When it comes to good luck charms...
A four-leaf clover!
I've always had my doubts.
Come on, Andrews! Move it or lose it!
Or how about a lucky rabbit's foot?
I've always wondered how lucky it could be considering what happened to the rabbit.
Or what about wishbones?
Think about how many times you've pulled with all your might,
hoping to get the lucky bigger half.
Did it lead to luckiness?
But what if on one magical day,
you discovered a lucky penny that actually worked?
What would you do with all that power?
If you ended up taking things too far like I did,
what if all that luck turned into a curse?
I just wanna be You just wanna be
We just wanna be
I am gonna be who I wanna be
My autonomy
No, I won't cut my hair
And I'll wear whatever
I like it when I get to be myself
I don't wanna be You don't wanna be
We don't wanna be told what to do
It all started on a seemingly normal Saturday at Sport's house.
It's a rare, steel wheat penny.
Only minted in 1943 and 1944.
Found it heads up on 88th Street.
Only used it once.
Just did this,
and the very same day, I won the big game with a last-second shot!
Sport, do you think maybe you made that shot
because you practiced it about 50 million times?
I know you don't believe in this kind of stuff,
but this penny is definitely lucky.
Sorry, Sport. But I go by what Ole Golly always said,
"It's not luck, it's skill that gets you anywhere."
In fact, if Honest Abe could talk, he'd say...
Just spend me already, boy!
Don't listen to her.
It's 11 o'clock! Time for Gary and the Goon.
It was a sacred Saturday ritual.
Listening to the comic genius of Gary and his sidekick, the Goon!
Hey, New York City, did you miss us?
Yes!
Hey, kids. I'm sorry to interrupt your show.
I brought you some snacks.
Thanks, Dad.
Mr. Rocque is a writer
who quit his job at The New York Times about a year ago to write his first novel.
From what I could tell, being a novelist seemed to involve
resting your head on the top of your typewriter and sighing a lot.
Sport said he had had a bad case of writer's block,
but now the writing was going great.
I'll let you kids get back to your show.
I gotta get back to work. I'm on a roll.
Proud of you, Dad.
Thanks, bud.
So, Goon, I understand you've got amazing news for all of our faithful fans?
I'm growing a mustache.
Goon.
Just a small one, but nice. I'm thinking of giving it a name.
You do that, Goon.
Meanwhile, I'm gonna tell our fans
about the spectacular space-age toy we're giving away today.
What's round, black, and it can bounce as high as the moon?
It can't be.
If you said, "Super Ball,"
then you probably know what makes it so super.
It's made by scientists at NASA from super compressed space-age rubber
fortified with special polymers to do things no ordinary ball can do.
It's the ball of the future, and it can be yours if you enter
and win today's "Bouncing Around the Big Apple" scavenger hunt.
It all starts today at Carl Schurz Park.
She's making the noise.
You know what that means.
It means that Janie is excited.
And that the dogs in the area will be attracted to the high-frequency sound.
Hey, Pinky. Purple Socks.
What's up with the pogo sticks?
The rules say that scavenger hunt contestants
are not allowed to take cabs or any kind of private transportation.
But they say nada about...
Pogo sticks!
Deal with it!
That Super Ball is ours.
We got the skill, we got the smarts, and we got Sport's lucky penny.
Let's not go crazy, okay? I don't wanna use up all the luck.
Lucky pennies don't run out of luck.
I don't wanna take any chances.
That's why I'm gonna write down every time I use it and how much luck I use.
I don't care if we win or lose,
I just wanna write down every single thing Janie and Sport say about the lucky penny.
This stuff's even funnier than Gary and the Goon.
I thought that was you, Harriet.
What are you writing about? How you'll never win the Super Ball
because you've never beaten me in anything, ever?
Suddenly, I did care. Not about winning the Super Ball,
but about beating Marion
and wiping that lousy smirk off her lousy face.
Welcome to the "Bouncing Around the Big Apple" scavenger hunt!
You're gonna bounce like a Super Ball all over Manhattan,
solving clues that'll send you bouncing to your next location.
Goon?
I'm naming it Ronald. My-- My mustache. Ron for short.
Okay, thanks, Goon. And Ron.
Here's how it works:
Go to each location, get your card stamped,
get your next clue and keep bouncing around town.
First team to get all the stamps wins the Super Ball!
It's so beautiful.
Are you ready?
- Yeah! - All right!
Then here's your first clue:
"Bounce your way to a boulder, and you'll be fine
as long as you aim between 31 and 29."
Good luck, everybody! Ron and I will see you at the finish line!
Okay, 30 is between 31 and 29.
Boulder, 30. Boulder, 30.
Or 30 boulder.
Or 30 rock. Rockefeller Center. Let's go.
There it is! 30 Rockefeller Center.
Made it.
Congratulations!
So, are we the first?
- You are... - Yay!
...not the first.
One team got here before you.
Here's your next clue.
"This may sound crazy, but the facts are beyond dispute.
So bounce yourself to a building where the angles are all acute."
How is an angle supposed to be cute?
Not "cute." "Acute," as in, angles that are less than 90 degrees.
Like the Flatiron Building.
That whole thing is one giant acute angle! Come on!
Better hurry up, guys. We're beating you!
Not for long.
Nobody's stopping us now.
Driver.
Except those guys.
Hey. See you at the finish line.
We gotta tell Gary and the Goon that Marion's cheating with that town car.
She'll just weasel her way out of it.
The best revenge is beating her fair and square.
What's the next clue?
"Hungry from bouncing, the Super Ball wanted pepperoni.
So it went to meet a man who was the opposite of phony."
Any ideas?
Sport, we need your lucky penny. Break it out.
Janie, come on. Let's just use our brains.
Sure. You bet.
Sport, activate the lucky penny!
"Activate the penny"? This was something I had to see.
Lucky penny, I beseech thee. Activate.
Why, hello there.
Yeah! All right!
Welcome aboard, children.
Time for 100-foot-tall Abe Lincoln
to show Marion that cheaters never prosper.
After you've been in the hand of a 100-foot Abe Lincoln,
this was kind of a letdown.
Every time I activate it, I just do this.
What do you mean "every time"? You said you only used it once.
Did I?
A clue. Pizza. The Super Ball wanted pepperoni pizza.
Now we just need the opposite of phony.
Real. Not fake. Original.
That's it! Original Jay's. You know, the famous pizza place.
Still think Sport's penny isn't lucky?
I wasn't ready to give in just yet,
but what I saw next made me wonder.
Can't you fix it any faster?
Welcome to Original Jay's.
You kids in that contest?
Let me stamp your cards.
Ah, I got good news and bad news.
Good news is, you're the first ones here.
Bad news is, the clue comes with a slice of pizza,
and you got here so fast, it still needs two minutes in the oven.
I guess your penny wasn't so lucky after all.
Kids! You're in luck!
I forgot I put this slice aside for lunch.
It's all yours, but I might have overdone it
with the tomatoes.
And there's also mayonnaise on it.
Yum!
I had to admit, the luck evidence was adding up.
A magical pizza pigeon, Marion's car getting a flat tire,
a slice of pizza with tomato and slathered in mayo.
"Bounce downtown for a cup of tea, then find out what your future will be."
Tea? Downtown? Maybe Chinatown?
That's where my dad goes to get his tea.
What does tea have to do with the future?
Fortune-tellers!
Ole Golly took me to this place on Mott Street
where you can get tea and they tell your fortune.
One sec.
I gotta log how many times I've used the penny.
These can't all be from today.
Watch out!
They're catching up!
I thought you said you were more about skill than luck?
Less talking, more rubbing.
Well, do you think it's all used up?
The oven's broken?
- Yes. - Yeah.
Wow.
I had a little bad luck there with my pogo stick.
Totally not our fault.
But we're not giving up! No way.
Deal with it!
- You're not doing it right. - No, Wait!
Come on. Let's go.
"Climbed up high, he did not belong. Bounce to the tail of poor King Kong"?
The Empire State Building.
"Life is but a dream."
That's from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."
The Central Park rowboats!
"President Teddy Bear lived in this lair."
We learned about this in Scouts.
Teddy bears got their name from Teddy Roosevelt.
His lair is on 20th Street.
Yeah!
Only one more clue to go.
"Chase the Super Ball to a girl who's six"...
Oh, no.
Hey, look. It's the cheaters.
You'll never prove it.
We won't have to.
'Cause we're gonna win.
We've got a lucky penny. We just do this, and then we do this.
I don't believe in luck, Harriet. I believe in skill.
And a chauffeured town car.
Come on.
I'm gonna beat you, Marion Hawthorne!
Rub the penny, Sport.
Let's figure out the last clue and end this charade.
- No. - What?
We used it too much. I don't want it to run out.
It's not going to.
I saw your little book. You use that penny all the time.
How I use my penny, is none of your business.
It is my business if it comes to beating Marion.
And winning a Super Ball!
If you throw it hard enough,
they say it can bounce all the way to the moon. The moon!
I-- Look, I'm sorry, guys.
I have come too far to turn back now.
Hey! Give that back!
Hey, it's mine!
- Hey, I need it! - Give me!
I need it too.
Look what I found.
Find a penny and pick it up, and all the day, you'll have good luck.
See ya, suckers.
Man, you really bit the biscuit this time, Harriet.
What if Marion wins and uses up all the luck?
She won't use it. She already said she doesn't believe in luck.
Yeah. You didn't either until you did.
It's not totally my fault.
If Sport hadn't decided to get all stingy with his penny,
we never would have dropped it and Marion never would've stolen it.
I wasn't being stingy, Harriet.
I was saving up the luck for my Dad.
He couldn't get any writing done, and he was really feeling down.
But after I found the lucky penny, everything changed.
And now he can't stop writing.
I just hope he can finish the book without the penny.
Oh, Sport. I'm so sorry. I didn't know.
This always happens when it comes to me and Marion.
You kinda go kabonkers.
It's probably gonna be okay.
I mean, my dad's almost done with the book,
and we could still win the contest.
Like Ole Golly said, "Who needs luck when you've got skill?"
It was a tempting plan.
We were just one clue away from me finally proving to Marion that I wasn't a loser.
No. Marion's got your lucky penny because of me. I gotta get it back.
What if there's just one wish left, and she uses it up?
I'll be right back.
Think harder. We can't let Harriet win.
I got nothing.
I can't believe I'm saying this,
but if it worked for those guys, all I have to do is rub it just like...
- Put your thumb down, Marion. - What?
Please?
Good. Okay, I wanna make a deal.
If you give me that penny back, we'll quit the contest.
Plot twist.
Downtown Things will be great when you're
You guys are looking good!
It took a little while, but eventually...
We figured out how to sync up our brains by singing the same song.
See ya in the winner's circle.
So go Downtown
Things will be great when you're Downtown
Don't wait a minute more Downtown
If I get beaten by those ding-dongs, I will have to move out of town.
Maybe we can figure the clue out together?
We used to be a pretty good team once upon a time.
Get in.
- Can you scoot over? - Watch it!
Seriously?
There we go.
"Chase the Super Ball to a girl who's six and gets her kicks with funny tricks."
A girl who's six?
Could it be someone from a-- a book or a movie?
When we were six,
we used to get our kicks with funny tricks.
Remember when we copied Eloise
and we pushed every single button in that elevator?
We were so obnoxious.
Eloise!
That's it. Eloise lived at the Plaza Hotel.
Yeah--
A deal is a deal.
You don't actually think this thing is lucky, do you?
I don't know. Probably not, but it belongs to someone who does believe.
So anyway, we're kind of in a rush here. Things to do, contests to win.
Okay, right. See ya, Marion.
Good luck-- I mean, good skill!
Welcome home, Abe.
Thanks, Harriet. That comes from me and my dad.
I'd like to congratulate Marion Hawthorne,
Beth Ellen Hansen and Rachel Hennessy.
Ladies, you've bounced your way to victory and our very special grand prize.
I'm sorry, Janie. I just couldn't let Sport down.
It's okay. I probably would've done the same thing.
Or not.
Stand back, everyone.
Remember, this ball is guaranteed super.
Can anyone tell me why?
It's made by scientists at NASA from super compressed space-age rubber
fortified with special polymers that do things no ordinary ball can do.
I couldn't have said it better.
Goon, you couldn't have said it at all!
Don't listen to him, Ron.
Are you ready, Marion?
Yes, I am, Gary.
New York City, are you ready?
- Yeah! - All right!
Three, two, one!
Lift off!
I think it might hit the moon.
It was unclear as to whether the Super Ball hit the moon.
But on its return trip to planet Earth,
that newfangled ball of the future did something that every ordinary ball can do.
Bad luck.
I'll have to test it out, but I think I've got a little luck left.
Can you recharge it?
"Recharge it." Like that would really work.
Whether it's a four-leaf clover, a wishbone, a rabbit's foot, or a penny,
can any lucky charm really be lucky?
I don't think so.
I think you make your own luck by believing in yourself.
I'm sure Sport and his dad will figure that out eventually.
As for Janie, she didn't need a lucky penny to get what she wanted.
All she needed was a friendly sanitation worker, a five-dollar bill and a dream.
Watch out, moon.
I just wanna be You just wanna be
We just wanna be
I don't wanna be You don't wanna be
We don't wanna be told what to do
And I try my best to do good In the neighborhood
I smile real nice
And I strive to tell the truth
I just wanna be You just wanna be
We just wanna be
I don't wanna be You don't wanna be
We don't wanna be told what to do
I am gonna be who I wanna be
My autonomy
I just wanna be You just wanna be
We just wanna be
No, I won't cut my hair
And I'll wear whatever
I like it when I get to be myself
I don't wanna be You don't wanna be
We don't wanna be told what to do