Product: Prodigious Hickey [VHS]
Rating: 5.0
Nostalgic depiction of pre-WWI life at an American boarding school
If you've ever imagined what it was like growing up in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, you may enjoy checking out this late 1980s mini-series. Kind of like an American version of Rudyard Kipling's "Stalky and Co."(or more recently, the Harry Potter books), it's based on the reminiscences of a man named Owen Johnson. Johnson, who went on to become a moderately well-known writer and columnist, attended Lawrenceville School in New Jersey in the late 1800s, though this adaptation is set c. 1905. The school is still operating, though it's now co-ed. The types of people described in these stories will probably be familiar to anyone who's made it through their teens -- the jocks, the nerds, the hustlers, the wallflowers. Some good performances by the young actors -- some of them are still working in showbiz, like a startlingly-young Stephen Baldwin (as the boxing fan "Gutterpup Lazelle"), and Dave Foley who plays the long-suffering "Ironsides" Smith (and also "Welsh Rabbit"). A sunny, good-humored look at a bygone era before the internet, TV, and cell phones -- suitable for kids of all ages.