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Comment by Cyranix | Hacker News Reader

I absolutely loved this when I was younger! Looking forward to watching it again after so many years.

On the rare occasions when I play a game of pool, a little piece of my brain remembers the pool-table section from this video as I try to make bank shots.

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I don't have anything to add to this other than me too. I think I watched the VHS about a million times in the 80s when I was a wee one.

I remember this being the kind of thing that I hoped would result in VHS being invented.

Wow, I used to think of this when playing pool as well, but at some point I internalized it and completely forgot where I learned it. Well, not forgot, but he memory became disassociated from the action, until you reminded me.

I'm pretty sure The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, and Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land have merged in my brain into one school animated film blob.

Which one had "Inchworm" in it?

P.S. It's a billiards table.

   You got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table.
   Pockets that mark the diff'rence
   Between a gentlemen and a bum
   With a capital "B,"
   And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

Wow. I don't think I've come across anyone else who has even heard of The Phantom Tollbooth. I haven't seen it in years but it was one of my favourites. I don't remember an inchworm in either that or AiW, and I haven't seen the linked video.

My teacher read it to us in elementary school. I don't recall if I ever saw it as a movie, but I might have. The only thing I remember is from the very beginning, a spelling bee (insect)?

    All week long your River City
    Youth'll be fritterin' away,
    (I say your young men'll be fritterin'!)
    Fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
    Get the ball in the pocket,
    Never mind gettin' Dandelions pulled
    Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded.

Ditto.

My pool skills are remarkably improved from my youth though.

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