When the movie “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” made it to theaters around where I lived in 1966, I was 4 and 1/2 years old. I don’t have that many memories of this time in my life but I do remember specifically wanting to see this movie. I remember seeing the ads on TV. I’m sure that made me want to see it more than anything else. I don’t know how often my mom took me to the movies when I was this age. It didn’t really matter. The ad campaign for this one was doing its job on me. I remember seeing newspaper ads for it too. These ads where the way that I knew it was showing in theaters near us. I remember these ads because I remember “picking up” the newspaper in from these ads with Silly Putty. I remember doing this with the newspaper at my grandmother’s house. I was staying with her while my parents were at the hospital when my sister was being born. This is why they couldn’t take me to the movies.
I don’t know how many years passed before I saw this movie. It was the perfect haunted house movie for a young kid. I would try and watch it whenever it was on TV. Watching this film with my sister is one of my most cherished memories. I didn’t hold it against her that she kept me from going to see it when it first came out. I remember one specific time we watched in on a black and white TV in my parents room. The TV was on a stand in their bedroom next to an old pump organ. This organ didn’t have as many keyboards as the organ that played the creepy music in the movie. But it was enough like the organ in the movie to give a slightly spooky vibe for a couple of little kids watching this film in the same room. My father still has this organ in his dining room. I spent a lot of time learning to play creepy music on this instrument when I was growing up. I still haven’t mastered the theme song to this movie but it is one of my favorites.
