Childhood Obsessions: Macaulay Culkin Edition

I tend to do a lot of lurking on Twitter. I find it amusing to read what the people I follow have posted or see what's trending. I also watch a lot of YouTube because when life gets shit, it's nice to turn your brain off. My point is, lately I've been seeing someone pop up on my feed who I hadn't thought of in years: Macaulay Culkin.


First he pops up in an amazing episode of Best of the Worst where they endured Home Alone 4, he's since appeared on a few episodes with the RedLetterMedia crew and I was like, awesome! Now, with Disney threatening to remake/reboot Home Alone, he tweeted out this picture and it is honestly the only way I'll accept the reboot, as I tweeted out myself:

https://twitter.com/rhymeswthblinvy/status/1159259006394912769?s=21

All of this suddenly clicked into my head, how obsessed I was with Macaulay as a kid. It wasn't in a crush way either, it was just this weird impulse I sometimes had when I just decided I liked an actor, I just needed/wanted to see everything they were in.


It all started with Uncle Buck which I saw because of my love for John Candy movies. I watched it and for whatever reason, I decided that I liked the funny blonde kid. Any time I saw his face in a video store after, I had to watch it. My family teased me mercilessly. Joking that he was my boyfriend and I was embarrassed because it wasn't like that. I didn't have that kind of an obsession, I just really liked watching him in movies, I thought he was fun. One Christmas, my family bought me a VHS copy of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I"d asked for Home Alone but you know adults, they saw a title that was similar, they bought it. I was thrilled though because I hadn't even realized there was a sequel until that point and I subsequently watched it more than I ever saw the original. From there, I took in everything from Richie Rich to The Good Son, which is still a wonderfully bizarre movie and you should all watch it because it pits evil Macaulay Culkin against little Elijah Wood.


Now, you might be asking yourselves, why should we care? Everyone liked Macaulay as a kid, everyone loved Home Alone and you're right, dear reader but I have something very special to show you. Just bear with me for a bit.


My grandmother LOVED musical theatre. She is the reason I still like it to this day. She wanted me to be cultured, as she believed all young women should be. She took us to see Cats, she took us to see Les Miserables, she had us watch a televised production of Phantom of the Opera and would often play the tunes from it. She also loved ballet and it was her intention to take everyone of her grandchildren to see a ballet for their twelfth birthdays. She'd buy us a fancy outfit and then take us to see it. On my turn it was The Nutcracker. I was simultaneously kind of bored but also kind of in awe of how beautiful the dancing was, it was just so long for twelve year old me. I don't think I appreciated it as much as I should have or she would have liked.


How could she get me interested in ballet and The Nutcracker? Well, she'd just have to combine it with my childhood obsession of course. To commemorate our wonderful Christmas ballet, my grandmother bought me a beautiful book of The Nutcracker, filled with photos from the New York City Ballet's performance of it. Yes I kept it, check it out. It's gorgeous:

I mean, just look at the cover

So, I thanked my grandmother politely and set the book aside until she knowingly pointed out to me something wonderful. The glorious back cover that would tell me what this beautiful book contained. Are you guys ready for this? Here it is:

Macaulay Motherfucking Culkin!!!

That's right, dear reader, I am in the possession of a photo book of a ballet performance where Macaulay Culkin played the Nutcracker himself. In fact, you can see that it was filmed as well, so if you want to see it in all it's glory, I'm sure you can track it down pretty easily: Nutcracker. This was an absolute shock to 12 year old me as I had no freaking clue that Macaulay Culkin did ballet. It's still a fun shock to me when I remember this little fact about him and I wonder if he can still do some moves. I wasn't sure if I could find this book but lo and behold, there it was, still on my bookshelf after all these years, laid flat because it is too tall for the shelves on my case. Just as magical as the day I first got it.


With that aside, I really want to show to you all, some of my favourite pictures from this book, all involving Macaulay because that's what we all came here for. I don't have a scanner so I had to take pictures of the pages with my phone, I'm sorry. Without further ado, here we go:

Isn't he adorable?

The costumes in this production are so pretty

I'm giggling over how little he is in this

More fun pictures

Look how dapper he is here!

Oh noes, they're being torn apart!

 Now, I'm going to guess what you're thinking here too and that's, but I thought you said he played the Nutcracker. Yes, yes I did. I just wanted to give you a bit of a breather before I show you the greatest picture of Macaulay that will ever exist, well I love it to pieces:

Drink it in, folks this is Macaulay in full Nutcracker glory

Want more? Here you go:

More Nutcracker goodness

Oh noes, he's sick!

So, now you can see why I love this book so much. It's a piece of my childhood wrapped up in my childhood obsession. Asides from that, the production itself looks gorgeous and this was really fun to revisit with my adult eyes that actually cares about more than just getting to see Macaulay do ballet. That being said, he is completely adorable here and it looks like he had a really great time doing this. Just look at these adorable pictures of when he gets turned back into a real boy:

Awww

Dig the moves, Mac

Look how happy!!

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse at this book, I'm sure there must be copies lying around elsewhere if this is something you want. I'm happy that I was reminded that this existed from all the Home Alone talk recently because it was a real trip and a nice memory to uncover. That one night at the ballet was magic and this book helped me to relive it and remember just how awesome my grandma was. I mean, she found out that Mac was a ballet dancer, when I, a fan, had absolutely no clue he was one.  I love this book but I love it even more now as it's like this bizarre mixture of nostalgia bomb and bittersweet memories of my grandmother and that performance that I should have cherished a hell of a lot more while she could see it. I did appreciate it and I still do, it just took me a while to get there but grandma, I will forever adore the fact that you sought out a Macaulay Culkin production of The Nutcracker just so your bizarre granddaughter would appreciate your favourite ballet more. You were the best grandma a girl could ever ask for.


All photos are owned by Joel Meyerowitz and yes, you can still find copies of this book on Amazon.