Crickets In The Movies

 (image from the IMDb)

Our resident cinephile Chuck failed me this week.  He was supposed to find movies about crickets.  The best he could do is share some of his favorite films featuring insects.  & he knows I can't stay mad at him!  He watches movies so I don't have to!

Follow these links for cinematic bliss:

Here is the IMDb keyword search list he used to find some films.

Here is his YouTube playlist of insect films.
Here's a list of some films available for free elsewhere.

Chuck reviewed some movies over on Letterboxd.

& you can always watch along with Chuck on his Twitter feed.

If you didn't listen to the show, you can do both at the show's KBOO page or at Self Help Radio dot net.  Chuck actually found a film which prominently featured Crickets - but you'll have to listen to find out which one that was!

Hey Hollywood!  Make some movies about crickets already!

Cricket Poems

(images from GoodReads)

We had the great pleasure this week of a visit from our favorite librarian, Carole, who read to us some poems about crickets from wonderful collections of poetry.  They were:

Insectlopedia by Douglas Florian
After Dark: Poems About Nocturnal Animals by David L. Harrison & Stephanie Laberis
& Boom! Bellow! Bleat!: Animal Poems For Two Or More Voices by Georgia Heard & Aaron DeWitt

She mentioned in passing the classic The Cricket In Times Square by George Selden, & seemed a bit too dismissive of Jiminy Cricket, who actually sang a song on the show.  Wait.  That wasn't an actual cricket?  Oh.

Please listen to Carole's segment on this week's Self Help Radio - on the Self Help Radio website or on the KBOO website - she found out something about crickets that might blow your mind!

We thank her for coming by!

Self Help Radio 022222: Crickets

 

(Original image here.*)

Despite the fact that I don't think I've ever seen a cricket in Oregon, I felt that there might be some crickets hanging around in their - let's call them apartments? - waiting for spring to come so they could be outside, who might enjoy some cricket tunes.

Not that humans can't enjoy them as well.  That's the magic of music - it was be about something not entirely in one's experience, & one can enjoy it.  So even if you don't count yourself among the crickets of Oregon, you can understand the words to the songs & the interviews as well.  I'm assuming you know English.  Sadly, most crickets do not.

Listen to the show now or if you want to wait until the crickets come out, fine.  You can do that too.  It's at the KBOO website & also at the Self Help Radio website.  At the latter place, you'll need a username which is SHR & a password which is selfhelp.  Just chirping at the computer will do not do it.

Stay warm!  Especially if you're cold-blooded, like crickets.

Self Help Radio 220222: Crickets
"What Is An Insect? (Cricket In A Thicket)" Marais & Miranda _Ballads For The Age Of Science_
"The Cricket Song" Max Bygraves _The Decca Years 1957-62_
"Cricket The King" Caspar Babypants _I Found You!_

intro & definitions

"When You Wish Upon A Star" Cliff Edwards _Walt Disney's Pinocchio (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)_
"Crickets" Ora Cogan _Crickets_
"Crickets In The Rain" Allo Darlin' _We Come From The Same Place_
"Crickets" Akron/Family _Love Is Simple_
"Cricket On The Moon" Lee 'Scratch' Perry _Rainford_

our favorite librarian Carole stops by to talk about cricket poems

"Crickets" Peter Cowap _Strawberry Bubblegum (A Collection Of Pre-10cc Strawberry Studios Recordings 1969-1972)_
"Emotional (Until Crickets Guide You Back)" Rilo Kiley _The Execution Of All Things_
"I'm Gonna Put A Cricket In Your Ear" Jeffrey Parnell & The Tune Twisters _Gang War_
"Little Cricket" The Royal Teens _Let's Rock_
"Of Crickets" Plow On Boy _Broken_

interview with The Cricket Man

"Crickets" Hobby Farm _Braeside_
"The Cricket Song" Petunia & The Vipers _Petunia & The Vipers_
"My Cricket & Me" Willie Nelson _The Complete Atlantic Sessions_
"Shivers + Crickets" Julie Doiron _Heart & Crime_
"Cricket Vs. Ant" Freakwater _Thinking Of You..._

interview with nutritionist Dr. Bernard Morten

"Tofu & Crickets" Rat Cat Hogan _Vitamins & Calcium = Health & Happiness_
"Your Cricket Is Rather Unique" Guided By Voices _Sweating The Plague_
"The Cricket Song" Tex Ritter _High Noon_
"Cricket (At Night I Can Fly)" Luther Dickinson & Sisters Of The Strawberry Moon _Solstice_
"Cricket Songs" Red Steppes _Arcs_

our resident cinephile Chuck talks about crickets insects in movies

"Cricket Song" Mephistopheles _In Frustration I Hear Singing_
"Crickets" Sondre Lerche _Please_
"Crickets" Matt Pond PA _The Green Fury_
"Crickets Sing For Anamaria" Astrud Gilberto _Windy_
"Crickets" Lorraine Leckie & Her Demons _Razor Wing Butterfly_
"Cricket Came Late" Flap _World Of Visions_

fun facts about crickets

"Crickets" Sherman _Transparent Extender_
"Night Of The Crickets" Mr. Gnome _Deliver This Creature_
"The Crickets Ditty" The Bran Flakes _I Have Hands_
"Cricket" Mouse On Mars _Parastrophics_
"The King Of The Crickets" Eli Mardock _Everything Happens For The First Time_
"Box Of Crickets" Fairmont _A Retrospective 2011-2021_

conclusion & goodbye

"Cricket" The Kinks _Preservation Act 1_
"Cricket Champions" Lord Kitchener _Klassic Kitchener Volume One_
"Cricket Club Porn Night" The Cannanes _Short Poppy Syndrome_

* "Cricket, face_2012-09-26-15.17.13 ZS PMax" by Sam Droege is in the public domain

Whither Crickets?

(image from here.)

Sometime around the beginning of the year I thought, "It's time to have another Self Help Radio show about a bug."  I couldn't even remember the last time I did a show about a bug.  Was it maybe moths?  But that was two years ago!  Yeah, that & the re-do I did of the bees show.  It's been two years!   A bug show is due!

But why crickets?  I dunno.  Maybe I just chanced upon the idea - there aren't that many here in Portland but there were crickets everywhere in Texas, all through my childhood.  There were cricket invasions in the apartments where we lived, I seem to remember in the fall, but I could be wrong.  They'd gather in the breezeways & you couldn't help but crunching a few as you walked past.

& jeez, looking at that picture up there, they kinda resemble sleeker cockroaches.  That's creepy.  I don't remember them being as creepy or aggressive as cockroaches though - crickets might accidentally fly at you, but it didn't seem like they were paying any attention.  Maybe it's because they're musicians.  You always assume musicians are kinda out of it.

Too late to back out now!  Tonight's Self Help Radio is all about the cricket.  It's on from midnight to 3am on 90.7fm in Portland & only everywhere at kboo.fm.  Fans of cricket chirps will be mightily rewarded.

Preface To Crickets: I'm No Fool

(image from here.)

Long before I saw Pinocchio, probably, as a kid in elementary school, I was regularly admonished & cautioned by a cricket named Jiminy who appeared in a series of filmstrips called "I'm No Fool."  According to this Disney wiki, the shorts were made for the Mickey Mouse Club, but they must have be deemed helpful enough to distribute to schools because on those seemingly random Fridays when we were herded into the cafeteria to watch educational films, there always seemed to be one of Mr. Cricket's safety films.

The Wikipedia tells us, however, there were only six in the "I'm No Fool" series, so they doubtless showed us some (or all) of them over & over.  Because as soon as I thought about Jiminy Cricket in relation to a radio show about crickets, I didn't immediately think of "When You Wish Upon A Star," I thought of "I'm no fool, nosirree! I'm gonna live to be 93! I play safe for you & me because I'm no fool."

Perhaps I saw them on television, but the truth is, I wasn't a big fan of Disney as a kid.  I think I was more likely to watch 60 Minutes than The Wonderful World Of Disney on a Sunday night.  (Later on, PBS programmed Cosmos at the same time - I had to go upstairs to watch that, no one else in my family wanted to.)  The ditty is short & catchy, but the fact that I could recall it so readily after decades makes me think I associated it with something really fun, like getting out of class to watch "movies" in the afternoon.

You can watch these on YouTube - here's the first one.  Wikipedia says they updated them in the 1970s with live action - I would've seen them in school probably between 1974-1976, so we almost certainly didn't have the new versions.  It was public school, after all.