The original 1980’s Harry Potter movie

Back in the 1980’s I was channel surfing and came across a movie on cable that was just starting called Troll. It was pretty bizarre and was about this Troll who was systematically taking over each unit of an apartment building in an attempt to rule the world. Something reminded me of it recently so I put it in my Netflix queue and the kids and I watched it. And it turned out the main character’s name was a boy named Harry Potter.

Not only was his name Harry Potter, but his name was stated quite clearly many times throughout the movie as he battled trolls and talking plants and befriended a witch that lived upstairs from him. So I decided to throw a little more confusion into the world by editing together all of those parts into a small collection of clips and put them on YouTube, claiming that it’s common knowledge that J.K Rowling based her Harry Potter books off of the original Harry Potter movie from the 1980’s. Here’s the result:

I blew 2 or 3 hours on this last night, just to hopefully confuse a few people before YouTube yanks it down for copyright violations. I’m truly a dedicated jerk! If you’re too lazy to read the description I put on YouTube for it, here it is:

I caught this on TV a few weeks ago and decided to Tivo it. I never realized that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books were based on an early 1980’s movie by the same name.

The story is quite different, taking place in an apartment building called Hogwarts. Harry is trained in magic by a neighbor lady named Eunice McGonagall. Harry’s parents are actually alive in this one and Harry’s father is named Harry too. His father went to a university called Gryffindor and you can see Gryffindor’s logo stamped on this ratty old hat he wears throughout the movie. (Notice he wears Gryffindor colors throughout the whole movie too.) Harry also has a sister who gets kidnapped by Voldemort. Voldemort is this giant muppet who he battles in the end.

Pretty interesting to watch and see what the original vision of the Harry Potter universe looked like! Look for it on cable TV, because it appears that it’s never been on DVD and the VHS is out of print.

10 comments

  • bwahahhahahahhahahhaha

  • I know this is a well established fact but you have WAY too much time on your hands! I was a little disappointed by the lack of rabid HP defenders, I expected to see comment after comment calling you names and telling you that you’re crazy.

  • darn! it’s been pulled. can you repost it?

  • LOL! The acting is just about as good as in the HP movies too.

  • So…your trolling, using the movie troll. Thats impressive.

  • got something wrong up there. The witch’s name was Eunice St.Clair

  • I found this post a hilarious one. I never knew this movie is about harry potter. Well you can say that J.K Rowling is based on old wizard’s book but you can see the difference of it in every angle.

  • Penelope, are you kidding? It’s a joke! Don’t you get it??

    I happened to notice on imdb.com last night that they’re actually doing a remake of Troll which was scheduled to be out in 2009, but now it looks like it’ll be 2010. And I guess Warner Brothers isn’t too happy about the idea of a story that’s very similar to the HP movies coming out with a main character whose name just happens to be Harry Potter. It looks like Warner Brothers may have filed a lawsuit to stop it, which is kind of funny considering the movie Troll came out more than a decade before J.K. Rowling thought up the story of Harry Potter.

    That would be really confusing if a new Troll came out, using the name Harry Potter. I bet Warner Brothers would pay them a lot of money just to not make it.

  • I for one am glad that you have too much time on your hands. I laughed so hard. I bet there’s gonna be a whole lot of confused people out there.

    Oddly enough I think I want to watch this movie. Kinda of a MST3K kinda thing.

  • Night night!
    Ooo creepy.

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