An elementary school crush means a lot because it’s often one of the first times you recognize these new types of feelings toward another person, or character. For Abigail, host of ‘The Manic Pixie Weirdo Podcast,’ it was after seeing ‘Harry Potter’ that feelings started to arise in her for Daniel Radcliffe.
We talked about that and more on this week’s episode. It also inspired me to take a look back at the movie franchises I loved at that time and for me, it was always ‘The Mighty Ducks.’ Did I care about sports? No, not at all BUT I lived for a kid’s sports movie. I also lived for several guys in the movie because hello, Banks and Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez (forever his name due to ‘The Sandlot’) were in them, but I leaned towards Joshua Jackson as he was the backbone of the franchise.
With that, I decided to take a look and explore other movie franchises that have spawned an elementary school crush or two in many of us over the years. Also, since we already talked about ‘Harry Potter’ this week and it’s a given that people have crushed on a number of actors from that, we’re going to omit them from this top 10 and let others have their time to shine, so let’s get to it!
Shrek
Just based on the fandom that surrounds this movie, I’m sure there are people out there who have a thing for Shrek, Fiona, and quite possibly Lord Farquaad.
Fast & Furious
What’s one thing kids love? Fast fucking cars. This is why ‘Fast & Furious’ has the power to get an elementary school crowd hyped. Do they always understand the plot of these somewhat ridiculous action movies aside from they’re about family? No, but the cars are fast and the cast is stacked with attractive people that have caused a first crush here and there to emerge.
Jurassic Park
If it’s not fast cars then it’s dinosaurs. I mean, the original ‘Jurassic Park’ still holds up and if you were a kid that wasn’t afraid to crush on someone insanely older than you, then you too found yourself harboring feelings for Laura Dern and/or Jeff Goldblum. Today, kids could be having the same reaction to Nick Robinson, Bryce Dallas Howard, or even Chris Pratt.
Lord of the Rings
There ain’t a little kid alive that drew fairies in first grade that didn’t see ‘Lord of the Rings’ and walk away with a crush.
Pirates of the Caribbean
The core three actors of this movie were reason enough to go into crush mode at any age.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
This is one of the true kid’s movies of the past 20 years to actually live up to the success and fandom of kid’s movies back in the day and that’s in part due to there being people in the cast kids could look at and form crushes on. Rodrick, hello!
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Who doesn’t have a crush on someone in the Marvel universe?
Twilight
Not my cup of tea but I could see a fifth grader seeing a sparkling vampire and being like, well…that’s the love of my life now.
Star Wars
Whether it was Princess Leia in the outfit or Hayden Christensen in those prequels, ‘Star Wars’ stays casting crushworthy actors for the fandom.
Batman
With a handful of Batman movies out there (and a cool ass TV show), this has given way to many crushes on both the hero and the villains.
Crushgasm 