MovieChat Forums > The Hugga Bunch (1985) Discussion > Read this if you remembered this movie b...

Read this if you remembered this movie but never knew the name of it...

posted 18 years ago by bgruber2121
85 replies | jump to latest

Ok - I, like many of you it would seem, have had bits of this movie floating around in my brain for the majority of my life without knowing from where they came... specifically I have had an image of a tree in a glass jar, accompanied by a sense of danger - I would say I have thought about this image at least three times a year and have always tried to get a title from someone, to no avail. And then tonight, at the "I Heart Video" in Austin, TX, i finally got the answer. On one of the "employee picks" shelves there were a bunch of fantasy children's movies (Return to Oz, Peanut Butter Solution, etc.)... long story short, when I asked this guy if he knew what movie featured a tree in a jar, he immediately and enthusiastically said, "Oh, yeah, the Hugga Bunch movie!" Now, it was incredible for me on a personal level to have the mystery solved, but I don't imagine that that little story is of particular interest to anyone else... what IS of major interest, or at least should be, is the fact that there are thousands of people who have had a similar experience with this movie. Why did this movie imprint itself onto my mind instead of something else? I watched a fair amount of movies and television as a kid, but no other movie stuck with me in the way that this one did... notice i said "in the way" not "as much as." I remembered other movies much more vividly than this one, cartoon TV shows more than anything, but this Hugga Bunch movie got deep into my head and sent fragments of images up into my conscious mind from time to time... almost like the feeling you get during a conversation when you've lost something you meant to say and you don't know exactly where to find it... you try to retrace your conversational steps, but you can never pull the thought out again - and yet you have a keen awareness that the thought is missing, that you haven't verbalized it yet and you really really wanted to verbalize it... anyhow, that's how this Hugga Bunch movie has felt for the last twenty years. So now I am curious... what are all these people like who were similarly affected by the same images... how and why did this movie make such an impression on all of us? so I think I'll conduct a little informal survey... it would be awesome if anyone responded to this... (I'll include my answers at the bottom)

Survey Questions for people who at some point remembered visuals from the Hugga Bunch movie, but didn't remember the name of the movie:

1. What year were you born?

2. Are you male or female?

3. Using 3 words, describe your childhood.

4. Using 4 words, describe how your parents raised you.

5. Using 5 words, describe where you grew up.

6. On average, how many hours of television or movies did you watch per week between the ages 2 and 10?

7. How old were you when you first saw the Hugga Bunch movie, and how many times did you see it?

8. How old were you when you saw your first "Rated R" movie? (and just for fun what was it)

9. What images from this movie stayed with you the most?

10. How did you finally find out the name of the movie?

If images from this movie lodged themselves into your memory when you were a kid you should take the time to fill out this little survey! I don't know if we'll find any patterns or anything, but you have to admit that it is a little too weird that so many people have been affected in such similar ways by this movie. Maybe there is something subliminal at play! ;) Ok, here are my answers...

1. 1980
2. Male
3. safe, fun, loving
4. liberal, Catholic, active, affectionate
5. apartment, lake, sisters, midwest, suburb
6. 2-3 hours per week
7. I was 5 or 6, and I only saw it once.
8. I was 9 and it was Rainman
9. The tree in the big glass jar, something about eating berries, and the queen aging or shattering or something
10. The all-knowing fellow at "I Heart Video" told me

[–] stacy-doll 12 years ago

1. What year were you born? 1983

2. Are you male or female? female

3. Using 3 words, describe your childhood. Ridiculous, Adventurous, hilarious

4. Using 4 words, describe how your parents raised you. Free spirit, open minded, lovely, affectionate

5. Using 5 words, describe where you grew up. House, small town, suburb, southwest, brother

6. On average, how many hours of television or movies did you watch per week between the ages 2 and 10? 2 hours

7. How old were you when you first saw the Hugga Bunch movie, and how many times did you see it? I don't remember really

8. How old were you when you saw your first "Rated R" movie? (and just for fun what was it)8 or so

9. What images from this movie stayed with you the most?
I remember the jar that the queen put the young berries in. I also remembered the tree in a glass box she opened with a pretty key. I also remembered the strange breakfast the little girl makes in the beginning of the movie.

10. How did you finally find out the name of the movie? I always thought it was so kind of cabbage patch movie. I was on a forum talking to people about movies as a child and someone said they heard of that movie. We did some talking back and forth and we finally put 2 and 2 together.

[–] chichi1369 12 years ago

Before I answer the survey, I just want to say that I feel like a HUGE weight has just been lifted off of my shoulders! People thought I was crazy when I used to mention the movie where the girl hugged a doll and then went into the mirror. I even remember hugging my own huggabunch as a child and testing the mirror in my room (so disappointed that it never worked) I would make my little cousin act out the movie and then freak her out because I would reinact the witch dying because she couldn't reach the fruit. I had props and everything. I guess I was destined to be an actor. Wow! It's all coming back to me! Anyway, on with the survey!

1. What year were you born? 1978 (So that means I was 7 when I first saw this &
it stayed with me all these years...)
2. Are you male or female? Female

3. Using 3 words, describe your childhood. Imaginative, Fun, Creative

4. Using 4 words, describe how your parents raised you. One-parent, Open-Mindedly, Lovingly
5. Using 5 words, describe where you grew up. Mid-west, Sub-burbs, Small town,
Apartment/Duplex, less-diverse
6. On average, how many hours of television or movies did you watch per week between the ages 2 and 10? Lots (only child and latch-key)

7. How old were you when you first saw the Hugga Bunch movie, and how many times did you see it? had to have been 7 and maybe twice, less than 5x though

8. How old were you when you saw your first "Rated R" movie? (and just for fun what was it) I think I was 9 my dad took me to see The Principal. It freaked me
out. Too violent (at the time, I thought it was)
9. What images from this movie stayed with you the most? hugging the huggabunches and going into the mirror. the witch trying to reach the fruit as the glass comes down and her hand just missing it as she shrivels up and dies.

10. How did you finally find out the name of the movie? The weirdest thing, I was in bed on facebook and an ad for the Hub station was on the side advertisement bar and it mentioned care bears, pound puppies, and transformers. and all of a sudden, something in my brain clicked so i typed in "hug-a-bunch" and lo and behold... voila!

So yes! I am not crazy... at least not about this. Thanks for the post and I liked the survey. It seems like a lot of us have many similarities. Ahhh, now I can exhale:)

[–] sarawebb85-676-61704 9 years ago

1. What year were you born?
1985

2. Are you male or female?
female

3. Using 3 words, describe your childhood.
fun, friends, family

4. Using 4 words, describe how your parents raised you.
broken home, step dads, family values, ethics and loved

5. Using 5 words, describe where you grew up.
suburbs, middle america, moved a lot

6. On average, how many hours of television or movies did you watch per week between the ages 2 and 10?
I don't remember watching tv much before age 8, always outside playing.

7. How old were you when you first saw the Hugga Bunch movie, and how many times did you see it?
I think it was after '93 when I saw it, I rented it at the video store and that movie stuck with me ever since.

8. How old were you when you saw your first "Rated R" movie? (and just for fun what was it)
2, Nightmare on Elm Street

9. What images from this movie stayed with you the most?
I could never remember the name of this movie, but I thought about it often over the years. I remembered the laundry room scene when the huggins gets in the washer and the tree and apples.

10. How did you finally find out the name of the movie?
Somehow the topic of fave childhood movies came up with my boyfriend and I was describing it to him and he said he knew it that his niece just saw the movie. Thought it was called hugga bunch, he googled it, found it on youtube and put to rest a 20+ yr old mystery!! 2015 great year for finding out names to movies I can't remember lol; this one and Night of the Lepus.

[–] kdawg-6 8 years ago

1. What year were you born?

1986

2. Are you male or female?

male

3. Using 3 words, describe your childhood.

fragmented, mysterious, semi-painful (is that two words?)

4. Using 4 words, describe how your parents raised you.

raphazardly, controllingly, freely (mother, then father)

5. Using 5 words, describe where you grew up.

eastern Tennessee, the Chattanooga area

6. On average, how many hours of television or movies did you watch per week between the ages 2 and 10?

that is hard to say. it was a lot, I think. well, I guess I had school for 8 hours, then probably watched an hour or two of TV shows like Legends of the Hidden Temple (another weird nostalgic show for me personally), had dinner, watched some Doogie Howser or something later, or Dukes of Hazzard when I was younger, and then went to bed. edit: oh yeah. I also watched cartoons every morning before school, of course. and then cartoons on Saturday. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, man. I loved that. later some Power Rangers a little bit, but I wasn't really a huge fanatic on that. anyway, if you want numbers, you can do the math.

7. How old were you when you first saw the Hugga Bunch movie, and how many times did you see it?

I cannot say. maybe 5 years old? and I probably saw it a dozen times. it seems like something we might have owned on VHS and watched the way kids do; they kind of obsess over things, like The Wiggles, for example, or maybe um.. that dinosaur movie, what the *beep* was it called? The Land Before Time?

8. How old were you when you saw your first "Rated R" movie? (and just for fun what was it)

again, I can't really say with any authenticity. I remember seeing Show Girls on pay-per-view when I was like 9 or 10? I think that was actually "X-rated," though? R-rated movies were nothing special for me at that time in my life, I think. when I was living with my mother who was more strict, they were, though. but I moved in with my dad around 8 or 9 and that wasn't an issue any more.

9. What images from this movie stayed with you the most?

the glass jar, man. and some witch I think? and cherries? or a rose or something? NO, it was an apple. (this is weird--it definitely was imprinted in my mind like so many others, generically, and vaguely.. and this specific part seems to just be associated with some kind of fruit or foodstuff being the color red. but for me I'm pretty sure it was an apple, and the witch was all like an evil queen, a la Snow White.) and the girl and her brother in general, experiencing some weird landscape. oh, and, of course, the scene where the girl goes through the mirror.

10. How did you finally find out the name of the movie?

the internet. I dunno. probably Reddit.

[–] kdawg-6 8 years ago

I should add.. I have a hypothesis about this. I was just having a conversation with someone about this movie and my feelings concerning it, and I said this:

me: i honestly think that um

me: well, you know the government experienced with all kinds of crazy *beep* like mind-altering drugs and truth serums etc, MK-ULTRA and all that

me: and the soviets did even CRAZIER stuff

me: there was and still is so much propaganda

me: so i'm thinking this movie

me: was some kind of mental programming

me: for America's youth