One day I will write a full review and in-depth story about my lifelong favorite movie, Hocus Pocus. As one of very few family friendly Halloween-themed movies that existed in my childhood, I’m sure you can imagine the depths of what it’s always meant to me.
But for today, I’d like to just talk about a funny little fact.
Anyone who’s seen the movie likely remembers the scene when eight-year-old Dani Dennison, after having dragged her poor older brother Max around trick-or-treating for most of the evening, decides to get smart with a group of teenage bullies from Max’s school.
The band of bullies is led by two delinquents named Jay and Ice (née Ernie) and their idea of Halloween fun is smashing pumpkins and taking candy from the kiddos. Rather than going the long way around, as Max suggests, Dani decides she’s going to walk right through the middle of their mischief, and the Ice demands she pay a toll of “ten chocolate bars, no licorice” in order to pass them. But it’s what Jay says next that became the subject of much contemplation for years to come.
From my first viewing of the movie, and for probably thousands of viewings onward, I heard Jay’s line as “Don’t bounce your sack!”
Even as a child I found the statement bizarre and tried to analyze it, eventually coming to the conclusion that he was basically trying to tell Dani not to try hiding the candy behind her back, thus making her sack bounce. A little silly, but it made sense.
I can’t remember how I finally found out the truth, but it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I discovered the line was not actually “don’t bounce your sack”, but “dump out your sack”! Obviously the latter makes infinitely more sense, both in the context of the scene and just in general, but to say my mind was blown is an absolute understatement.
The hilarious thing is, since finding out what the line actually was, I will occasionally post my former mishearing on social media, and every time, a few people will comment saying they also heard the line as “don’t bounce your sack”! I’ve actually been the source of awakening for many Hocus Pocus fans over the past several years, and it’s always such a fun conversation to have.
I’ve had people give me many explanations to what they believed “don’t bounce your sack” meant over the years. I’ve had people suggest that Jay was afraid that Dani would break a chocolate bar by making the sack bounce. I’ve had people say it was about not wearing a hole in the sack that would make the candy spill out. I think my favorite explanation is that it’s a similar phrase to “don’t have a cow”. Since finding out all of this, I can’t deny that I’ve used it in that context a few times.
So, are you among the Hocus Pocus fans who once contemplated how one would go about “bouncing their sack”? If you, what did you think it meant? Or have you always heard it as “dump out your sack” and think the rest of us are all crazy? (I must admit, I did feel a little stupid having never even considered that that could be the line, despite literally being able to recite this movie word for word by the time I hit my teens.) Are you just finding out now? Leave me a comment, I’d love to know!
Stay spooky, my friends. And for heaven’s sake, don’t bounce your sack!
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