The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon was a
1976 film (made for television) starring
Ike Eisenmann of
Escape to Witch Mountain fame.
From memory, the film had to do with this small kid named Duffy Moon (Eisenmann) who was kind of picked on a bit. He and his best friend Peter (Lance Kerwin) started up a lawn-care business as a way to make some money during the summer (or perhaps it was after school and on weekends). Unfortunately, they were kind of muscled out (or at least intimidated) by a group of kids who seemed to have much better marketing acumen if not actual lawn-care skills. These kids were toughs and all wore these matching black tee shirts with the words "Help Is Here" (their company name) printed in white. Snazzy!
Did I mention that Duffy had a pet raven?
Anyway, somewhere along the line our friend Duffy picked up a book on how to do magic or something—something like How to Win Friends and Influence People but with some mystical mind-over-matter aspect to it. He read the book but yearned to know even more. Taking the bull by the horns he travelled to the distant Dagobah system—wait, no, he took a trip to "the city" to meet the Evil-Spock-bearded recluse author Doctor Flamel (played by Gilligan's Island's Jim Backus—woo hoo!). Concerned with Duffy's safety (and re-affirming the standard school field-trip adage "stick with your buddy!") Peter joined him on the trip.
In retrospect, the scene was a bit reminiscent of Kevin Costner seeking out James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams, but no baseball bat—this was a film for kids after all.
Anyway, so they kabitzed for a bit in Flamels cluttered apartment. The gist of the book and said chit-chat was that Duffy thought he could affect things by like holding his breath and concentrating or something—it looked like he was going to pass out if you asked me—anyway, whenever he would do this this funky chorus would play in the background
"...you can do it Duffy Moon!..." followed by this cheesy "boo-WOO!" sound as if the Captain dropped an avocado on his synthesizer.
Peter thought that Duffy was taking it all a bit too seriously and wasn't shy about saying so. There must have been some strife with the Help Is Here gang (I think customers didn't like the shoddy service provided by the H.I.H. gang and we're re-hiring Duffy and Peter instead) because their boss—one "
Boots" McAfee—was going to come to town and "straighten things out". Duffy, and all us kids watching, smelled a sound ass kicking a'coming.
In a somewhat hackneyed '70s/'80s cliché, Boots (Alexa Kenin) turns out to be a female! Gasp!—who saw that coming!—certainly not a school room full of kids weaned on CHiPs where the only motorcycle-riding thief who ever seemed to wear a helmet always turned out to be a long haired blonde woman. A entire generation jaded by Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada?—you be the judge.
Anyway, unlike CHiPs, there would be no freeway smash-up with that final car jumping into a trailer full of chickens. But, Boots did seem to be a bit enamored with her rival Duffy. The scene ran high with pre-pubescent sexual tension as Duffy tried to show off his special "You can do it Duffy Moon" skills when suddenly it started raining!
"My god, it works! We're sorry we doubted you Duffy and we... wait a second... Why, that's not rain at all... it seems that Duffy's mischievous pet raven has turned on the sprinkler!"
Much
hilarity ensued.
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Notes:
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The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon
copyrighted 1976
color, sound, 32 minutes
intended audience: intermediate, junior high/middle school, senior high/high school
writer: Thomas Baum
director: Larry Elikann
producer: Daniel Wilson Productions Inc./Time Life Multimedia
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0290131
based on librarian Jean O. Robinson's 1974 book The Strange But Wonderful Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon [ISBN: 0395288800 Houghton Mifflin, 144 pages - http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0395288800].