"Before you die, you hear 'the Hugging Song'..."

DISLAIMER: The things I do for you guys.
The live-action "Hugga Bunch" movie is one that I recall got mentioned a lot at Yesterdayland. I remembered a few key scenes but not everything. So I was very happy to see that the local video store near Camp Gremlin had a copy. I remembered how big a hit my transcript of that insane Michael Jackson movie was, so here was a chance to do another transcript.
Then I sat down and watched the thing.
It's too long to copy down EVERY single line, and there aren't all that many scenes with no dialogue. So consider this sort of a compromise transcript: I've directly copied only the really memorable lines. Yeah, I know I'm cheating here, but let me just say that this is one of those few 80s toy involving things that did NOT get better with age. If you ever find a copy of this, YOU try to watch it over and over again. Ugh.
Questions, comments, and inquiries as to my sanity may, as always, be emailed to me or posted in M.L. I won't give you anything resembling a serious response, but it will amuse me greatly. Without further ado, here is:

"the Hugga Bunch" the Good Bits abridged transcript!

Based upon the film written by David Swift and directed by Gus Jekel. Copyright 1985, Hallmark Cards, Inc.

STUDIO LOGOS: Children's Video Library (you know, the one with the balloons and the dippy "Boys and girls come out to play" jingle), Filmfair/Carousel presents:
LE TITLE CARD: “the Hugga Bunch”
And, so help me, the "g"s in "Hugga" are HUGGING!!! This is going to be a l-o-n-g fifty minutes.
INT: BRIDGET'S HOUSE
BRIDGET [Gennie James from "Places in the Heart", please note] is in her bed confiding to either her STUFFED ANIMALS, the AUDIENCE, or IMAGINARY BEINGS. She explains that there is something weird [or, rather, "Mystifyin'"] going on in her family.
BRIDGET: “Y'know, there's somethin' VERY, very mystifyin' goin' on. Started yesterday when mom an' dad gave Andrew an' me the PRESENTS! I just don't know what's goin' on! (Cut to BRIDGET and her family in the living room opening presents; she continues to talk as a voice over) It wasn't EITHER of our birthdays! Wasn't Christmas. Besides, parents don't give presents unless there's a reason. Like when they give you ice cream! To take away the yucky taste of medicine.”
BRIDGET: "Why?"
MOM: "Why? Because we love you! Because you've been such a good girl!"
BRIDGET: (v.o.) "Not THAT good!"
BRIDGET: "Thank you, he's very nice. (holds up a stuffed penguin) I think I'll call him Sweet William."
Cut to BRIDGET in her room again.
BRIDGET: "Like I said, there's somethin' VERY mystifyin' goin' on. An' I think it has to do with Grams. You're new here, Sweet William, so let me explain to you about our family. (Bridget describes the family as we see Bridget's Aunt enter their house and greet everyone in the kitchen.) That's my Aunt Ruth."
AUNT: "Good morning! I brought those brochures you wanted!"
BRIDGET'S FAMILY: "Watermelon, watermelon! Cantaloupe, cantaloupe!"
BRIDGET: (v.o.) "She's a good nurse, and she's always helpin' people. Sometimes she's bossy. That's Grams. She's neat! She makes me rag dolls out of old stockings. But mostly she tries to keep out of everybody's way."
We get to watch as GRANDMA royally screws an important phone call up for Bridget's dad. Fun!
AUNT: (big smile) "Oh, mom, try not to help so much. Just stick to the cooking!"
BRIDGET continues to describe the MEAN PEOPLE in her family, especially her BROTHER, and how there's something AWFUL mystifyin' goin' on. Darn it, now I'm doing it.
BRIDGET: (to her stuffed animals) "There's definitely somethin' goin' on so we better keep our ears open, okay crew? (Mom calls her to breakfast) Crimineeny! There's never time to do anythin' aroun' here anymore."
She hugs her stuffed animals and hears LITTLE CREATURES GIGGLING!!! She inspects the mirror and the closet.
LAGREMLIN: "Bwahaha, PLEASE may this be a setup for her getting a gremlin bite!"
This does not happen.
LAGREMLIN: "Damn."
Finally, BRIDGET decides that the LITTLE CREATURES are in the mirror!
BRIDGET: "Is somebody there? Listen, I'm wavin' at you! If you're there, wave back, okay?"
BRIDGET is distracted by her mom just long enough to miss a little puppet hand poking out and waving at her (and, lets' face it, resembling something that happens in "Porky's"). BRIDGET meets her family in the kitchen for breakfast and darn near everyone rejects her hugs. So she does what all GOOD CHILDREN should do if it seems like nobody loves them: tell everyone about how they hear voices. Her MEAN BROTHER's reaction is solid gold.
ANDREW: "Oh boy are you weird! Why don't you invite your talking mirror to breakfast? I don't wanna hear any more about her little crazy people in the mirror!"
GRAMS: "When I was little, I used to hear voices in my mirror too!"
BRIDGET makes a sandwich out of her breakfast, proving once and for all that she is a younger version of ALISON in "the Breakfast Club" and perhaps this adventure explains why she grew up to be a BASKET CASE. As she does this, she overhears her parents and aunt talking about GRAMS. She asks her MEAN BROTHER what's going on.
ANDREW: (proving that he really is a son of a b***) "Boy are you thick. It's Grandma!"
BRIDGET: "What about her?"
ANDREW: "They're putting her out to pasture… Like a horse when he's too old to do anything. So, they just put him in a field, let him eat, and enjoy life, until he gets old and dies."
BRIDGET: "You mean their moving Grams OUT? Why would they DO that? She's family! She loves us!!!"
BRIDGET accuses ANDREW of being a selfish little brat. She runs off crying to rum-dummy-dum marching music, then meets GRAMS in the attic where she's packing things away. GRAMS explains why she's moving away and that she'll visit every so often.
BRIDGET: "But I want you to stay here forever and ever! You and I are the only ones who really like to HUG!!!"
GRAMS: "Well, you just keep trying, honey. Everyone needs hugs! Remember the stories I used to tell you?"
BRIDGET: "About the Land of Hugs?"
LAGREMLIN: "Oh, here we go."
GRAMS sends BRIDGET back downstairs to play, and so she does. Holding a tea party to introduce Sweet William to her older toys. She yells at her monkey doll for stealing a cookie.
BRIDGET: "Where's your monkey manners?"
SWEET WILLIAM: "Slide!!!"
The party continues, as BRIDGET has all of her dollies hug each other! CHEESY MUSIC plays as everybody hugs. BRIDGET follows it to the magic mirror!
What follows should send any sane child into nightmares for a month.
HUGGINS: "Hi, there cutie!"
BRIDGET backs away as the most damned terrifying puppet since the old "Thunderbirds" series climbs in through her mirror!
HUGGINS: (her freakin' FACE is sticking out of the MIRROR!) "My goodness! I just said hello?"
BRIDGET: (can you blame her?) "Help! Help!!!"
HUGGINS: "Do you always act this way when you have visitors?"
FIRST COMMERCIAL BREAK!
HUGGINS explains, in that horrible "Small Wonder" voice of hers, that she's been watching BRIDGET through the mirror for years and that there are more of her. Furthermore, if you hug enough, you can walk through mirrors.
HUGGINS: "Through the DOOR is the closet! Through the MIRROR is Hugga-Land! Where we live!… We hug all the live-long day."
BRIDGET: "Oh, my Grams would love it there!"
BRIDGET hugs HUGGINS to prove what a good hugger she is… and gee-golly, little sparkles rain down upon them as they hug!
HUGGINS: "We call 'em Hug-Works! Sparkles real good when you get a real, honest clinch-an-clinger!"
LAGREMLIN: "Why am I doing this?"
HUGGINS explains that she was sent from Hugga-Land to help BRIDGET with her a-hole of a MEAN BROTHER.
HUGGINS: "Because I'm in charge! And, I'm the only one with Savoir Fair."
BRIDGET: "Huh?"
HUGGINS: "That's French! Savoir Fair, it means I have charms!"
BRIDGET: "Well, I find you very charming, Huggins."
HUGGINS and BRIDGET head off to charm ANDREW to death - and holy crap the puppet can WALK!!! - but he's off at baseball practice. HUGGINS steals one of his hats, after the difference between a computer and a baseball cap has been established. BRIDGET leaves ANDREW'S room, and HUGGINS wanders into the laundry room.
So here it is, at a little before the fifteen-minute mark. The Greatest Scene in the Entire Movie.
HUGGINS: (in the washing machine; mwahahahaha YES!!!)"Bridget! Help! I don't like it in here!!!"
Sadly, BRIDGET rescues HUGGINS, which is too bad. I could have watched that all day.
They go back to her room and BRIDGET explains the GRAMS situation.
HUGGINS: "What's old?"
BRIDGET: "It's when you can't run anymore. And you forget things."
HUGGINS suggests lots of affection and plenty of HUGS to solve the problems of the entire Universe, cause that's how things work in Hugga-Land. BRIDGET suggests they think of a more concrete solution. So HUGGINS suggests that they ask…
HUGGINS: "THE BOOKWORM!!!"
BRIDGET: "The what?"
HUGGINS: "THE BOOKWORM!!! He's read EVERYTHING! He has the answers to anything you want! Whenever a Hugga has a question, we ask the Bookworm! He's smart!"
BRIDGET: "So where does this talking worm live?"
HUGGINS: "Not far from us, in Hugga-Land! Come on, I'll take you to him!"
BRIDGET: "Through the mirror???"
HUGGINS: "What're you scared of? It doesn't hurt!"
LAGREMLIN: "No, it doesn't kids! Hug real hard and you can go right through! Run really fast. Hey, YOU try watching this and not snapping!"
BRIDGET and HUGGINS hug really hard to get the mirror nice and squishy, as depicted in the most mind-blowing special effects EVER.
HUGGINS: "Press the mirror!"
MIRROR: *squish*
MORPHEUS: "Have you ever had a dream, Bridget, that was so vivid, you'd swear it was REAL?"
HUGGINS: "Here we go, follow me! (she hops through the mirror) You comin' or what?"
BRIDGET has a moment of hesitation, then she walks through the mirror but oh my gosh, her shoe got stuck on the way through!
SECOND COMMERCIAL BREAK!
EXT: HUGGA-LAND!
I am going to skip over a large amount of the Hugga-Land Experience. I'd like to come out of this in one piece. Suffice it to say that BRIDGET meets all the other Hugga Bunch dolls - ahem! - characters.
KIDS WATCHING AT HOME: "BUY ME THAT!!!"
And, of course, you don't shake hands when you meet new people in Hugga-Land, you HUG!!! The scary puppets sing TWO songs about HUGGING; they TAP DANCE through the first one and show that not only can you walk through mirrors when you hug hard enough, you can also FLY. We learn that the Huggas have been hugging since BEFORE THE WORLD BEGAN.
Oh, and Huggins meets HUGSY, a male Hugga, and she gives him ANDREW'S baseball cap. Also, there is a rather disturbing scene where we see BABY Huggas.
EXT: BOOKWORM'S LIBRARY
BOOKWORM: "Information, may I help you?"
BRIDGET: "It's about my grandma! She's moving out and I need to know how to make her young again!"
BOOKWORM: "Oh, dear, I've never had a request like that before! People here don't grow old."
LAGREMLIN: "Except when they're worms?"
BOOKWORM: (looking through his Big Book) "GRANDMOTHERS: The aging of grandmothers may be slowed down or indeed thwarted by A. Lots of affection; B. An abundance of HUGGING…"
HUGGINS: "See I told you so!!!"
BOOKWORM: "Young lady, I am not finished! C. and this is very important, the knowledge that they are needed!"
BRIDGET: "Please sir, I'm in an awful hurry! I don't wanna loose my Grams! I love her so!"
BOOKWORM: (looking through a different Big Book) "INSTANT YOUTH! Instant youth may be achieved by eating the fruit of the Youngberry tree… The fruit must be taken of the tree and eaten, but never touch the ground, or it will disappear. *Poof!* …There is only one, and it grows in the Valley of Shruds???!!!"
HUGGAS: "EEEEEK!!!"
HUGGINS: "Shruds is a Bad Place! And scary! And gruesome! And hard to get to!!!"
BOOKWORM shows the three adventurers the only way to get to the Valley of Shruds: a big deep hole in the ground.
BOOKWORM: "You gulp three times and fall in. …Down to the leather bottom! (I have no idea if I heard that right and, frankly, don't want to think about it that hard.) Past the Hairy Behemoth! Across the Sea of Broken Glass! I usually say 'Arevederchi' or 'Hasta la vista', but in your case I'll say, 'goodbye FOREVER! You'll NEVER come back!' Have a nice trip."
BRIDGET: "I'm scared!!!"
FOURTH COMMERCIAL BREAK!
EXT: SHRUDS
BRIDGET and the HUGGAS fall down the hole to Shruds and travel down the Sideways Sidewalk (don't ask).
BRIDGET: "Well, it certainly does make a person's tummy feel VERY curious!"
They continue on past the Sea of Broken Glass, they get to where the gravity goes back to normal, and they run into the Hairy Behemoth outside the castle! Here is where HUGSY has his Moment of Glory.
HUGSY: (takes a look at the fire-spewing Lovecraftian horror) "I don't think he's so tough! The way I see it, he's just another animal. And animals need love just as much as we do! Maybe he's never been hugged?"
As the girls scream at him for being stupid, HUGSY hugs the Hairy Behemoth. The magical Hug-Works change the Behemoth into a cute little plushy elephant. Now instead of a Lovecraftian horror, we have a Sid and Marty Krofft-ian horror.
HODGE-PODGE: "I'm an elephant? I never knew that! That mean ol' Queen of Worts told me I was a leather footstool! Before I fainted."
HODGE-PODGE takes everyone to the castle where the Youngberry tree is.
AMUSING SIGN: "Small people will be DIGESTED!"
The tree is preserved under a glass case. BRIDGET et. al. wonder about how to get at the fruit, when they get attacked by rocky troll guys with sparklers!!! Then the QUEEN arrives.
QUEEN: "WHAT is this COMMOTION??? Who are THESE scruffy, dreadful creatures and WHAT are they doing in MY castle???"
LAGREMLIN: "Don't you hate it when the villain is more fun than any of the good guys?"
BRIDGET: "I'm Bridget Sumerson, and I'm an American citizen! So I don't have to kneel down to ANY old body! Eh, sorry your Majesty, but it's in our Constitution… Please, your prettiness, all I want are a few of your Youngberries to save my Grams!"
QUEEN: "I ALREADY said NO!!!!! Queen Admira has spoken! Be silent now! And YOU!!! YOU MISERABLE EXCUSE FOR AN ELEPHANT!!! You were supposed to guard the CASTLE!!!!! I should have you DIGESTED!!! And what are these DISGUSTING lumps of fur doing???"
HUGSY: "We're just hugging!"
QUEEN ADMIRA screams at the HUGGAS (this is the second best part of the movie), pausing only to eat her Youngberries.
QUEEN: "I could spend the whole day admiring myself! Isn't this fun?"
BRIDGET: "Not particularly."
QUEEN ADMIRA uses Dr. Frank-n-furter's Medusa Ray to freeze BRIDGET, and sends HODGE-PODGE and the HUGGAS to the dungeon.
QUEEN: "If there's anything I can't stand, it's HUGGING!!!"
FIFTH COMMERCIAL BREAK!
The HUGGAS are in the dungeon looking at HODGE-PODGE'S worthless bulk until he wakes up. HUGSY has to explain that they're trapped.
HUGSY: "We're in the dungeon."
HODGE-PODGE: "Are we having fun?"
HUGSY: "Use your noodle!"
HODGE-PODGE: (lifts his trunk) "Oh, is THAT what this is? My noodle!"
HODGE-PODGE breaks down the door and they all escape. They almost run into a pack of those rock dudes again, and get to hear their theme song:
TROLLS: "One, two, three, four! / We're the Shruds forevermore! / Five, six, seven, eight! / The world is full of hate, hate, hate!!!"
They find BRIDGET turned into a statue. We're not too worried because she's pretty bad at staying perfectly still. But at least, she's not talking. Anyway, the HUGGAS save her with - oh, you'll never guess! That's right, HUGS!!!
HUGSY: "Look!"
BRIDGET: "The key!!!"
They unlock the Youngberry tree and collect the fruit. But QUEEN ADMIRA enters and they have to escape. They lock the key inside the cage with the tree - and the key is just out of the QUEEN'S reach! This was brought to you by Evil Flanders' Department of Ironic Punishments.
QUEEN: "I must have the Youngberries! (ages fifty years in a few seconds) Ah, weak!"
BRIDGET, HODGE-PODGE, and the HUGGAS return to Hugga-Land… um, surely they couldn't have come back the way they came. So much for that hole being the only way to get to Shruds. Anyway, speaking of bummers, BRIDGET trips on the shoe that got stuck in the mirror and she drops the berries all over the floor! They vanish! *Poof!*
BRIDGET: (the same "Small Wonder" voice effect is used on her for some reason) "Oh, no! They're gone!"
HUGGINS: "There, there Bridget!"
They cry and hug. Then mom calls the kids down to say goodbye to GRAMS.
HUGGINS: "Give 'er a BIG hug goodbye!"
HUGSY: "You never know what can happen!"
BRIDGET screams at ANDREW for being an apathetic waste of carbon.
BRIDGET: "Grams LOVES you! And I know you love her back! So for once in your life, just show it!!! Or I'll never speak to you again!"
BRIDGET and GRAMS have a teary goodbye, then ANDREW arrives.
GRAMS: "Well, those older fogeys better fasten their seat belts! THIS Granny's gonna put some ZING into their shuffleboard games! Well, goodbye everyone!"
ANDREW: "Grams? What I'm tryin' to say is… what I WANTED to say was… well… I LOVE YOU!!!"
And ANDREW hugs GRAMS!!! And when Aunt Ruth comes to collect her, dad says NO! So GRAMS gets to stay, and the decision's as easy as that! Yay!!!
AUNT: "Well, what're y'all lookin' at? Haven't you ever seen a grown nurse cry?"
Everyone CRIES and HUGS and LEARNS! Ooh, look at the HUG-WORKS!!!
SIXTH COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Oh, yeah, there's the little matter of ANDREW'S baseball cap.
BRIDGET: "See, it's a little hard to explain. There are these adorable little people who live on the other side of the mirror."
And the HUGGAS give ANDREW his hat back. And I seems he didn't learn a darn thing. He leaves his sister to wave at the mirror.
THE END!!!
Related Link:
Here is another "Hugga Bunch" Movie review at Crown Combo. This one has pictures!

Yet Another Reiteration: Any movies, cartoons, songs and such mentioned herein are © their respective owners, and no endorsement (or it's opposite for that matter) is intended by the webmistress; with the possible exception of such cases in which she says that said material either "Rules" or "Sucks". Even so, she is NOT getting paid for it. >:P
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