Knock Knock, Open Wide…
Much to the annoyance of my "Sasanach" wife, who says it's nothing but a tawdry, second-rate knock-off of the glorious wonder that was Play School,1 our littlest one has become a hard-core Bosco junkie.2
This morning, as we sprawled contentedly (on the sofa) eating toast and enjoying the non-stop fabulousness of The Best of RTÉ's Bosco – Volume 1, I saw something that left me gravely unsettled. It was "Christmas Special" time, and there were Frank Twomey and Gráinne Uí Mhaitiú exchanging gifts and kisses in a grim studio lit by nuclear-powered über-lights. But it was neither the unexpected display of affection or the savage lighting that left me so troubled. It was their (attempted) trip though the Magic Door…
The "rules" of the Magic Door, as I'd always understood them, were simple. A single soul approaches, utters the appropriate incantation, and passes through this enchanted portal into another world. A colourful and marvellous world. A world like…a regional meat-packing plant, or the shit-encrusted monkey enclosure at Dublin Zoo.
I'd assumed the "One person enters" thing was an immutable law of physics. Like the "You have to be totes naked and alone" rule for backwards-time-travelling types in Terminator. This knowledge gave me comfort. Reassured me that though the universe I lived in was cruel and cold, it was, at least, well-ordered. But here were Frank and Gráinne, about to flagrantly defy this "truth" I'd long held sacred.
I held my breath. The (magic) door swung open. And…out came…Marian Richardson, Marcus O'Higgins and Mary Garrioch.
So not only could more than one person pass through this space between realities, beings could actually enter our world…from the other side. Granted, the invading force only consisted of three Bosco presenters on this occasion, but the point still stands. I mean, next time it could as easily be the hairy demonic entity that tried to pop through a mirror in John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. Or Cthulhu. Or Mumm-Ra.
We're wide fucking open.
The door must be destroyed.
- Scoff! As if! [back]
- If she thinks "Boxo" (as she, understandably, calls him) is thrilling, wait till she gets a load of my 35-cassette VHS box-set of Going Strong. It'll blow her little mind. [back]
March 9, 2011
12 responses to Knock Knock, Open Wide…
Oh I’d say that door’s part of a North Dublin pigeon coop for many a year at this stage. It could explain why there’s so many pigeons. They may in fact all be the one pigeon, but from different times of its life. Time travelling pigeons. Yep.
Anyone know the whereabouts of Frank Twomey? Is it true that he ended up flipping burgers in Burgerland O’Connell St.?
@Allan: Some of the figures who’ve crept into Irish public life over the last 25+ years may well have slithered through the door too. There must be a way to send them back. A spell buried in some arcane tome perhaps. Or magic words scrawled on the jacks’ wall at RTÉ.
@Eoin: No idea. Though IMDB suggests he was in The Boys from County Clare (with Andrea Corr) as recently as 2003. And he’s been (improbably) doing Mary O’Rourke impressions on Liveline too…if you believe the internets. Here’s what I assume to be a recent pic. No sign of burgers.
Stop saying ‘totes’, for the love of god. There are some places a man should not go.
I think your politician from another dimension theory is inspired and must be spot on.
Dungarees + bright clothing = secret villain fighting uniform. Clearly this explains Mick Wallace’s pink shirt in the Dáil yesterday.
Never! I love it. I totes love it.
[Blame the beaut.ie crew. They turned me on to it. Now I can't turn off. Plus it's supposed to sound awkward and wrong.]
I would have been 9 or 10 years old when I first heard Boxo’s banshee wail. Technically too old for it then yet, wretched t.v. junkie that I was, I assimilated much of it due to the fascination of my infant brother. That’s my alibi in any case your honour. My abiding memories of the horrors behind the Magic Door could be encapsulated in one grainy image, that of a defecating ostrich at Dublin Zoo, (I you not – although perhaps it was simply a hallucination induced by an excess of Black Jacks). To paraphrase Werner Herzog, I’m sure that was some kind of metaphor, but for what, I don’t know.
The Magic Door as an eldritch portal for all manner of malefic marauders though. There’s a prompt for the night terrors, if ever there was. Call me a borderline paranoid schizophrenic, but a rather worrying theme has begun to seep through the posts and comments of late, (like some intra-dimensional effluvium from beyond space). Could the Magic Door mark the threshold of the Old Ones’ ‘Good Room’? A point of extra-temporal ingress for time-travelling pigeons from Hell? Will it again creak agape like the maw of a giant coyote barking invocations for Ragnarok?
I’m scared. And a little giddy. Apologies.
@Nam: You know as well as I do that an increased preoccupation with such matters is never coincidental. If we’re yapping about them more & more it is only because something is knocking at the universal “Magic Door” demanding entry. Something unutterably terrible. It can’t be contemplated (or spoken of) directly, but its imminent presence reveals itself through whispers and art and mass-madness.
It slithers into the Zeitgeist and heralds its arrival to those with eyes to see and ears to hear (and nails to gnaw to the quick).
It’ll be here soon. Dear God. It’ll be here soon…
I should also add that after the trio enter our world, Frank Twomey leaves the fucking door wide open. That was about 26 years ago. Christ only knows what’s dragged itself through in the meantime.
With a great and powerful door comes great responsibility. The Bosco crew were woefully ill-qualified to bear this burden…
Aw, you need like buttons on here.
I know totes is supposed to sound awkward and wrong, that doesn’t make it any better!
You can get Bosco on DVD? Awesome, must get some for Baby Avery.
2 volumes. Mixed bag. Earlier shows are better. And really I was only buying ‘em for the animated inserts. By far the best things. You have to adjust audio levels on your TV to compensate for Bosco’s patented brand of ultra-high-pitched shrieking though.
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