SHORT FEATURE: MISSION: MAGIC (OPENING THEME)

You know, with acts like Marilyn Manson or Gorgoroth, you know what you’re getting into. Cacophonous, confrontational music, packaged in an over the top theatrical brand of Satanic imagery designed to make sad 13 year old boys feel mysterious, threatening, and cool. (Over generalizing? perhaps.) But as this week’s movie, Spellcaster, proves, even the more genteel rockers like Adam Ant occasionally dabbled in devilish doings, bringing Beelzebub to the unsuspecting masses. Perhaps the most heinous example of this is the 1973 cartoon series Mission: Magic in which a cartoon version of Rick Springfield, along with the insidious witch Ms. Tickle, spent each Saturday morning indoctrinating children into the ways of evil… cajoling them to join their dark army of evil Candarian demons so they might conquer this land and take over each and every soul of the living, enslaving all mankind so they might chew on their tiny brains and bathe in their hot boiling blood....!!!

Sorry, I slipped into Evil Dead: The Musical territory for a minute. In actuality, Mission: Magic was a semi-educational show prefiguring The Magic School Bus in which Rick, Ms. Tickle and her students travelled through a magic chalk board to study history and solve mysteries. At the end of the show Rick would perform a pop ditty explaining the moral of the story. So if there was any indoctrination going on at all, it was through introducing kids to whatever social issues were all the rage amongst pop singers dyring the early 70’s. You know, teaching them activism, environmentalism, feminism… cajoling them to join their dark army of evil Candarian demons so they might conquer this land and take over each and every soul of the living, enslaving all mankind so they might chew on their tiny brains and bathe in their hot boiling blood....!!!

Sorry, I slipped into U. S. Congress territory for a minute. (Over generalizing? Perhaps.) Interestingly enough, the Catechism places the practicing of magic and the idolatry of the state under the same general heading of “You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me” without worrying whether your intentions are to summon up satan or just get out the vote. As the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia explains it, “Idolatry etymologically denotes Divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all Divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God.” Anything we put before God, even basic desires like security from external threat and internal stability, can become an idol. Michael D. Guinan, O.F.M. believes the recognition of our own idols is one the primary benefits we can reap from the period of Lenten fasting. “Jesus, in the wilderness, was also tempted about food; unlike Israel, he kept his faith in God. What of us? As strongly as we may say that we want—and really intend—to follow God, many forces remain, within and without, to pull us away and push us toward idols. It is always the most legitimate needs (e.g., food, water, defense, internal order) which can become the most seductive idols.”

UPDATE:

Scott W. over at Romish Grafitti decides to trump my post on Mission: Magic with his own collection of clips from Free To Be... You And Me. He doesn't just trump me, he goes all in and demolishes me. Rick Springfield is just no match against the combined might of Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas. Frightening stuff, but a great post on indoctrination of the young. Check it out.