Hey Gang!
From today's National Post. Disney is making another Herbie movie.
Read on:
**Edit** Not once during the movies do I remember anybody refering to Herbie as a Volkswagen. They always called it the \"little car\".
Herbie the Bug rides to Hollywood ... again
John G. Smith
National Post
Friday, August 06, 2004
Quick. Name the top-grossing movie of 1969. Easy Rider? Nope. Midnight Cowboy? Not even close.
It was The Love Bug.
As posters proclaimed, the movie was \"a love-in for Herbie, the incredible little car who shifts for himself.\" And it founded a film franchise that continues to this day.
Herbie: Fully Loaded is in production this summer and scheduled for release in 2005.
Disney may not be able to repeat the freakish success it enjoyed with the first film, but it will not be for a lack of trying. The House that Walt Built has cast Hollywood \"it\" girl Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday) in the starring role and settled on a storyline that introduces Herbie to the world of NASCAR racing in a not-too-subtle bid to cash in on the racing series' growing popularity.
The Love Bug cast included Dean Jones, Buddy Hackett and Michele Lee under the watchful eye of director Robert Stevenson (The Absent-Minded Professor, Mary Poppins) with a script based on a Gordon Buford story called Car-Boy-Girl. Jones played Jim Douglas, a down-and-out racer who saves the honour of the little bubble of a car. Herbie follows his hero home and helps him return to on-track successes, but he is largely unappreciated until running away into the clutches of an evil racer. In typical Disney style, however, Jim realizes he is not responsible for the winning streak, finds the lost car and apologizes in time to win another race ... and the girl.
In the ultimate tribute to back-seat drivers everywhere, the \"driverless\" Herbie was controlled by stunt drivers who sat behind a steering wheel in the back seat and watched the road through a hole in the floor.
Other stars have come and gone, but the 2005 release will be the fifth feature film on Herbie's resume. The Love Bug (1969) was followed by Herbie Rides Again (1974), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Herbie Goes Bananas (1980). A five-episode TV series called Herbie the Love Bug followed in 1982, along with a Wonderful World of Disney made-for-TV offering titled The Love Bug (1997).
The car even had its own TV special, Herbie Day at Disneyland, which aired in 1974 as a tool to promote Herbie Rides Again. (The event mimicked the original Herbie Day, which was held on March 23, 1969, to launch the movie The Love Bug.)
Herbie was officially a sunroof-equipped 1963 Volkswagen 1200, although the studio apparently used everything from a fibreglass 1957 Bug to an array of 1966 models.
But once Herbie became a star, the owners of Volkswagen Beetles from every era began to think about painting their cars pearl white with racing stripes and a number 53. (OK, maybe that was just me. A car without a reliable supply of heat can apparently lead to signs of delirium on cold winter nights.)
Bill Walsh, the producer behind the original movie, once noted that the famous markings came by watching a lot of TV.
\"I was seeing lots of 53 on television while I was developing Herbie as a character,\" he says. \"It was [Los Angeles Dodgers] pitcher Don Drysdale's number, among other things.\"
In the original Love Bug, the car rode on stock tires for most street races but switched to 6x15 Firestone tires with modified rims when travelling on the race track. The trademark 6x14 lettered Goodyear rubber did not appear until Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo and Herbie Goes Bananas.
While the traditional Beetle style has been officially retired, don't expect one of the newer designs to star in the latest movie. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney sources don't want the next installment in the Herbie franchise to simply be a commercial for the new car.
