While most people sit with family and eat maple ice cream on their 80th birthday, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II said “Bollocks to that!” and threw an 80th birthday extravaganza that most of her subjects probably still have a hangover from.
The celebration, called the Children’s Party at the Palace, took place at Buckingham Palace on June 25, 2006, with a party theme of British Children’s Literature.
The theme was meant to inspire more children to read, like those Children’s Programs that your local library used to hold, only this time the Queen’s Guard is there to beat you with a hardcover copy of Curious George if you step too close to Her Majesty.
In a crossover event that The Avengers can only weep over, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, Peter Rabbit, and Robin Hood were just some of the characters and stories that featured in the proceedings.
The main attraction of the event was a pantomime play called The Queen’s Handbag.
A blend of live-performance and pre-recorded video played on the stage screens, the storyline involved the Queen losing her handbag, inside of which is a pair of reading glasses she needs in order to deliver the closing speech for the event.
Updates on the missing handbag were strewn throughout the play, eventually reaching Hogwarts itself.
Of all the segments that went into the play, Harry Potter: The Queen’s Handbag was probably the one that made the 2,000 children in attendance collectively gasp and throw up their hands like Hogwarts students after hearing that final exams have been canceled.
Same goes for the adults in the audience.
The three-minute-long segment was filmed during the production of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and features Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville receiving a letter from the Prime Minister regarding the handbag.
It’s great to see the heroes of Hogwarts again, but fans of the books will be schooling you till the Hippogriff comes home due to the fact that the character of Peeves is mentioned (1:14 mark).
Peeves is a poltergeist residing at Hogwarts who loves pranks, mischief, and being an all-around pain in the ass-tronomy tower in the book series. The Queen’s Handbag marked his first and only reference on film (scenes were shot with Peeves for The Sorcerer’s Stone, but ultimately cut).
Release this short film as a double feature with Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, sell it in the Universal Parks for $14.99 a pop, and accio moneybags you’ve got another product to peddle to people like me who are only too willing to fork over their hard-earned cash for more Potter items.
The fact that the characters in the short refer to the Queen’s 80th birthday (in 2006) while Order of the Phoenix takes place in 1995-96 we can just conveniently forget. “Obliviate.”
Watch your movies. Wear your movies.
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