Wall-E and My Wife

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Long after the hype died, my family finally got around to seeing the Disney Pixar film, Wall-E. I expected a pleasant, somewhat predictable story, eye-popping computer graphics, and a geekfest of cultural references, and that’s exactly what I got. What I didn’t expect was to learn something new about my wife.

I had been uninterested in Wall-E from the first teaser trailer. Apparently someone had decided to recycle the now ancient robot design we first saw years ago in the film Short Circuit. For years this same design, with the annoying addition of a cutesy cartoon robot voice, has entertained millions waiting in line for the Star Tours ride at Disneyland and Disney World. Now—imagineer this!—someone had the bright idea of making the aging automaton the star of the next Pixar film! It didn’t look promising. Compare this trailer to the teaser for The Incredibles, which, I confess, I still haven’t seen all the way through—I always laugh too hard to keep my eyes open. And why (while I have your ear) didn’t Disney put that in the DVDs Special Features? The Wall-E teaser had all of the (non) appeal of the teaser for Pixar’s Cars. The latter turned out to be a pretty accurate valuation of the coming film. The former didn’t do its film justice. The full Wall-E trailer looked a little better, but it took an Oscar nomination for the accompanying short, Presto, to make us try the film at home.

I shouldn’t have been so suspicious of Wall-E. I would have loved to see the film on the big screen. The land- space- and soundscape of the film must have been wonderful in its original format. It would also have been easier to see more of the avalanche of cultural references that tumbled across the screen, particularly in the scenes that showed the little robot’s junk collection.

A key prize in this collection, Wall-E’s favorite VHS cassette, gave me new insight into my wife’s cultural background.

The first hint came in the opening scene. As soon as the music started—some Broadway musical-style song, enthusiastic, lushly orchestrated, and a tad overacted, my wife started singing along, after the first word! When she and the singer on the soundtrack mentioned Barnaby, I asked, rhetorically, who that was. She stopped singing to say, with great enthusiasm, “that’s the sidekick!”

“You know this music?” I asked.

“Of course!” she replied, “It’s Hello Dolly! It’s one of my favorite musicals!”

I was astounded. This was new information for me. This summer, she and I will have been married 27 years.

Both of us were raised in homes that loved musicals. Our CD collection contains many of the soundtrack recordings on which we’d grown up: My Fair Lady, Godspell, The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, Jesus Christ Superstar. Our DVD collection includes several of these. Even the ones we don’t own, we can recite dialogue and sing many of the songs to and with each other, like South Pacific and The King and I. Over the course of our courtship and marriage, we’ve filled in gaps in each other’s cultural education: she taught me to love Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, I introduced her to Oliver! and Paint Your Wagon. Through our daughter we both discovered Phantom of the Opera. We’ve seen the movie versions of many of these musicals repeatedly, and some we’ve performed ourselves or watched as community and professional plays. And of course, there were all the classic Disney musicals.

But I had never seen Hello Dolly. At least, not that I’d remembered—I tend to confuse it with Mame, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, both of which I know I saw once, long ago.  Nor have I ever heard my wife singing or even humming or whistling any of the songs from Hello Dolly, even the Louis Armstrong songs (which I did recognize). I’ve never even heard her singing the theme song, a scene I do know, probably from clips rather than the film itself.

So it was with considerable amazement that I learned that this classic musical was one of my wife’s childhood favorites. I suppose I should be delighted that after 27 years together our marriage still has the capacity for surprise. My concern, however, is that I perhaps haven’t been paying as much attention as I should.

Hello Dolly is now on our list of movies to see next. I need to see this film, if only to learn more about the woman I’ve been living with all these years.

Thanks, Wall-E!