Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders

            WOW!  This is some movie.  There aren’t many movies of this caliber around.  It is both extraordinarily fun and painful to watch at the same time.  I think IMDB describes it best with this single sentence “This is a movie within a TV movie within a made-for-video movie.”  What this means is this is one of the most disjointed movies you will ever see.  The ever loveable Earnest Borgnine is telling stories to his grandson which is the excuse for piecing together a movie from the 80s with another portion that was made for this movie in addition to inserting the narrative talents of Mr. Borgnine. I know this probably doesn’t make sense but stay with me and you will be just as confused at the end as you are now, but you will know how those cymbal monkeys can be pure evil and you will learn more about Merlin’s love life than you thought possible. 

            The movie starts out with a gypsy drinking and using an Ouija board to contact the dead.  At this point I should have taken a clue from the movie and poured myself a drink before continuing.  However in deference to my job as chronicler of such movies I didn’t want to dull my sense so I persevered with my wits about me.  We soon learn that what we are seeing is just a movie that the loveable grandson is watching; unfortunately his cinematic experience is cut short by a terrible storm.  Before the power went out we got several good looks at one of those antique cymbal monkeys.  This prompts grandpa to tell some stories about Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, which turns out to be a TV show he was a writer for many years ago, no I’m not kidding they actually use this excuse in the script. 

            At this point we get to see Merlin’s shop and I’m starting to get excited.  I know I will be seeing Merlin soon, and my past experience tells me no matter how bad a movie is Merlin always is a high point.  Now before we get to see Merlin we learn something extraordinary about him.  Merlin is married and his wife’s name is Zurella!  It is Zurella that greets the young scalawag who has wandered into Merlin’s shop without his mother.  Now Zurella informs Merlin, who she affectionately calls “Merl,” that they have their first customer.  Finally my patience has paid off and we get to see Merlin enter in a dramatic way truly fitting for the greatest of wizards, through billowing clouds of smoke and plenty of back lighting.  However this begs the question, does Merlin do this every time someone enters his shop of is it just some kind of grand opening special.  Merlin follows this entrance up by performing some second rate parlor tricks for the boy he has come out to see.  Now normally I would think watching someone pull an egg out form behind someone else’s ear is not much of anything to write about but this is Merlin doing it, so its well worth the two sentences I’ve spent writing about it.

            Finally we get to where the first story starts to take off.  So far we’ve me the standard childless couple.  The wife is unable to have kids and the husband is an arrogant jerk who blames her and won’t accept adoption.  The husband, John, who is also a columnist is trying to decide if Merlin’s shop is worthy of a story.  Unfortunately for Merlin John is apparently the most powerful columnist in the world, perhaps even more powerful than the president, the pope, and superman combined.  I’m not kidding he calls himself the Supreme Being at one point.  A mere mortal would most likely be terrified by this point but not Merlin.  No, Merlin decides this man deserves a good story and actually gives John his own spell book to peruse for the next few days.  Oh yeah and the wife made a wish for a baby on a wishing stone, they keep bringing this up so its probably important and I thought I would tell you. 

            John and his wife go home and he starts reading the book and actually starts casting spells which work.  At this point Grandfather and grandson occasionally interrupt this portion to talk about plot points that the writers were too lazy to make clear through other means such as casting magic ages you and every single letter in a spell is important.  Since casting spells ages you so John decides to cast a youth restoration spell using his wife as the donor, however there is a letter missing and John was warned by Merlin himself not to se an incomplete spell.  Now John, even though he messed up the familiar spell and set his cat on fire decides it won’t hurt to define Merlin’s sage advice (pun intended).  Surprisingly the spell goes wrong causing John to become a baby.  Now we finally have the pay off for the baby story the writer have been hammering us with.  John’s wife picks up John in a very loving, motherly manner and walks off screen letting us know she is going to raise him as her own.  For some reason this really creeped me out.  I’m not going to go into the numerous ways in which this could be wrong but I just felt it deserved some extra attention.  Finally Merlin recalls his spell book knowing he has done a good job, specifically damning an arrogant man to being raised by his wife. 

            Now you may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with those cymbal monkeys?”  Well you aren’t the only one assuming you remember the monkey at all, and the grandson is just as confused as you are.  We now arrive at the story that was a portion of another movie that obviously had Merlin inserted without any real consideration for such minor points as plot or cohesion.

            It starts out with Merlin’s shop being robbed and a mystical enchanted cymbal monkey being stolen.  I really couldn’t make this up if I tried, especially not without using some heavily illegal substances.  As a side note this monkey was enchanted by Morgan le Fay.  Well Merlin’s wife lays into Merl and forces the poor mage to wander the streets in wizard robes and ask random people if they have seen his toy monkey.  While our hero Merlin is wandering around the monkey is given to a boy for his birthday and shortly after starts its reign of terror killing by all sorts of things slowly working its way up the food chain.  It starts with plants, then flies, fish and finally a dog.  You may wonder how a toy monkey would kill such things.  Well wonder no longer because this toy’s magic is in its cymbals and things only die if it claps its cymbals together.  Some how the boy’s father suspects this monkey is evil and goes to a psychic for help.  The psychic knows better than to mess with demons so she pretty much tells the father: tough you’ve got to get rid of it on your own.  After a failed attempt to throw the monkey away the father decides to drive the toy out to a field and bury it.  This monkey won’t be gotten rid of so easily.  Even though it’s buried it causes a thunderstorm, opens the ground up in an attempt to kill this father and when both those fail causes a tree to fall on him.  Fortunately the monkey is buried so it can’t clap its cymbals together and fails to kill this brave father.  Not surprisingly the monkey finds its way back to the house and seems about to kill this family we have grown to love when Merlin appears and stops the monkey from clapping its cymbals together by placing his hand squarely between the cymbals thus preventing untold death and destruction.  Finally his days of searching are at an end and Merl merely shakes his finger at this evil toy before heading back.

            I must say minute for minute we learn more about Merlin while he is on screen than most movies tell in two hours.  With only about ten to fifteen minutes of screen time we learn that Merlin has a wife, which explains why he isn’t out there playing the field since we all know girls like the all powerful sorcerer type. Not only that but we see his little shop and learn that he is here to bring magic back into the world.  Actually we see Zurella on screen more than we see the wizard himself.  The writers were very clever to name a movie after the person who has the least screen time of any of the characters. 

            I can’t honestly say I didn’t enjoy this movie on some level but I doubt the majority of the world would actually want to watch this amazing jigsaw puzzle.  However if you want to learn how to waste one of the most interesting characters ever (Merl if you’re wondering, although Zurella has her charm) this is the movie for you. 

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