Fern Gully and homeschool?

[Tanaqui]

My younger kid swears she has a perfect question to determine if somebody her age (high school) was homeschooled. That question is not "were you homeschooled?" but "have you seen Fern Gully?"

She says everybody she knows who has seen that movie was homeschooled for at least some of their pre-high school education.

The really shocking thing about all this is that until she told us this fact, I had no idea she'd ever seen Fern Gully at all! I certainly never watched it with her, encouraged her to watch it, or even mentioned it to her.

[Catwoman]

That’s a big NO for my ds, but he is 22, so maybe he’s too old for your poll.  🙂 

(I haven’t seen the movie, either.)

[fraidycat]

I'm not 100% sure they've seen it, but odds are they probably have since my sister and I often sing the Batty song and quote Batty's human "tails", so we probably made them watch it at some point. 

Edited February 18, 2022 by fraidycat

[fraidycat]

3 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

That’s a big NO for my ds, but he is 22, so maybe he’s too old for your poll.  🙂 

(I haven’t seen the movie, either.)

Too young. It came out in 92.

[Catwoman]

1 minute ago, fraidycat said:

Too young. It came out in 92.

I know it’s an older movie, but I don’t remember anyone talking about it in homeschool circles when my ds was being homeschooled, so I thought maybe it had some kind of newfound popularity or something among younger homeschoolers.

And I just said some variation of “homeschool” way too many times in that last sentence. 

[Spryte]

One kid has seen it, the other has not. 
 

Guess what the ten year old will be doing after school today?! 🤣

[Loowit]

I have no idea if they have seen it or not.  I would tend toward no, but maybe.  My DD watches a lot of movies, especially animated.  She wanted to be an animator for a long time and as part of her current degree is studying a lot of media studies including watching a lot of different movies and television shows.  I doubt my boys have seen it.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

I was homeschooled when it came out and not allowed to watch it, so I don’t know what that says? 😂

[Night Elf]

We loved that movie! My kids and I watched it when they were little. Batty was hilarious. We all wanted a pet bat afterwards but only if it could be like Robin Williams' character. 

[alisoncooks]

My kids have not seen it. I’m pretty sure I saw it once or twice in middle/high school. 

[Lostinabook]

I almost answered "no" without asking the kids because I never showed it to them. I asked and they did see it though.

[Katy]

I don't think any of us have seen it, but the older ones did go to the place it was filmed when we lived in Oklahoma. I can't remember if it was Oklahoma or Arkansas, but I remember the long drive and that it was in the Spring because a bunch of local kids showed up to take prom pictures right when we were leaving.

[HS Mom in NC]

Youngest is 16.  She says she doesn't think she's ever seen it.  She can't remember seeing it.

The older two are 24 and 26 working and married, so I can't ask them now.

Edited February 18, 2022 by HS Mom in NC

[MEmama]

I’ve never heard of it. 100% guarantee he hasn’t either.

Homeschooled DS grades 1-8. 

[catz]

My 17 year old has not seen and has not even heard of it.  My 21 year old hasn't seen it either.  

[skimomma]

My always-homeschooled 18yo watched it....with her friends....who were all public schooled.

[Faith-manor]

What's Fern Gully? 😂 So uhm, I homeschooled all my kids, youngest is college senior. I have no idea about this movie!

[alisoncooks]

43 minutes ago, Katy said:

I don't think any of us have seen it, but the older ones did go to the place it was filmed when we lived in Oklahoma. I can't remember if it was Oklahoma or Arkansas, but I remember the long drive and that it was in the Spring because a bunch of local kids showed up to take prom pictures right when we were leaving.

Like…animation studios? I’m sure I’m being dense, lol, but was there something special related to the movie there?

[Tap]

Dd23 and ds27 have seen it. I bought it for dd23 when it she was little so that is why my son has seen it. He would have not been interested otherwise. 

A lot of kids who came to my house have seen it with no regard to homeschool status. It was one of dd’s favorites for a long time.  I also remember talking to several coworkers about the movie once and almost all had seen it too. (They weren’t homeschooled)
 

I am in the PNW, so maybe it was more popular here? We are fairly environmentally conscious here as a region, do maybe more parents bought it for their kids??

[Night Elf]

53 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

What's Fern Gully? 😂 So uhm, I homeschooled all my kids, youngest is college senior. I have no idea about this movie!

It's a movie about fairies who live in a forest that is being cut down by big business. One of the workers is this young adult man who isn't really think about what he's helping to do. A fairy tried to give him fairy sight but ended up shrinking him down to fairy size. He saw how the animals and fairies needed the forest to exist. The fairies had a wise woman, like Gaia I think but without the religious aspect. The villain was an entity that presented as a glob of oil who wanted to move the great big machines and chew up all the trees. It had some musical numbers in it. We thought the music was good. Robin Williams voiced a bat who escaped from a laboratory. He had a wire antenna coming out of his head and he did goofy things like flying erratically and acting silly, i.e. the experiments done on him affected him mentally. Overall it was a good movie but I doubt my kids actually picked up on any great message.

[Katy]

49 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

Like…animation studios? I’m sure I’m being dense, lol, but was there something special related to the movie there?

Oh no I think there was a live version years (decades?) before the animated one. 
 

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arkansas/fern-gully-scenic-area-bushwhack/photos
 

Ha!  I got the feen gully one above and the one from Where the Red Fern Grows below confused.  I should really look through some photo albums and figure it out.  My mistake! 
 

https://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/naturalfalls.html

 

[itsheresomewhere]

We love that movie.  I always found it to be underrated. It was such a hilarious with fantastic music. 

[plaidpants]

Not homeschooled before high school and saw it as a kid. Still make reference to it. 30s.

[Paige]

I saw it as a kid but never felt compelled to have my kids watch it. It's an ok movie and all but not what I'd consider iconic. They had to watch Goonies and Groundhog Day for cultural competency, for instance, but not Fern Gully. 🤣

[fraidycat]

I asked my kids. Yes, they have seen it.

[purpleowl]

My kids (13, 10, 7) have never seen it, and I feel no compulsion to show it to them. I remember very very little about it from when I saw it myself as a kid (I was never homeschooled). Not one that seems worth tracking down to show my own kids. 🤷‍♀️

[Farrar]

That's hilarious. My kids never saw it. It came out when I was too old to appreciate it - I was well into high school and French movies and indie films at the college movie place were more my thing by that age. So I didn't really feel a nostalgia impetus to push them to watch it. I don't even know that they've heard of it.

[Terabith]

Didn't this come out in 1992?  I think I knew kids who saw it in the theater who were around my age or a bit younger....my kids haven't seen it.  But my kids also are not big movie fans. 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Terabith

[ktgrok]

When I worked at a youth conservation camp we showed Fern Gully to the kids on days it was too rainy to canoe and such. That's the only time I've seen it, and none of those kids were homeschooled. 

[wathe]

No.  I had to look up what Fern Gully is - I'd never heard of it!

[Ausmumof3]

I’d never heard of it