 minutes long. She has a second series called Constitutional that explores the Constitution in depth. Enjoy!
In the Heights is playing on HBO Max until July 11th. I watched it yesterday and liked it. The music is very similar to Hamilton which is fun.
Does anyone in your extended family still have cable? If so, and if they’re willing to share the username and password for their cable account with you, then you can use that info to log into the Fox app, the ESPN app, etc and watch baseball games that way.
Our favorite is Singin’ In The Rain (but we also fast forward the whole Broadway section). The music is catchy and easy to sing along with, and the characters aren’t perfect paragons.
If you want a musical that will make you appreciate the era you live in, watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But only if you are in the mood to be mad.
7B47B was my sisters and my ULTIMATE BEST FAVORITE as girls. Truly frustrating for the main character, upon reflection, but boy oh boy did we watch the heck out of it. “Nice night for a ‘coon hunt” is a perennial pick-up line.
Also have you watched Mama Mia? With Meryl? It is sooo silly but somehow deeply get-into-y and rewatchable.
Just reading that line in your comment made me snort! Sometimes when my mind wanders I find it repeating, “AdamBenjaminCalebDanielEphraimFranknGideon…”
❤️❤️❤️ also Dorcas struck us as an absolutely hysterical name
I can hear that actor’s voice now!
The WHOLE POINT of watching Hamilton on the TV is so that you can TURN ON THE SUBTITLES!!! It is fantastic live but it’s so much easier to follow on the screen with SUBTITLES!!!
Also, I recommend 1776 as the old-school predecessor to Hamilton- founding father musicals before they were cool! (Also it’s more well-known history and they talk slower.)
My suggestion per the baseball summer plan would be to find a youTube video that explains the rules. The basic rules aren’t very complicated – I am not a sports person and find many sports and their rules quite baffling but baseball is one of the few I mostly understand just from being exposed pick up games as a child. Also, my opinion is that baseball on tv is one of the slowest most boring sports watch, comparable to watching golf. After watching youTube to figure out the basic rules, maybe you could go to a live baseball game? It has to be better that way.
I can’t help with any of the other things, but listening to the Hamilton soundtrack helped get me way up to speed on the lyrics and the details! It’s also helped me with many a Jeopardy question.
We are a baseball family; we love watching it and two of my kids play. We have the MLB app but if you want to watch your home team you need to watch it through local channels anyway, so that is probably not super helpful unless you want to focus on a different team. You could always listen to it on the radio, which is kind of delightful but probably only if you already understand what is happening and who is on which team.
I totally agree with commenters who said find a minor league team and go to the game. The tickets are infinitely more affordable, as are the concessions and usually they have some games and such to play. Try to go to several throughout the season to get the full feel of knowing the team and the atmosphere.
Other baseball movies to watch are Bad News Bears and OF COURSE A League of their Own.
We also went through a musical kick over Christmas break. We have seen Hamilton more times than I can count but the other kid favorites were Grease and the (newest) Hairspray featuring John Travolta. It’s fantastic, especially once the kids were like “THAT’s Danny???”
OMG I just watched the Bad News Bears. So funny, so cringey. Have you seen Moneyball? That movie got me to notice the coaches standing at the bases. Also, Chris Pratt.
I love Hamilton; I watched it last summer and then listened to the soundtrack approximately 10000000 times. This winter on Allison (Bibliomama)’s recommendation I read Hamilton by Ron Chernow – it was the book that inspired Lin-Manuel to write the musical, which is mind-blowing. I mean, it’s incredibly talented. Anyway, it’s a very long book, about 800 pages, and some parts drag but mostly it’s really great. I knew very little about that part of history, being Canadian and all, and I found it very informative and interesting.
I liked Annie a lot when I was a kid but I haven’t seen it since I was about eight and so I feel like it might translate differently now. I also vote for Sound of Music – great themes! One of my fave musicals is Evita but the only movie I can think of is the one with Madonna. Hey, it could be fun!
Fiddler on the Roof! Chicago! Hello, Dolly!
MLB.com is how my husband watches baseball. His favorite team is Atlanta (and we live in MN) so we don’t even have to deal with blacked out local games. It feels like you might just skate around from team to team anyway, so a season pass might be the way to go. It’s an investment up front, but once you’ve paid, you’re good for the year.
The cool thing about having access to different teams is that if you find a commentator you like, you can just listen to their commentary. Recommend Chip Carey (Harry Carey’s grandson) for ATL. The video is high-def, often they do some broad shots of the city and a weather update. I’ve learned a lot about baseball by watching hours of it while knitting.
Re: baseball radio, fans often will listen to the radio announcers while watching on TV or even in the stands because good radio announcing involves a lot more description of the plays. So you might try watching a game on TV with the radio on to understand the differences.
And my favorite part of baseball is watching clips of funny, absurd, or controversial things.
-Morganna the Kissing Bandit
-The Pine Tar Incident
-Fernando Tatis doing the splits to stay on 2nd base: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNV87ObpFvI
Can I recommend Newsies as a musical? Perhaps the movie version that came out in the 90s and was filmed in Disney World, but definitely the filmed stage version starring Jeremy Jordan. You have to do little suspended belief since the boys are supposed to be tweens and the actors are clearly men in their 20s and 30s, but the music is beautiful. It’s available on Amazon Prime video.
There’s a “You’re Wrong About” episode about Newsies, too!
Oh, baseball. It’s not something that I would pick for a summer project, mostly because neither adult is even a little bit interested in it. I would move on to something else, personally. Although you could look for musicals with a baseball theme.
Have you considered watching some of the old-school musicals with a lot of dance? I had a pretty strong love for Singin’ in the Rain in my teenaged years. I liked Donald O’Connor quite a lot in it, more than Gene Kelly.
I have a copy of Baseball for Dummies if anyone would like me to send it to them. DM me on Twitter; I’m free javelins with no space. All three of my boys played for years, and one of them went with me on a trip during which we saw three games in three days and he explained WTF was happening.
Additional musical suggestions: Guys & Dolls, Kiss Me Kate, Damsel in Distress
Since I grew up in the UK I knew nothing about baseball until my son played it with park & rec. He did that for a few years and then did Little League and now is on a pre-high school team for 13-year-olds. I’m still learning some of the more complicated rules, but it’s not super complicated to watch in general.
I also agree that you should see if there is any Minor League games near you: https://www.milb.com/
I have never been to a major league game but the minor league teams have all these themed nights and they really try to make it fun for families. It’s not too expensive to get tickets and they have fun snacks. Our local TV also sometimes covers those games – the one I went to see with my son, my husband could spot us on the local TV. (We don’t have cable either.)
My husband even took my British Dad to a minor league game several years ago. He enjoyed it just for the experience, even though he’d never watched baseball before either.
Agree on the minor league games. I used to take knitting to them sometimes. It’s a very chill atmosphere, not as crowded, stressful, or expensive as a major league game. I do equal amounts crowd-watching and game-watching. We happen to live close to a major university and their baseball games have a similar appeal. Plus they play walk-up music (like a little theme song for each home team player when they come up to bat), which is pretty fun.
The only Baseball Game I ever went to was a Minor League game. It was laid back, chill, and fun, but more the atmosphere, food and the group I went with. The game itself was pretty boring.
Totally agree on the Minor League games! I like the atmosphere more at Minor League games because you don’t have to deal with die-hard fans; everyone just goes for a fun outing! Plus, the stadiums are often smaller so you can get cheap tickets closer to the field and it’s easier to keep track of what’s going on.
I forgot that there is another commenter named Alice! I usually post as AliceCW, but got caught up in my excitement of minor league games and forgot the last two letters.
Check out locast.com, which allows you to watch broadcast TV channels for free (or you can pay $5 to watch without interruption). It’s like the modern version of an antenna. If you have a Roku, you can add it as an app. You might be able to see some games that way!
Hello Dolly! The Barbara version. It’s so much fun. And then you can follow up with a viewing of Wall-E, because you’ll now have a reference to the scenes on the VHS tape that Wall-E watches.
I love baseball. Watching a local AA or A level team can be a lot of fun- sitting outside, drinking a beer and having a soft pretzel are all part of the experience. But if you have zero frame of reference for the sport, it can be incredibly dull. Since the Olympics are quickly approaching, what about watching some of the more obscure events- like steeplechase and canoeing- and learning about them?
I wonder if there is a streaming channel that isn’t too expensive that shows baseball games. I’m a rugby fan, and I downloaded Peacock, then upgraded to be able to watch matches that are happening in South Africa right now. It was only $4.99 a month, which I thought was very reasonable. I have the Fire stick, but I think it is available for Roku.
I highly recommend C-SPAN’s American Presidents series. Granted, it’s about 20 years old now (how did THAT happen?), but we enjoyed watching it! https://www.c-span.org/search/?searchtype=Videos&sort=Most+Recent+Airing&seriesid%5B%5D=3 And, if you’re thinking of springing for an HBO subscription to watch In the Heights, you could also watch the excellent mini-series about John Adams.
I am shocked and slightly dismayed that you didn’t enjoy Annie. It is one of my favorite movies! Though it might have something to do with it being from 1981 and my being born in 1985? I have never seen the 90s version but I will check it out now.
Another favorite musical is Oliver! It does have distressing domestic abuse though…
Thank you for this delightful update! PLEASE review ALL of the musicals you end up viewing! We do a Rotating Movie Chooser for Family Movie Nights. One out of five weeks it is my turn, and I always like to choose a musical when possible!