Smartly now, me buckos – gather your crew for an easy, inexpensive at-home party that revolves around watching a classic pirate movie. It’s a fun family activity at any time and especially appropriate on “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

by Barbara Alice MacRobie

Holidays remind us to shake ourselves out of the daily grind and concentrate on our families. And there’s no need to restrict ourselves to standard celebrations like Halloween and Christmas. One of the zaniest holidays on the calendar is on September 19. It’s "International Talk Like a Pirate Day," and it’s an ideal opportunity for one of my favorite low-cost, low-effort family activities—what my sons call a “movie party.”

The concept couldn’t be simpler. You rent a video, pop some corn, and sit down all together as a family to watch. Because you’re not in a theater, you can freely comment out loud on the movie—shout warnings to the characters, guess what will happen next, etc. This family interaction is the main point of the party.

You can do a movie party with any film that’s appropriate for the ages and interests in your family. Pirate movies have wide appeal. And Talk Like a Pirate Day provides a special occasion to expand the simple movie party into something even more fun.

From goofy game to international sensation

Talk Like a Pirate Day (TLAPD) was founded by accident in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers, two friends who began trading remarks like “That be a fine cannonade!” while playing racquetball. After the game, they decided the world needed a new holiday whose only purpose was having fun.

TLAPD was just an in-joke until 2002, when as a lark Bauer and Summers contacted syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry about it. He loved the idea and wrote a column that catapulted the concept into the spotlight. Since then, grassroots enthusiasm for TLPAD has zoomed.

Of course, pirates aren't the best role models for child rearing styles, but Baur and Summers explain what they mean by “pirate” on their official TLPAD website:

“Let's get this straight. Real pirates were and are bad people and are in no way worthy of emulating. We, on the other hand, are thinking of movie pirates, the pirates of books, myth and legend. Think Long John Silver in ‘Treasure Island.’ Pretend pirates. But Talk Like a Pretend Pirate Like Long John Silver was just too long to catch on.”

The nefarious Blackbeard, a scourge of the seas until killed by the British Navy in 1718.

Infamous but fascinating Long John Silver, Captain Hook in Peter Pan, rum-swigging Captain Morgan, Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean—these notorious pretend pirates are all decked out as denizens of the late 17th century or the early to middle 18th century. This classic image has a solid basis in reality. Pirate activity in the Atlantic Ocean was so intense between the 1650s and 1720s that historians have dubbed this time the Golden Age of Piracy. This outburst of seagoing thievery was stimulated by the rich trade flowing between Europe and the New World, and by a series of European wars that kept calling for large numbers of experienced sailors and then, as soon as a peace treaty was signed, throwing them out of work.

Even respectable people were fascinated by the daring deeds and defiant panache of pirates. Pirate stories and memoirs were always hits. When, in 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson drew on facts, legends, and his own brilliant imagination for his novel Treasure Island, pirates’ appeal soared even higher.

“Arrr!” becomes “official” pirate-speak

Then, in 1950, Walt Disney made a movie version of Treasure Island that gave us the archetype of how pirates talk—or in this case, the arrrchetype.

Actor Robert Newton, who was playing Long John Silver, knew that he hailed from the same part of southwestern England that Stevenson had named as Silver’s port of call. So Newton summoned an exaggerated version of the native accent he and Silver shared, complete with exclamations of “Arrr!” Newton had no idea that, by his gloriously over-the-top portrayal of an irresistible rogue, he was going to sear his version of pirate-speak into our imaginations for all time.

Robert Newton as Long John Silver

Actually, “Nobody knows how pirates spoke,” says Jackie Hoffman, the pirate-language teacher for the crew of the annual St. Louis Pirate Festival. Pirate lingo, she says, was probably a combination of seafaring terms and the slang of the day, with many differences from pirate to pirate.

But lack of historical evidence is no hindrance to fun today, Hoffman says. “Speaking Pirate is not a language, it’s a state of mind! It’s all about fun, creativity, and self-expression.”

Party activities

Here are some ideas to stimulate your own creativity as you design your family pirate movie party. If you feel like getting completely carried away, visit BirthdayPartyIdeas.com for a thorough collection of games and crafts as part of its Pirate Party section, and TLAPD’s own staggering list of links for more information.

●  Teach your family the basic principles of classic Robert Newton-style pirate-speak. 1) Use a low, gravelly voice. 2) Linger on your “r” sounds after vowels (“parrrty,” “orrrnerry”). 3) Substitute “be” for “is” and “are” and “me” for “my” (“Me favorite cake be chocolate”). 4) Drop the final “g” from the “ing” form of verbs (“I be sailin’ in searrrch of treasurrre”).

●  Write up a list of your favorite pirate words and phrases for everyone to use. You’ll find 12 essential words under “the basics” on the TLAPD website, and more in this pirate glossary.

●  Have everyone choose a pirate name. You can use an online pirate name generator, or just precede first names by “a colorful, piratey descriptor like Cannonball, Jolly, or Bumsquabbled,” Hoffman suggests.

●  Make up pirate jokes together. Just include “arrr” as parrrt of the punch line, as in, “What is a pirate’s favorite vegetable? Arrrtichokes.”

●  Serve fish for the family meal, before or after the movie.

●  Serve chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil for dessert. You can usually find these at party supply stores and craft stores.

●  Make a pirate hat cake with your children. This cake from Disney Family Fun can be put together from just two chocolate cake rounds, two cans of chocolate cake frosting, and a tube of white decorator frosting.

●  Give everyone a pirate prop. TLAPD is close enough to Halloween that you’ll easily find eye-patches and red bandanas at a party supply store or dollar store.

●  Set the table with a little bit of pirate-themed tableware. Because pirates are always a popular theme for birthdays, dollar stores and party stores are also sources of pirate table supplies. One pack of drinking cups will give you a lot of bang for your buck, since unlike plates and napkins, the design on the cups is always visible during the meal.

A treasure chest of movies

Sure, you could watch the Pirates of the Caribbean movies for the tenth time, but there’s so much more—more than 300 movies more, according to the magnificently obsessed Rob Ossian, who has chronicled every pirate movie ever made (as well as a trove of other pirate and nautical lore) on his website, Pirate’s Cove.

Sifting through such booty is tough. I’ve stuck to six personal family favorites that deal with the Golden Age of Piracy, including three very different versions of Treasure Island.

A word about ratings. Because pirates are by nature unsavory characters, it’s hard to find even a family-targeted pirate movie that isn’t at least PG. Even without any rum-guzzling or wench-oggling, there’s bound to be sword-swinging. (The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are all PG-13.) However, two of the films on my list have managed a G rating while retaining plenty of swashbuckling excitement, so even little kids can join teenaged siblings in the fun of a family pirate movie party.

●  Muppet Treasure Island (1996) – Rated G. Kermit the Frog and friends stay close to Stevenson’s story while adding several musical numbers and wacky Muppet humor. They’re abetted by fine human actors, including Tim Curry as Long John Silver and Kevin Bishop as virtuous cabin boy Jim Hawkins. No scares here, just inspired silliness!

Kermit as Captain Smollett, Tim Curry as Long John Silver, and Kevin Bishop as Jim Hawkins.

●  Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968) – Rated G. Comic master Peter Ustinov plays Blackbeard with gusto as a fun-loving rapscallion whose ghost is accidentally summoned by a hapless college track coach. Part of the fun of watching this loopy fantasy comedy today is that the story takes place during the time it was filmed—the ‘60s, now a bygone era almost as exotic as the Golden Age of Piracy.

●  Treasure Island (1950) – Rated PG. For a straightforward telling of Stevenson’s tale, you can’t do better than this classic. Robert Newton as the Long John Silver is ably partnered by 12-year-old Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins. The movie doesn’t shy away from intense suspense and some piratical bloodshed, but it’s a treat for all but the littlest nippers.

Treasure Planet on DVD

●  Treasure Planet (2002) – Rated PG. Square-rigged ships sail into the stars in this animated Disney feature that imaginatively blends science fiction with the 18th-century personality of Stevenson’s original. Jim Hawkins becomes a troubled teenager whose father deserted the family when Jim was a toddler. The warm relationship that develops between Jim and Long John Silver despite the old rogue’s worst intentions is the strong heart of this gorgeous film.

●  The Crimson Pirate (1952) – Rated PG. Outrageous slapstick, witty dialogue, and slam-bang derring-do abound as a cynical sword-for-hire gets more than he bargained for when a feisty heroine involves him in an island revolution. Burt Lancaster and Nick Cravat, who play the lead pirates, were partners as circus acrobats before their movie careers, and it shows in the spectacular feats they pull off without CGI trickery or even stunt doubles. The movie is both a rousing adventure and an affectionate spoof of the pirate genre.

●  Swashbuckler (1976) – Rated PG in the days before PG-13, the rating it would probably receive today for its skin-crawling villain, a flash of from-behind-and-far-away nudity, and a hilarious scene in which the pirate captain and first mate trade salty limericks. For the rest, as critic Roger Ebert happily noted, “It’s a flat-out pirate movie, by heavens, with desperadoes swinging aboard with swords in their teeth, with maidens in iron cages, with barrels of rum and bloody duels and daring rescues....directed and acted with zest, energy and conviction.”

There ye have it, me hearties—all ye be needin’ for a rip-roarin’ pirate movie party. Godspeed, and fair winds to ye!

 

Barbara Alice MacRobie is the feature editor of Parent USA City. Like Jackie Hoffman, she is a member of the volunteer cast of the St. Louis Pirate Festival, in which she portrays seamstress Josephe “Fifi” Delatour, who although a respectable working woman likes pirates as customers because they pay so lavishly in silver and gold.

© Boy in pirate hat photo by Anna Yakimova | Dreamstime.com • Blackbeard, 18th-century woodcut • Robert Newton, Muppets, and Treasure Planet DVD © Walt Disney Pictures