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Tiki Central / General Tiki / The Legend Of Johnny Lingo

Post #679668 by creativenative on Mon, May 27, 2013 3:10 AM

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The 1969 version is a short "educational/morality" film produced by Brigham Young University. I was available to schools by educational film distributors. As a Mormon boy growing up in Hawaii during the 60s & 70s we would see this film a lot. It was a fun little film and we would also recognized some of the Polynesian actors who lived near BYU-Hawaii. Today we still say our favorite line of the movie "Mahana you ugly!" voiced by Mahana's father. It was a cruel thing to say to a low self-esteem daughter who's tribe teased her but as she grew up she blossomed but one couldn't tell because her rough exterior (mental), bad reputation and as mentioned her low self-worth. When wealthy Johnny Lingo (who was a former playmate as kids) returns, he saw though her rough exterior and he ignored her bad reputation and paid a record 8 cows for her hand in marriage. Well the moral of the story can still be related today, a husband who adores you, especially a husband with high social status (money and/or power) ones self-worth can climb. A person can really change for the better like Mahana did. Suddenly your appearance can improve by society even though one is still the same. One can buy this short (with 3 others) on DVD at: http://creativeworks.byu.edu/catalog/ViewItem.aspx?item=TM026

Some years latter a movie version of his short was released and distributed by Disney. It was titled THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY (2003). Most of the Polynesian actors in this feature length film are Maori, Samoan and Tongan raised or educated in New Zealand thus the British colonial accent by the cast. Same thing in Rapa Nui. Although the movie was a fun family affair we old school guys like the short version better. Here are some screen captures from the movie and I'll shortly show some captures from the short.
Young Johnny Lingo with tikis:

Possible Polynesian brides for Johnny:

One note of interest from the movie (besides the all-star Polynesian cast) was that it's principle producer was Oscar winner and former Spielberg producer Gerald R. Molen.

[ Edited by: creativenative 2013-05-27 03:14 ]

[ Edited by: creativenative 2013-05-27 19:13 ]