Hocus Pocus 31 Year Anniversary

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Hocus Pocus 31 Year Anniversary
By anna_drenxavier wrote in ohnotheydidnt
Oct 28, 2024

Hocus Pocus: 31 Year Anniversary!

31 years ago, Hocus Pocus was released in the theaters, and into the hearts of bb millennials. Some of us pretended we were married to Max or Thackery while playing house with our friends. Some of us pretended to be the witches as we rode around on our bikes. Some of us watched the movie repeatedly all year long, horrifying our Christian conservative mothers. Why were some of us so fascinated by this movie? The cute boys? The talking cat? The relatability of the bratty little sister character? IDK.

The plot centers on 15 year old Max Dennison, who has recently moved to Salem, MA from Los Angeles with his family. He doesn’t believe in Halloween, or witches, or magic. This is a huge turn off to his crush, Allison, who walks off in a glamorous red hooded cape after rejecting his ass. On his way home from school, he is bullied by some fairly generic 20 year old high school bullies. He hates his life and wants to go home to California, etc. (Also, he is a virgin? How TERRIBLE?? The movie belabors this point repeatedly, with disbelief and derision. Even though he is only 15 years old. Totally normal.) Wanting to impress Allison on Halloween night, he takes her and his bratty sister Dani to the cottage of the Sanderson Sisters, three witches who were hanged 300 years ago. There he lights the black flame candle, and because he’s a loser viiirgin, this brings the three Sanderson Sister back to life. Mostly silly chaos ensues as the witches hunt the three mains, and react to the strange world of the 20th century (while somehow cracking one liners requiring knowledge of modern references.) There is also Binx the talking cat, and the zombie Billy Butcherson.

Hocus Pocus Trivia

Leonardo Dicaprio was offered the part of Max, but he declined it to star in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
Omri Katz (Max) was dating actress Danielle Harris at the time of filming, but cheated on her with costar Vinessa Shaw (Allison.)
Cloris Leachman was the producer’s original choice to play Winifred.
Winifred is Bette Midler’s favorite role of all time.
Omri, who was 16 during filming, had just discovered marijuana and was often stoned. Director Kenny Ortega angrily confronted him about it, which Omri took as a wakeup call. (He now owns his own marijuana company lol.)
In 1998 Sean Murray’s (Thackery Binx) mother married a producer of the movie, and Sean’s new stepsister acted really awkward around him for a while. She eventually admitted she’d had a crush on Thackery Binx as a child.
In the scene where Sarah eats a spider, Sarah Jessica Parker actually ate a spider.
Sarah’s iconic song, Come Little Children, was composed by James Horner.

…and a trivia video! In you case you hate watching videos: Doug Jones reveals that the moths Billy coughs up were real; they were sewn into some thin fabric which he held in his mouth. Larry Bagby (“Ice”) pissed off Bette Midler by whipping out his camcorder and filming her during the cage scene. Amanda Shepherd (Emily) didn’t have a crush on any of her costars, but met Elijah Wood during filming (because he was filming The Adventures of Huck Finn on a neighboring lot) and immediately developed a huge crush on him. Sarah Jessica Parker loved the broom flying scenes, because she found the harness very comfortable.

Where are they Now

Omri Katz (Max Dennison)

Omri’s last acting role was in 2018, in an episode appearance of a show called Childhood Thoughts (which seems more like a low budget, documentary style show? I have no idea). Prior to that, he hadn’t acted since 2002. He worked as a hairdresser in LA for a time, and now runs a cannabis company. Based on his insta, he has a longtime girlfriend.

Vinessa Shaw (Allison)

Vinessa is still a working actress. She had a 7 episode run on the show Swagger last year. She also guest starred on Ray Donovan in 2014. She’s been married to some non-famous guy since 2017 (after a nine year engagement.) Rando tidbit: She has the same exact birthday as Benedict Cumberbatch.

Thora Birch (Dani Dennison)

Though Thora remains best known for her earlier roles, she is still acting. Most notably, she appeared in a 9 episode run of The Walking Dead. After Ghost World in 2001, she seemed poised for even greater success, but she is managed by her father, who has long been rumored to be a nightmare on set. In 2010, her father’s behavior got her fired from a stage version of Dracula. (He angrily confronted another actor who was rubbing Thora’s back.) We were hoping she would be in the Hocus Pocus sequel, but she later said that a scheduling conflict prevented her involvement. She did say in a recent interview that she is still good friends with Vinessa Shaw.

Bette Midler (Winifred Sanderson)

Bette, who turns 80 next year (!!) is still going strong. She only acts occasionally nowadays, but reprised her role as Winifred in the Hocus Pocus sequel in 2022. She recently posted some TERF crap on twitter, disappointing us all. 🙁

Sarah Jessica Parker (Sarah Sanderson)

As we all know, Sarah went on to star in Sex and the City and its movies and sequel series. She was also in the Hocus Pocus sequel. Rando tidbit: She recently found out that her 10th great-grandmother was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. She survived the ordeal, and her case marked the end of the witch trials.

Kathy Najimy (Mary Sanderson)

Kathy has a ton of credits to her name, a lot of it voice work. Most famously, she voiced the iconic Peggy Hill in King of the Hill. She also had a 12 episode run on Veep, and of course returned for Hocus Pocus 2. Rando tidbits: Kathy believes in white magic, and was reluctant to take the role of Mary, worried she would offend real witches. Also! She competed in several game shows in the 1980s, even winning the $10,000 prize with her family on Family Feud.

Sean Murray (Thackery Binx, human visage)

Our childhood crush Thackery Binx grew up to star as Timothy McGee in NCIS — 455 episodes and counting. He’s been in some other stuff, too, but 20 years on one show is quite the feat. In the movie, he originally spoke his own lines as the human Thackery, but they were later dubbed over by Jason Marsden’s voice.

Jason Marsden (Thackery Binx, voice)

Who else was shocked when they first discovered that Thackery’s voice was provided by an entirely different actor?! The prolific voice actor (and 90s sitcom pocket prince) Jason Marsden did the voices for other iconic 90s characters, including teen Max in a Goofy Movie, and Kovu in The Lion King 2. He also played Dana’s endearingly dumb boyfriend, Rich, in Step by Step, DJ’s wealthy nerd boyfriend Nelson in Full House, and Jason in Boy Meets World. He now has well over 200 credits on IMDB, most of them in voice acting. Rando tidbits: He was the best man at Will Friedle’s wedding, and was best friends with the late Jonathan Brandis.

Amanda Shepherd (Emily)

The only other acting credit on Amanda’s IMDB is Childhood Thoughts — the same weird, random show that Omri appeared on in what must have been an episode about Hocus Pocus. She went on to study law, sell real estate, and join a band.

Larry Bagby (“Ice”) and Tobias Jelinek (Jay)

The bullies of Hocus Pocus are still acting, and also do anti-bullying advocacy.

Larry is probably best known for his 6 episode run as the closeted bully Larry (not a typo, same name) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was also in Walk the Line as Marshall Grant, a member of Johnny Cash’s band. He is a musician who released an album in 2005 called Where I Stand. He appears to be a pretty devout Mormon.

As for Tobias, after a ten year break from acting, he went on to do many guest starring roles on TV shows, including Stranger Things, This is Us, and Agents of Shield.

For some reason, they recently recreated the cemetery scene:

Stephanie Faracy (the mom, Jenny Dennison)

Stephanie has had many guest spots on TV shows and bit roles in movies. This year, she appeared in five episodes of Netflix’s Nobody Wants This.

Charles Rocket (the dad, Dave Dennison)

Charles got his start on SNL, and became infamous for dropping an f-bomb at the end of an episode in 1981. (He would then be the casualty of a mass firing.) He went on to guest star in many TV shows (including playing the angel of death in Touched by an Angel), and appeared in lots of movies, such as Dances With Wolves, Dumb and Dumber, and Tom and Huck. He tragically died from suicide in 2005.

Doug Jones (Billy Butcherson)

Our favorite man-covered-in-paint-and-prosthetics, Doug has been unrecognizable in a gazillion things over the years. Most notably (to me, anyway) he played The Gentleman in the Buffy episode Hush, Abe Sapien in Hellboy, the Faun and the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, and the sexy amphibian man in The Shape of Water. He is also known for playing a regular human in the movie Adaptation. Early in his career, he worked as a mime and contortionist.

VERY IMPORTANT POLLS

Poll #2133595 Were you team Max Dennison or Thackery Binx?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All. Participants: 46
Were you team Max Dennison or Thackery Binx?

Team Max!

16(33.3%)

Team Thackery!

32(66.7%)

Poll #2133596

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All. Participants: 49

Which Sanderson Sister was your fave as a child?

View Answers

Winifred

11(21.6%)

Mary

12(23.5%)

Sarah