A public apology...

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I would like to publicly apologize to the little kid who attended my screening of "Attack of the Monsters" at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences and was utterly traumatized by the trailer for the movie "The Blob" that I showed before the main film.

We, at the Museum, are holding a Movie Trailer Contest (more details here) and I've been showing various 50's sci-fi/monster movie trailers to inspire the audience. After I showed the feature film "Attack of the Monsters", a little boy, about 4 or 5 years old, came up to me and started asking questions. "What was that movie with the man and the purple thing? The man had a purple thing on his hand? What was that?" It took me a while to figure out that he was talking about the Blob trailer. It was clear that the boy was troubled by the film. "Where did the blob come from? Why did it get that man? " Answering those questions summoned up even more frantic questions. "What does the Blob do that? Why is it getting those people? What happened to the man who had the Blob on his hand?" I tried to soft pedal the fact that the Blob kills people, but the boy already knew this. His mom showed up to pull her son away. I looked at her apologetically, "I'm sorry. He's going to have nightmares tonight."

I have a feeling that this kid will be haunted by The Blob for the rest of his life and for that I apologize.*

*Although, this event could spark the kid to be a brilliant scientist, science-fiction writer or filmmaker. If that is the case, I'll gladly take credit.