Living Cars in Film and TV
Monster Trucks: generally 12 feet wide and 12 feet tall, but it isn’t the size of the thing that makes Tripp’s truck beastly in Monster Trucks. It’s the actual monster inside it. Creech is what makes this truck run faster, stronger, and better than before. It can even scale buildings! Monster Trucks promises plenty of fun for the kids this Christmas.
Creech joins a searing list of living cars in film and television so check out the following feature before he lands in cinemas this Boxing Day.
Herbie
Herbie is a talented racer with a bit of a cheeky attitude. Nicknamed ‘The Love Bug’ he is an adorable little Volkswagen Beetle that was made into a Disney franchise. He first appeared in 1968 The Love Bug (becoming a 60s icon in his own right) and most recently appeared in 2005 Herbie: Fully Loaded starring alongside Lindsey Lohan. In Fully Loaded Herbie enters as a NASCAR competitor…but does he have what it takes to win?
Cars
Pixar caught on to the appeal of cool cars with amazing abilities and created a world in which only cars exist in the film Cars (2006) created by John Lasseter (Toy Story, A Bugs Life). They can talk and live their lives just as humans would…with a few modifications of course. They have car washes, the option of Vegan Fuel, sleep in garages, as normal a life a car can lead!
The film is set around Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) who dreams of winning the Piston Cup. But there are a few set-backs which get in his way of achieving this after he gets lost ending up in Radiator Springs. Affected by the other cars that he meets, he needs to decide what’s important to him.
Brum
Brum may not be a racer, or a big truck, or have the ability to talk, but he does have a lot of adventures that most other cars don’t have. Brum first appeared on the BBC in 1991 as a kids TV show. It’s a show about a little car that sneaks out of a motor museum into ‘The Big Town’ saving it from robbers or chasing kites. He is known with a few of the townspeople who acknowledge him with silent waves and smiles, because Brum can’t talk himself he communicates by spinning, flashing, or opening and closing his doors. At the end of each episode, Brum slips back into the museum, his owners completely ignorant of his daily escapades.
KITT
KITT is the smooth talker of the bunch, one might say he’s the James Bond of the car world and has as many gadgets to match the secret agent. The car first appeared in Knight Rider in 1982 as a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, and later appeared as a 2008/2009 Ford Shelby GT500KR. He was made an eccentric billionaire and has a cybernetic processor which essentially allows the car to have a mind of its own. Along with that he’s given a few extra features that include; a flame thrower, a tear gas launcher, a laser power pack, two-wheel ski drive, and of course, a convertible roof (it wouldn’t be cool without one)… that’s only naming a few. These turn out all to be perfect components to make KITT the best crime fighting car.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Most of you will probably have seen this cheery musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) set in the 1910s about a widowed father Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) who is an eccentric inventor and transforms a broken Grand Prix racing car into a flying car with a mind of its own. Caractacus, his children, and love interest Truly take the car for a drive naming it ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ because of the noise it makes. The trip turns into an adventure of evil barons, child snatchers, and a few songs in-between to add to a car chase. Chitty is of course a major asset to the rescue of the children and the family, and has been a loved treasure in children’s film ever since. The famous car seems to have also made a cameo appearance in Grease (1978) at the end of the film…although this can’t be certain.
Benny
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) innovatively combines animation and live-action resulting in the creation of Benny, the wise-cracking angry talking car. Roger jumps into the car saying, ‘I’ll drive’, but the Cab exclaims ‘I’ll drive, I’m the cab!’…which of course makes more sense? Being an animated car also has its perks that you can have anything drawn on, including some stilts to get you out of a sticky situation when you think you’re trapped. The cab can just extend over enemies at the pull of a lever!
Flubber
Flubber may not be a car itself, but like creech, flubber (a lively green goo) is able to get inside a car engine and give it the ability to fly. Flubber (1997) starring Robin Williams is another film about an eccentric inventor who has a habit of missing his own wedding. But surely he can be excused when his discovery allows the levitation of cars? The car at first seems difficult to handle as he crashes it into bushes, bumps into flying geese, and nearly plummets to his death from a great height, but it seems to be part of trick by Flubber who is really controlling the car the whole time.
Catch Creech in cinemas on Boxing Day when Monster Trucks hits UK cinemas!
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