Disney Family Movie Night

[Dad's Plan]

Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955)
Davy Crockett & the River Pirates (1956)

King of the Wild Frontier indeed. This week we watched the Disney double feature of Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier and The River Pirates. These two movies came out in the 1950s as half hour segments for The Wonderful World of Disney that used to air long before Disney had their own channels. Later, these episodes were released as these two movies.

For this Family Movie Night, we broke out our Coon Skin Caps and enjoyed a rustic meal as we marveled in the adventures of the Frontiersman, congressman, adventurer, and American Hero.

The kids also each got a Coon Skin Cap to embrace the spirit of the movies.

For dinner we enjoyed Pioneer Stew (although it states Bear Meat, it was just regular beef. Just a fun edit for the kids.) Additionally we had Corn Dodgers, like a free form corn bread that, according to my research, would have been common around the time of Davy Crockett. It was a simple meal with a nice clean plating.

For the drink, I couldn't think of anything significant to choose, so I just called it Davy's Drink so that I could use anything that struck me without having to reprint a menu. In the end, I just went with good wholesome milk.

For dessert, the kids just had an assortment in their concession boxes with nothing that was specific to this movie. In the end, the kids had a great time, and Ethan wore his new cap (that actually belonged to his father so many years ago) everywhere he went for many days after the movie. All and all, a big success.

For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[Dad's Plan]

A Bug's Life (1998)

Welcome Spring! And, I guess, the bugs that come along with it... However, looking to make lemonade from lemons, we celebrated by watching Disney•Pixar's A Bug's Life. This was the second Pixar film to come out after Toy Story. I had not seen this in years, and seemed to remember that it wasn't that great of a movie. And while it is certainly better than Cars, it is no where near as good as most of their more recent fare. Upon watching it again with the kids, I still stand by my assertion of the movie. The kids seemed to feel the same way. They enjoyed it, but once it was over there were no crazy requests to watch it over and over for the rest of the weekend. It just was.

For dinner, we went with the classic picnic theme for A Bug's Life. A little fried chicken and some German potato salad. whenever I make potato salad, I always opt for German style, as I can't stand mayonnaise. I not sure why that is. I like all the ingredients of Mayo, but hate the end product. Not that this matters to the post. For the fried chicken, if you have never made it at home, it is a lot easier than you may think. My biggest piece of advise is to pan fry in a cast iron pan. It just tastes so great! And, according to some, like my wife, it is even better cold the next day.

For our dessert, we enjoyed Worms in Dirt. Easy to make and always a hit with the kids. (The adults love it too, but tend to be more reluctant to admit that fact.) Instant pudding, then a layer of crushed Oreos, more pudding, more Oreos, and gummy worms stuck in at different levels.

Because this dessert was so sweet and rich, we passed on the Concession Box for this movie, and just went with this treat.

For dessert, the kids just had an assortment in their concession boxes with nothing that was specific to this movie. In the end, the kids had a great time, and Ethan wore his new cap (that actually belonged to his father so many years ago) everywhere he went for many days after the movie. All and all, a big success.

And finally, the drink. I know. I know. Bug Juice!!! Why wasn't it Bug Juice??? I don;t know. But we had Picnic Punch. Sorry no photos of that. We had a basic fruit punch drink - nice, simple and easy.

For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[Dad's Plan]

Star Wars: Episode VII, The Force Awakens (2015)

Ok. So I am probably one of the very few - particularly of my generation - who did not see The Force Awakens in the theater. Needless to say, I did pre-order the movie on iTunes, so I had it the day it was released - April 1st. Not being one to let an opportunity like this pass me by, I quickly decided to play a April Fool's Joke on my family.

The kids were having school over at their grandparents this past week, so when I dropped them off, I invited my parents over to join us for Family Movie Night explaining that it would be a lot of fun and totally worth their time, but I didn't tell them what the movie would be. And they didn't ask, so that worked out very well in my favor.

The first thing I had to do was to think of the worst movie I could that would be appropriate for a Family Movie Night - not that I would actually ever choose this movie... And I came up with Mike Meyer's The Cat in the Hat.

I made up these tickets when I got home, and dropped them in the kids mail boxes for when they got back from school. They were very excited when they returned home and I showed them the trailer of the movie so that they would get super excited and spend dinner telling Gramma & Poppa all about this great movie that we were going to watch. I realized that I was playing a dangerous game in that they might actually want to see The Cat in the Hat, and honestly, that was not going to happen!

The kids, for one holiday or another, received a game called I Can Do That! game. It is full of Cat in the Hat drawings, and similar game pieces.

I was in such a rush for planning this, and because I had to deviate from the typical decoration, I forgot to take pictures of everything. This also meant that I could not use the menu that I designed because that would have ruined the surprise!




Now, I did keep the menu the same, but just didn't have one on the table. For dinner, we had Tie Sliders with First Order Fries. It was a very casual meal. Of course, I didn't call the food by these names at the table. Nope. I spent the entire meal talking about The Cat in the Hat. What great make-up effects the movie has, how it is really silly and the kids would love it. How artistically the took a children's book with no real plot and less than 100 words and stretched it out into a nearly two hour movie. Needless to say, my wife and parents were not exactly looking forward to our viewing event.

After dinner and the dishes were cleared, we all settled down to watch the movie. It was only then that everyone was let in on the movie that we were really going to watch. You could feel the relief wash over the adults, and the kids, big star wars lovers that they are, were equally excited!

At this time, I went and grabbed the kids' concession boxes that included the real movie ticket and their drink with the appropriate drink band on it.

So we watched the movie that probably everyone reading this post has already seen, if not many times. It was a great night and a lot of fun! It's not often that I can so successfully pull off an April Fool's prank as well as this one!

For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[Dad's Plan]

American Legends (2001)

What an amazing twist, the morning after a Family Movie night, the kids awoke to find yet another ticket for a movie and meal. The only difference was this was no dinner, this was for a Family Movie Morning! We enjoyed our very first morning movie with a meal. And for this, as we had just been studying Tall Tales in school, we enjoyed American Legends, a Disney collection of tales about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and Casey Jones.

It was an early morning, and no one was able to get out of their pajamas, and we were right into the shows! I got the idea to do a morning movie and meal because this movie just lent itself so easily to a breakfast. Much like the four little stories in the movie, we snacked on a breakfast that represented the different vignettes - except for the Brave Engineer. I had no idea what I could bring to that, so I just doubled up with Johnny Appleseed. After all, how difficult is it to come up with apple themed food.

We have Flapjacks with Maine Maple Syrup for Paul Bunyan, Steel Cut Oatmeal for John Henry, the Steel Driving Man, and the Apple Turnover for Johnny Appleseed. And to drink, why fresh apple cider, of course.

And that was our first Family Movie Morning. and a wonderful success it was. We may just have to find another breakfast themed movie to do!

For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[Dad's Plan]

Fantasia (1940)

Into the wonderful world of music as we travel back to the 1940s with Disney's Fantasia. This was a great movie to watch with the kids. I was a little concerned about this due to the ending piece with the demon in the mountain, but in the end, it didn't phase the kids at all. They enjoyed it, some bits a bit more than the others, but as it is more a visual interpretation of music rather than a cohesive plot driven story, I can't complain too much. What was also a bit challenging was the fact this this movie has a run time of a little over 2 hours. It was at times very hard to get the kids to stop squirming. The final element that brought a challenge to this movie was that there is no dialogue, which means that there are no point f references for what to do for food.

So I thought about this for a while and came up with the idea of doing little bites that could be representative of the countries of the composers that were featured in this movie. While not exact, we had foods representing France, Russia, German and Italy. So here is the issue. It was a great idea in theory, but once it came time to make all of these elements, man it was labor intensive and time consuming! I had to rush just to get everything going at a reasonable time. Therefore, I apologize for the sloppiness of the food, but the project just kept getting bigger and bigger.

So what did we eat?

• Italy
  • Arancini - Fried rice balls stuffed with Mozzerella
  • Crostini - with goat cheese and olive tapenade.
• France
  • Gruyeres - Gruyere cheese puffs
• Germany
  • Sausage in croute - This was actually just going to be mini sausages, but after making the pastry dough for the piroshki, I decided to make these en croute. So we had our own version of pigs in a blanket.
• Russia
  • Piroshki - this is very similar to an empanada. These are baked buns stuffed with meat and vegetable. Ours was ground beef and onions.

As I said, it was incredibly labor intensive for such a small group. Some of the food came out better than others, and I have no one to blame but myself. As I said, it was taking on a bit too much in the time I had for the size of our group. Leson to learn for the next time!


For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[Dad's Plan]

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

On our most recent adventure, we headed deep below the sea to a lost world with one of Disney's more recent, but lesser know films, Atlantis: The Lost Empire. This is one of the few Disney movies that I had not seen before we watched it for Family Movie Night.

So the only real food reference in the movie was Cookie (the Cook - go figure) listing the for major food groups as Beans, Bacon, Whiskey and Lard. Well, that's not a lot to go on for a dinner... So I did the next logical thing. We had Sub Sandwiches. When I developed the menu, I figured that we would have Subs, and I would figure the rest out later. And, well, that's exactly what I did. Based on what I had from leftovers, I made a modified Cubano sandwich. EXCELLENT! We had leftover roast pork tenderloin, bacon, provolone cheese, and mustard. I then threw that on the panini press. That made it wonderfully crispy and crunchy on the outside, and wonderful combination of flavors within. Sorry, no photos. We were running late on this night, and I forgot to snap the pictures.

As I mentioned, the only real reference to beverages in the movie was to whiskey. As tempting as it may seem at times, I was not going to give the kids a big glass of Johnny Walker! I mean, lets be honest, I'm too cheap to share that with them. I'm kidding. They have to buy their own.

So for their drink, they had Cookie's Coffee. Mostly because of the alliteration. And no, they did not get coffee. Not even iced coffee, which, again with the honesty, isn't really coffee. They had iced tea. And in a final statement of transparency, I know the drink band makes it look as through Cookie is giving Milo a drink, but, after watching the movie, I discovered that Cookie was actually handing Milo a big container of bacon grease. Hey, the kids didn't notice, so I would say that it was a success!

For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[Dad's Plan]

Cinderella (2015)

This is a movie that I was planning to show to my little princess since I first heard that they were making it. As I am writing this post, my daughter is in the Family Room writing a letter to Snow White asking her to come and visit, along with a picture of the two of them holding hands in their princess dresses. Needless to say, Isabel is obsessed with Princesses. And sure enough, she fell in love with the movie, asking the whole time, "Is this real?" Very cute.

Going for something simple, elegant and that the kids would enjoy, I chose to do something that they had never had before - Quiche. Personally, I love quiche. And if you are going to tell me that Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, I'll tell you that you are about 40 years too late for that joke.

This was also very nice for me, as it was an easy meal to make. Simple Quiche Lorraine with a side salad. Very easy.

Well, since I went with a French theme, and Champagne would be wasted on the kids, and they hate the sparkling grape juice we all had on New Year's when I was their age, I had to go with wine - unfermented, of course. As you can see from the drink band, we had Stepsister's Whine. Or grape juice.

For the concession box, I had two special items. The first being my favorite dessert when I was a kid - Eclairs! The second was a little more abstract. Playing off the idea of the Glass Slipper being broken by the evil step mother, I found some rock candy that was a princess blue color. I explained that I knew a guy who was there when the glass slipper was broken, and the pieces turned into a magical treat. They loved the story and were very excited to be connected to the story we were watching.

For more Movie & Menu pairings, please check out my site at Dad's Master Plan.

 

[dsnycrzy]

There was a thread because I did tons of parties

 

[dsnycrzy]

In the search, the title is "Post family6 Disney-theme night ideas HERE!".

 

[BrightMorningStar]

I know this is an old thread, but so worth bumping back up. I found it via a Google search. I would love to see more added.