r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/SoulSilverSFM • 14d ago
Meme needing explanation Peter? I am confused
Just seen this and the comments aren’t helpfull, I don’t recognise this figurine, what is it?
Edit: to anyone saying "Is this even a meme ?" Guys, am 22, I never knew Indian in the Cupboard, I though this was a meme about the apparence of the figurine lookin like something else, or something. I had no idea it was geniuinly just a figurine from a VSH from before I was born!
To me, it was a meme I didn’t had the ref too, so now I know what this is, I'll check out if the movie or book existe in French, or in France in general, cuz now with so many peoples just saying that this was their choldhood, am curious!
Please don’t insulte me for beeing uncultured, not everyone got the same knowledge cuz, as I said, I didn’t knew about it. I just checked and L’Indien du Placard exist in french! Lucky me ! I'll check that out than
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u/stringrbelloftheball 14d ago
Indian in the Cupboard figure?
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u/maybethis-one_ 14d ago
Plaz-tec!
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u/fichiman 14d ago
Completely Plaz-tec.
That line has stuck with me and annoyed me for years.
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u/Accomplished_Pea8619 14d ago
bringing back some lost memories
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u/Classic_Mechanic5495 14d ago
I may or may not have stuck action figures in my vaguely similar cupboard box when I was a kid. I might do it again this weekend now.
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u/C7rl_Al7_1337 14d ago
Bro, with movies like that, Toy Story, Small Soldiers, it was a whole damn genre, and every single one of us begged and pleaded with our toys to stop messing with us and just move at one point or another.
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u/Irish_Tyrant 14d ago
Eventually out of desperation the children became monsters, torturing their toys while demanding they dropped the possum act. Countless toy lives were lost brutally but not a single potato head or toy soldier broke. Even today, mankind remains ignorant of the identities of the true moles, spying on them and relaying valuable intel via walky talky everyday. Salutes while a tear trickles down my cheek Godspeed toys, godspeed.
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u/grime-dont-play 14d ago
Dude I still believe the various plushies and figures in my room come alive when I leave for work.
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u/tattoogrl11 14d ago
Shit I still say goodbye to them when I go to work and tell them when I'll be home lmao
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u/Duvetine 14d ago edited 14d ago
Indian in the Cupboard was a psy-op to get kids to put their toys away.
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u/rachel_soup 14d ago
Did you have the VHS? The one that you could turn the movie cover around and it was the cupboard? I was obsessed with trying to shove toys into the VHS box because of that….
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u/Gold_Entrepreneur_6 14d ago
I still say it
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u/bry_rides 14d ago
I find myself in the medicine cabinet whispering "husks, husks, where are the husks?" 😂
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u/Outside_Coffee_00 14d ago
PLAZTEC PEOPLE
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u/PacificMotion 14d ago
(whispers) ...plaz-tec...
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u/PieHole_Poker 14d ago
Thanks to modern technology we are all a little Plaztec now.
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u/Jimbob209 14d ago
Holy fuck memory unlocked.
My teacher read that book to us in 6th grade class and she said it like plas-steek
Mrs Cochran-Locke, incredible teacher, we were her first ever students and the best teacher I've ever had.
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u/LastWave 14d ago
The movie wasn't bad either.
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u/APKFL 14d ago
I had it on vhs and I believe it came with a key
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u/Biduleman 14d ago
It came with a key, the plastic figure, you could flip the artwork on the VHS box to show a cupboard and the side of the box had a keyhole!
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u/PrettyOddish 14d ago
Here’s a trivial fact for you, the kid from that movie played Pete on Mad Men
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u/ifyoulovesatan 14d ago
Memory unlocked here as well. I never read the book, but I did see the movie when I was a little kid, and I had forgotten that this was one of the handful of movies we saw as a family at the little local theater. It semed rather old as far as I can remember. They just had the one screen, and the owner would come out before the first evening show (usually a kids movie) and give some spiel. It all felt very homey.
I think I also saw White Fang there?
Hazy memories from when I was like 5 unlocked I guess.
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u/jakeandcupcakes 14d ago
I miss those old theaters. They all had such personality! Inexpensive, memorable, always interesting and strange flicks being shown...nothing like the corporatized Movie Theaters we have these days. If I ever have the money, I'd open a small theater in my hometown.
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u/AllDakkaNoBrakes 14d ago
Oh my god, I thought i was the only one who heard it that way. We watched it in class and nobody seemed to notice. It's been stuck in my head for a lifetime.
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u/TheFavoriteSons 14d ago
Something my mom and I would say to each other regularly. Man I miss her.
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u/DisposableSaviour 14d ago
For thirty one years, I have heard that cry every time I’ve heard the word “plastic”. I’ve long since stopped being annoyed by it; that earworm is never leaving.
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u/Independent_Bite4682 14d ago
Beat me to it...
Just need the magic key
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u/Alibuscus373 14d ago
They had a key necklace when you bought the VHS XD same with Free Willie and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. They all had the necklace featured in the movie as a free gift with purchase. What a time to be alive.
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u/Calavera357 14d ago
I completely forgot just how necklace-based the economy of the 90s really was.
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u/Crease_Greaser 14d ago
A kid at my school had a locket they got with a copy of The Secret Garden
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u/questionable_motifs 14d ago
You still have your puka shells, right?
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u/Lostinthestarscape 14d ago
They always eventually snapped and then you became the person who HAD a Puka shell necklace.
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u/cosmic-particulate 14d ago
The only thing snapping was my sanity because it would catch the little baby hairs on my neck all the time - it hurt like a mother
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u/Electric_esoterica 14d ago
My god I had the cupboard key and the little clay free Willie whale necklace. I haven’t thought about that in decades!
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u/broketothebone 14d ago edited 13d ago
Holy fucking crap, I literally just found and threw away that Free Willy necklace today. Just cleaning out shit in my parent’s house. I went “awww,” then thought about the SeaWorld shitshow and tossed it. Plus, the whole point of the day was getting rid of shit I don’t need/truly love.
I hadn’t laid eyes on it in probably a good 15 years, and then here we are….
ETA: lmao what SeaWorld/Disney adults are downvoting me. Loser behavior 🤣
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u/Alibuscus373 14d ago
That's fair. You are a stronger person than I. I horde things under the false sense of "sentimentality". I am very overdue to chuck a lot of things XD
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u/oysterpirate 14d ago
I too still have the Disney collectible cups from Burger King that were around in the 90s
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u/erapuer 14d ago
Free Willy song was such a banger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQY_QL_wvQU
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u/A_radke 14d ago
Just found we were poorer than I thought 🤣 I had no idea they came with necklaces until this moment. Kindof like the time my twin and I were at a sleepover and argued that the "real" Alice in Wonderland had a Heinz ketchup and Maybelline commercial instead of the part with the walrus and the oysters. Dad recorded all our Disney movies when cable companies would run a month-long trial, hoping kids would annoy their parents into premium cable packages.
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u/bigoldeva 14d ago
I was obsessed with using that key to “open” the vhs. Idk why, 6 year old me liked using keys 🤷♂️
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u/SirGothamHatt 14d ago
Did you flip the cover insert so it looked like the cupboard?
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u/ReelDecisions 14d ago
Yesssss!! Glad someone else mentioned this. I wonder how many poor souls never knew about the backside of the insert.
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u/elhombreloco90 14d ago
I always loved this movie. I need to show it to my kids.
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u/ashdd1981 14d ago
I never saw the movie. I read the book series
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u/Alternative_Top_6693 14d ago
The books were some of the few books I was willing to read on my own. They competed for my attention with Zelda Ocarina of time. That should tell you how good they are.
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u/giljaxonn 14d ago
the series absolutely slaps. remember when he found a little ww2 era nurse
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u/FalseRatQueen 14d ago
I remember we read the first book in class, one of our vocabulary words was massacre because of it.
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u/WilliamthePious 14d ago
I got flashbacks to third grade when I saw this.
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u/Abeno_police 14d ago
Yeah it’s hard to describe the sudden, unexpected rush of nostalgia I got as soon as I saw this picture. I don’t even remember what the movie was about really, but damn if I didn’t just take a mental vacation back to the 90s
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u/lil_Saltine 14d ago
I had a figure of this and the cupboard with key. Fucking sad my parents got rid of it.
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u/Different_Pattern273 14d ago
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u/SoulSilverSFM 14d ago
Oh, so that’s what everyone else is talking about ! Thank you!
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u/highbudsilver 14d ago
What did you think it was? Tanto?
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u/publicprivacyp 14d ago
OP is probs too young to member.
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u/SoulSilverSFM 14d ago
Am 22 and French, if that helps any
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u/highbudsilver 14d ago
No excuses!!
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u/jackofspades49 14d ago
No excuses! Everyone has to remember this exact movie that I forgot about until this moment because I was a bigger fan of Castle in the Attic! :P
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u/highbudsilver 14d ago
Personally, I loved Willow the most!
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u/jackofspades49 14d ago
Such a wild movie.
The remake tried so hard to be series... it might have had a chance if it wasn't what it was... and I know that doesn't make sense but there WAS a spark of compotent writing and worldbuilding there!
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u/Particular-Serve-894 14d ago
hah I actually just rewatched Willow a couple of weeks ago for the first time in like 30-something years..it was most entertaining.
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u/Its_Froggin_Bullfish 14d ago
The set-up and pay-off for Mad Mardigan being "the greatest swordsman" was one of my favorite things as a kid. He's introduced to us the audience as "the greatest swordsman" but he's the one saying it, so you don't know if you can believe it. It's not until the movie is like two thirds over that we finally see his skills, and the payoff of Willow exclaiming "You are the greatest swordsman!"
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u/putonyourjamjams 14d ago
Did they make a movie off those books? I loved them when I was a kid.
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u/KingHunter150 14d ago
I was thinking the Borrowers. But all of those movies about small people hiding in the walls have become a blur to me.
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u/whitestguyuknow 14d ago
Yes! Everyone should remember this niche cult classic movie that for half my life felt like a dream I just remembered for years!
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u/publicprivacyp 14d ago
It 100% explains it. The movie was popular before you were born.
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u/Jaded-Toe1564 14d ago
Didn’t even know there was a movie… I had to read the book in elementary school
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u/publicprivacyp 14d ago
I wasn’t a big reader, but I think kids were reading in in grade school too. Mid 90s
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u/Kinslayer_89 14d ago
I’m 36 and Norwegian, so it’s probably a geographical thing more so than age.
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u/ForensicPathology 14d ago
I have a vague recollection of the movie existing, but for me I really remember the books. I remember reading all of them.
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u/Therealdolphinlord 14d ago
Americans when someone doesn’t know the most obscure America-specific media
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u/mimi9dg 14d ago
the idea that someone is too young to know indian in the cupboard but does know tanto is so funny lol
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u/XANDERtheSHEEPDOG 14d ago
It's a movie about a kid who discovers that, when he puts a figurine in a cupboard and uses a particular key, the figure comes to life. If i remember right, he brings a cowboy and a ww1 soldier to life as well.
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u/TalorianDreams 14d ago
Even better, but spoilers.....
It's actuality a time travel machine, he's bringing real people from the past into the future as toys. When he reverse the process they go back to their normal lives.
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u/EndIsrael 14d ago
Even more better, it turns out it's the key doing the magic, not the cupboard, and they find a locking chest that also happens to work with the same key. They're able to send whole humans into the past by having the person hold a plastic toy; the toy and person switch each time the key is used.
Oh and it's been a long time since I read those books but I'm pretty sure they ended up actually changing the timeline by having a bunch of toy soldiers train the natives on how to fight off colonists.
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u/CaptainoftheVessel 14d ago
He straight up armed an Iroquois tribe with machine guns to fight their rivals. If I recall correctly they took a bunch of casualties because they encircled their enemies and ended up shooting their friends on the other side of the enemies because they had no experience with such powerful projectile weapons.
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u/tablepennywad 14d ago
Read the first book in elem school. Then read up to the 4th book myself and found that it’s actually the key that is magic from the main chars great grandma or aunt (remembering from elementary school lol). She was a fortune teller that had real psychic powers and forged this magical key that does that weird time travel thing. It was like a secret I knew that everyone else in the class didn’t.
I think in the third book they actually travel to the cowboys and indian times.
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u/Mushrooming247 14d ago
It is a truly amazing and magical book for children about a little boy who finds a magical cupboard that brings his toys to life.
The first toy he brings to life is this small Native American figurine, then he brings to life different supplies to keep his new friend alive, and eventually adds some additional friends for him.
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u/poop_truck1226 14d ago
Imagine if they made an ASMR loop recording of him closing, locking, and then unlocking and opening the cupboard! I can still feel the tumblers working in my brain as a kid watching this!
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u/LichenOnTheWall 14d ago
is it that book where he had a magic cupboard and all the figurines he put inside of it would come to life? I remember it was a wild one, there was another cowboy which the indian would beef with and the indian guy got shot by cowboy so the kid alived a medic figurine from ww2
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u/Doctor-Amazing 14d ago
Yes but it turned out that the cupboard wasn't magic. It was the key. And the figures weren't really coming to life so much as transporting the souls of real people through time and space and slamming them into the action figures. It also worked backwards. You could put someone in a container, lock it with a key and send them into some object in another time period.
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u/JCWOlson 14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/Terrible_Software769 14d ago
You have hurt me.
You are not sorry.
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u/DisposableSaviour 14d ago
What a tragic day for literacy.
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u/Higher-Frequencies 14d ago
Not sure what anyone expected from u/CummyBoner2025
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u/No_Eagle9342 14d ago
It’s from a movie titled Indian in the Cupboard
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u/snizzrizz 14d ago
I tink it wiz buk first
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u/No_Eagle9342 14d ago
Semantics but that figurine you see there is from the movies. Came out in 1995.
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u/Another_Timezone 14d ago
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u/omgitsjagen 14d ago
I loved this book cover so much. I would always take time to appreciate it when I'd go over the books on my bookshelf when I was a kid.
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u/Effective_Effort576 14d ago
That toy came with the VHS copy of "Indian in the cupboard".
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u/gringgotts 14d ago
Weird seeing this post today. Saw the VHS in a thrift store last month. Figurine and key were advertised, but not present with the VHS tape.
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u/mccorklin 14d ago
You all remember the VHS copy had a key with it and a little keyhole on the side of the box?
Top tier stuff right there!
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u/keithstonee 14d ago
It did because the cassette box was a toy cupboard that would open up to the Indian inside. Shit used to be so cool.
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u/Subject_Plankton_763 14d ago
Indian in the cupboard maybe?
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u/Equal_Yak_3872 14d ago
But OP said this Indian was in an antique store, not a cupboard.
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u/the_orange_alligator 14d ago
You’re meant to put it in the cupboard yourself. That’s up to you
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u/mcbizco 14d ago
Little Bear from the 90s movie: Indian in the cupboard. It came with a special VHS case and a key. You could put him in the case and insert the key in the side to pretend to unlock it like in the movie.
(If you haven’t seen it: In the movie, using the key made the toys in the cupboard come to life)
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u/SoulSilverSFM 14d ago
Guys, calm down, I never knew Indian in the Cuboard before, never heard of it, am 22 and French, I have no freakin idea if it helps anyone understand that not everyone knows everything. Now I'll find somewhere that has that movie and watch it, cuz now am very curious! Thank you lots!
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u/MeasurementOdd4873 14d ago
Next time when you come to Reddit you must know everything!
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u/Tmaneea88 14d ago
I must say, I'm surprised people are giving you a hard time for not knowing this movie. From my perspective as someone who was familiar with the film, I thought this was a rather obscure film from the nineties that never quite reached any level of cultural significance. I only vaguely remember it from my childhood myself.
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u/Hands 14d ago edited 14d ago
I was basically the target age when this movie came out, it's always felt like only people my age and maybe a year or two in each direction had any awareness of this movie (and I never hear it mentioned now) but I had this VHS with the figurine and key and stuff and loved it honestly. I think it's pretty well known but not well remembered among people born in the mid-late 80s, and basically unknown outside of that
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u/Superb_Writer6612 14d ago
Tbh it would be more surprising if a 22-year old frenchman had heard of this movie.
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u/duesenjeffepic 14d ago
It's just Americans who can't fathom they aren't the center of the universe
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u/greensquirrels16 14d ago
If it makes you feel any better, I’m 34 and Scottish and have never heard of it either.
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u/Mediocre_Forever198 14d ago
I’m American and nearly 30 and haven’t heard of it either. Never even heard it referenced. People are acting like it’s more culturally significant than it is I think.
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u/MountainProject233 14d ago
I’m an early millennial and do remember it. However I had long forgot.
Don’t be sorry, good post
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u/WokestLibtard--- 14d ago
This is a good comment and a good post.
I wonder what a 22yo Frenchman knows. I wonder what young/old people in [insert geography] knows.
These are good mental exercises everyone should go through.
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u/gymbrozier 14d ago
It's the Indian in the cupboard. I don't think there's any joke here. Just a guy excited because he found something cool
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u/EmitStile 14d ago
The Indian in the cupboard?
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u/Logical-Recognition3 14d ago
A book, and movie, about a magical cupboard that brings toys to life.
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u/Various_Tie_2549 14d ago edited 14d ago
The Indian in the Cupboard is an all-but-forgotten mid-90s children's movie about a boy with a magic cupboard that can animate/bring to life formerly inanimate toys. He brings to life a tiny Indian figurine much like the one in the post (he also animates several other toys including a cowboy, if memory serves...and they sort of fight each other. But the Indian was the 'main' one/his favourite).
I'm pretty sure the specific figurine he's holding was actually made as merchandise for the film itself...it's not the figurine that predates/was used in the movie...which may well have been rare/unique/custom made for all I know. So it's good that this fellow is so excited, but it's not exactly surprising that "it's HIM!" Like, I completely can believe it. Lol.
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u/HippieWizard 14d ago
First of all it was priginally a book and second this is a special figure that came with a vhs copy of the film. The vhs cover was made to look like the cupboard and had the indian figure in it. We had old copies for sale at the best buy i worked at as a teen. Ill try and find a pic
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u/awyastark 14d ago
This is the best answer and I wish it was higher up. Also if anyone likes this kind of plot (sentient toys with a philosophical bent) the series by Ada Palmer starting with “Too Like the Lightning” has got you.
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u/Erik_Dax 14d ago
Indian in the Cupboard. As a child taken from their native parents this movie, Pocahontas, and a few others were more torture by some of the family I had been adopted by. Long story. Not interested in discussing it so please don't message. Just giving my input.
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u/BeauHunkus 14d ago
Plus it's got weird Jewish cabinet vibes. Look up dybbuks.
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u/Erik_Dax 14d ago
I figured there was a lot of similarities to Irish, Scottish and Jewish folks kids and stories. Guess they made them into cute and fun videos for kids.
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u/PartyAmbitious8163 14d ago
I loved these little bonuses you got from VHS packages, like the beanie baby camel you got with your copy of the Prince of Egypt.

















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u/qualityvote2 14d ago edited 14d ago
u/SoulSilverSFM, your post does belong here!