"The March of the Wooden Soldiers"

One of my favorite childhood memories is watching “The March of the Wooden Soldiers,” (also known as “Babes in Toyland”), starring Laurel and Hardy, every Thanksgiving.

Set in Toyland, Ollie Dee and Stanny Dum live in Mother Peep’s shoe. (Toyland had some housing issues, huh?) They try to raise the money for the shoe’s mortgage to save Mother Peep, as well as preventing Little Bo Peep from falling prey to the sinister Barnaby. So they dress Stanny up in a bridal gown and veil and trick Barnaby into marrying him, instead of Little Bo Peep. Furious, Barnaby tries to destroy Toyland by setting forth the bogeymen. But, Toyland is saved when Ollie and Stan release giant wooden soldiers (the result of an manufacture order mistake by Stanny).

And, of course, the show always seemed to be accompanied by commercials for the toy store PlayWorld (“where prices gooooo …. So low, low, low, low, lowwwww….”)

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

For more information on “The March of the Wooden Soldiers” go to:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024852/

You can check out one of my favorite scenes from the movie (I love the three pigs and the cat and mouse! It STILL makes me laugh!) here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iVPyJ1viFE

--By Brad Wadlow, Staff Writer