Questions raised by repeated viewings

So, my 2 1/2 year old son has taken to saying "Watch Cars!" "Watch Lilo!" "Watch Nemo!" "Watch Woody (or Buzz)!" Now, he can actually speak in sentences, but he's already using shorthand to tell us which DVD he wants to see. To be completely accurate, he also says "Watch Thomas!" and "Watch Sam!" (Fireman Sam, which can be seen on PBS Sprout-not a plug, just letting you know). But, the boy knows what he wants when he wants it. When this phenomenon first started around October, we must have seen Cars every night for three weeks straight. We gradually introduced Finding Nemo and Toy Story as alternatives and after having us read a storybook version of Lilo and Stitch, we have now started a streak that may rival Lightning McQueen and the Radiator Springs folks. What is so interesting about all of this is not that Daddy doesn't seem to mind having the movies on constantly (neither, really, does Mommy), but Daddy actually watches the movies and gets distracted by them enough that he sometimes doesn't notice that the Boy has lost interest in the adventures of Stitch, Woody and Buzz, Nemo, or Lightning and Mater and moved on to play with the plethora of toys he has.



I still notice things in Cars that I haven't seen before and I've probably seen the movie (all the way through) 30-40 times. I remember sometime in late November or early December first noticing how Lightning chuckles as he passes Chick in the first race and thinking, "Wow, I never noticed that before! What else am I missing?"



I also notice the things that really do make you think. Such as why are there farms in the world of Cars? Who planted the flowers in the flowerpots that Red waters at the beginning of the Radiator Springs scenes? What's the deal with the white race car that The King passes in the first race (the car with no sponsor decals)? And the one that really puzzles me: What's the deal with the car that makes it through the Chick-caused crash in the first race? Why can you see the car drive through the wrecks, but later see it spinning out?



I don't actually expect answers to any of the questions (except maybe the farm one), but repeated viewings of these movies create a lot of discussion fodder. At least I think so.