Film Magic Trip

[His Name Is Frank]

MAGIC TRIP is a freewheeling portrait of Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster’s fabled road trip across America in the legendary Magic Bus. In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World’s Fair. He was joined by “The Merry Band of Pranksters,” a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus.

Kesey and the Pranksters intended to make a documentary about their trip, shooting footage on 16MM, but the film was never finished and the footage has remained virtually unseen.

This movie is most definitely relevant to my interests. I can't believe it's been relatively unseen all these years. I'm sure I'll have to wait until it's on video though. One horse towns like mine only show mainstream movies. Damn, I wish I could have lived in the 60s.

Trailer

 

[ricardo08]

Can't wait for this. Since reading 'Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' I've been quite fascinated by this story.

Featurette

You can rent the film on iTunes here.

 

[JoeTheStoner]

i was lookin for this onDemand, didn't spot it, keepin my eye out for it tho. im totally hip to the counter culture movement and i need the magic trip in my life.

 

[HighonLife]

left my copy of electric kool-aid acid test in Dallas County Jail

had only gotten it like 2 days before i lost/left it ( i had to wait to see the nurse n get housed before i could get to a phone again, and in the excitment of getting closer to the phone i just forgot about it)

hope whoever finds it/ reads it enjoyed it as much as me

anyways im quite interested in this movie

btw, for anyone interested, i was arrested smoking a bowl and reading the book in a parking garage stairwell, thats why i had the book with me (reading a book and smoking mare-ju-wana, yea im a pretty hardened criminal, what of it )

 

[lostNfound]

oh wow wow wow, you have no idea how excited this makes, I think I just came in my pants

Straight to the top of my must-see-list. I read the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test at least three times, first when I was 14 or so and a few years after that again.

 

[Bardeaux]

Wow this completely escaped my radar.

 

[JoeTheStoner]

peeped this last night.

fan-fucking-tastic. legendary, epic. man words can't describe how much i envy the merry pranksters. id give up my left nut for unlimited lsd and a psychedelic painted school bus. real talk fam when they showed the bus at the end all tore up and covered in moss i wanted to kiss it. anyways must see.

 

[Bardeaux]

Argh I forgot about this again. I'm looking for it right nao.

Also, this isn't television.

 

[Jesusgreen]

Watched this a couple of weeks back, really great docu-film, it was nice hearing their accounts of the story while seeing original footage from the time. Definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it already

 

[jackie jones]

Very cool. I especially liked the "Invention of the Tie-dye" part.

 

[Tranced]

Does anybody know how to find out if this is being shown at cinemas around the uk?

 

[Bardeaux]

I'm think it's out on DVD now.

Great doc btw.

 

[psood0nym]

On Netflix Instant, too.

 

[DexterMeth]

It's far better than I thought it would be.
The pranksters were dosing AMT before most people even knew what pot was.

 

[Bardeaux]

^And the police didn't think anything of it when everybody in the bus was tripping because it wasn't all over the news yet.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

^Yep. I watched it two days ago on Netflix.

Was much better than I expected. I loved the part when they were going on about "IT-290" (AMT) and the scenes when they got pulled over and the cops are just like, oh, you're making a film? Have a nice day...

 

[DexterMeth]

"All losers please drive over 65 miles per hour. Thank you."
lol

-I never even knew those tests (not the Electric Kool-Aid) were part of MK Ultra. That was pretty cool to find out.
Food for thought, the stories of people jumping out of windows from high rises because they took acid came from the case of one of the researchers that was involved in it. He was going to spill the beans or some shit, so the CIA threw him out a window, but first they injected him with LSD. He was struck in the back of the head before flying out the window.

Also, Ted Kaczyinski was one of the test subjects, but in one of the special smart groups.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

Oh, how I want it so

Apparently there were two of them? (the buses, that is)

 

[DexterMeth]

If there were two, the 2nd one was probably one they brought to Woodstock, in which Kesey did not even go to, because he had already grown out of those (2 WEEK) trip. -This is what I remember.

That bus is so awesome, with the skylight turret and all. I like the guy that was the most skilled painter in the group said he thought the bus looked the coolest in the original orange and black school colors.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

^Same. I thought it looked really good the way it was...but...I also agreed with him when he said something along the lines of "once we start painting it...we just didn't stop"

I mean, I can't really blame them. I love how the bus got stuck somewhere in the desert and their solution was to just eat a lot of LSD.