Here’s proof of something I’ve long believed: children’s programming is the weirdest that exists. The 1974 UK serial THE BOY WITH TWO HEADS is about just what the title portends: a boy with an extra head. A shrunken head, that is, belonging to a two thousand year old South American witch doctor known as Chico Paco Bana-Wana. Discovered in a pawn shop by the aforementioned boy, the Chico head can speak, in a voice that sounds like a Caucasian man doing an imitation Mexican accent (which was indeed the case), blink his eyes and do magical things.
A shrunken head, that is, belonging to a two thousand year old South American witch doctor known as Chico Paco Bana-Wana.
No, it’s not a horror-themed program, but rather a high-spirited comedy. As such it predates many better-known children-befriending-a-fantastic creature films (PETE’S DRAGON, E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, MAC AND ME, etc.), which is but one of several popular Hollywood tropes forecast by THE BOY WITH TWO HEADS. Also featured was much overtly cartoony slapstick and a catchy up-tempo theme song—elements that have the paradoxical effect of enhancing the weirdness.
I may be wrong in calling THE BOY WITH TWO HEADS a TV show, as it was initially exhibited in serialized big screen form. This is to say that it was shown in seven 14 to 16 minute blocks in movie theaters during Saturday morning children’s matinees. Yet the program, put out by the UK’s Children’s Film Foundation (which also gave us Michael Powell’s THE BOY WHO TURNED YELLOW and the science fiction themed mini-feature THE GLITTERBALL), did show on television in France, as LES AMIS DE CHICO, and other countries (although not, to my knowledge, in the US) as CHICO THE RAIN-MAKER (see song below).
**Click here to view the video series on YouTube**
The boy of the title is Chris (Spencer Plumridge), who’s given a set of native drums, a bamboo pan flute and a wooden box containing the head of Chico by a pawn shop owner as a reward for foiling an attempted robbery by Doug (Stanley Meadows) and Des (Louis Mansi), goofball crooks whose likes would be later seen in kid flicks such as NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN and HOME ALONE. Later, when Chris and his sister Jill (Lesley Ash) beat on the drums and blow into the pan flute, they bring Chico to life.
The puppet Chico head, with its moveable eyes and mouth, is an impressively rendered yet frankly pretty creepy creation that was a reported nightmare-inducer to many children who viewed it on big screens. One imdb user recalls “I probably saw a ten-minute portion of a single episode, and that’s all it took to scar me for life…I told my mommy that I just couldn’t get that hideous head out of mine,” and another claims that “I went to the cinema with my dad and brother and when this came on I was happy eating my goodies until the head appeared. I never screamed so much and I wouldn’t stop…I used to have crazy nightmares about it rolling on the ground towards me in my bed.”
Voiced by the prolific actor and voice-over ace Clive Revill (whose vocals can also be heard in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES) and brought to life by Les Bowie (a Hammer veteran who also did special effects work on STAR WARS and SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE), Chico is supposed to be friendly and endearing. He also has an easily definable goal: to get back to his home (not unlike a subsequent critter we all know), where he made the annual rain for his crops prior to being stolen and brought to the UK.
Opposing Chico and the kids are Doug and Des, who together with the suit wearing scumbag Mr. Thornton (Lance Percival) are looking to steal Chico’s head so they can collect the bounty being offered for it. Chris and Jill go to great lengths to keep Chico out of sight, stashing him in a cave and at one point hiding him inside a football that gets kicked around; plus, it seems they can trigger Chico’s magic powers simply by playing the native instruments with which they brought him to life.
As scripted by Pennington Richards and Frank Godwin, and directed by Jonathan Ingrams (who remains best known for his work on the infamous no-budget epic IT HAPPENED HERE), each episode follows a rigidly adhered-to formula: Chico gets threatened and the kids hide him, only to lose him in the cliffhanger finales in which the head is discarded in a trashcan, stolen by a dog, put in a washing machine, dropped into the Thames and repeatedly snatched up by Doug and Des. Each subsequent episode begins with Chico being rescued by Chris and Jill, who invariably use their musical skills to trigger magic that encompasses the making of rain from cloudless skies, levitation, turning back time and, in the final episode, the head transforming into a dove and flying away.
How does this series fare artistically? Not too well, I’m afraid. It’s far too lightweight and nonsensical for its own good, with the filmmakers having tried so hard to blunt the edges of their creepy premise that they completely missed a crucial element: pathos. Chico the head, elaborately constructed though it is, never really registers as a character, and his core dilemma never inspires much emotional investment on the part of the viewer. What we’re left with is a program that scores high in the “what-were-they-thinking?” curiosity factor but flat-lines in most every other respect.
The best part of the show was, arguably, the conclusion of each episode, which featured the Chico head in a jungle setting singing the irresistible theme song (with lyrics posted onscreen so the audience can sing along). Written by Frank Godwin and Harry Robinson, and sung by Clive Revill and the Alexander Sound, it goes like this:
Chico, Chico, the Rain-Maker
Chico, Chico, the Rain-Maker
Chico, Chico, the Rain-Maker
Chico-Paco-Baca-Wana
Make the Rain
…followed by Chico promising “I see you next week!” Or not.