[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ChittyChittyBangBang.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Our fine four-fendered friend!]]

Having noted the success of Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''Film/MaryPoppins'', its [[TheSixties 1964]] [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian Era]] {{musical}}, Creator/UnitedArtists sought three years later to generate similar success for themselves by hiring TheShermanBrothers, the same song-writing team that had scored ''Poppins'', to adapt another period piece into a big-budget musical extravaganza. The result was ''Chitty Chitty Bang Bang''.

Caractacus Potts (an English inventor [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent with an American accent]] played by Dick Van Dyke) rebuilds an old wreck of a race-car and makes a few slight improvements, such as giving it the ability to [[CoolBoat sail]] and to [[FlyingCar fly]]. With his kids, grandfather and the beautiful daughter of a candy mogul, Caractacus travels to the distant, vaguely ''mitteleuropäisch'' land of [[{{Ruritania}} Vulgaria]] (location shooting for the film version was done around the [[TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland Bavarian]] castle of Neuschwanstein and in the medieval town of Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber), where they get in trouble with the country's [[AristocratsAreEvil Evil Aristocrat]] leaders who [[ChildHater hate children]], but like their car (hey, it's better than [[TheAllegedCar a Lada]]). Naturally, they steal both.

The book it's based on was written by IanFleming. [[Literature/JamesBond Yes, THAT Ian Fleming]]. The movie itself was produced by Albert Broccoli [[Film/JamesBond of the same fame]]. Gert Fröbe, who played the Baron, also played [[RuleOfThree Auric]] Film/{{Goldfinger}}. Creator/BennyHill was the Toymaker. Oh, and the screenwriter was Creator/RoaldDahl. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

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!!Provides examples of:

* AccidentalAimingSkills: The Baron tries to shoot his own wife when she gets launched into the air and held up with a ParachutePetticoat under the pretense he's [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident trying to hep her down]]. But he does succeed in popping her dress and having her land safely, much to his disappointment.
* AllJustADream: All the parts with Vulgaria and the car flying (except the very end) are a story Potts tells to his children while on a date with Truly.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: To an extent, the Baron's birthday presents [[spoiler: which are actually Caractacus and Truly in disguise]]. You'd think that this is an example of an egregiously PaperThinDisguise... unless you already knew about [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcQqDqiheQ 18th century clockwork automatons]]. Of course, they were never able to imitate humans singing, but at the time it seemed like anything was possible with them. There was one that could play the flute, a mechanical duck that could eat and digest food, several that could write, and a chess-playing hoax so ingenious and masterfully crafted that it is still worth mentioning. This last example also demonstrates how it wouldn't have seemed so far-fetched that there might be clockwork creations that could sing and dance (although it ''was'' achieved in largely the same way).
* AristocratsAreEvil: Baron and Baroness Bomburst, the leaders of Vulgaria. Though averted with Truly Scrumptious, who is, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin well...]]
* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: The lone Vulgarian foot soldier following behind the cavalry, when the gates close behind him.
* TheBaroness: ''The'' Baroness. Unlike most examples, this Baroness is in fact an actual baroness. She is married to a baron and lives in the capital of a barony.
* BlackHumor: Toward the end of the film, several characters are thrown into the lake near Neuschwanstein Castle. If you know the history of Neuschwanstein (there were several tragic drownings in that lake), this is a ''lot'' darker.
* BrickJoke: On the way back to Vulgaria, the two spies are [[ThrownFromTheZeppelin thrown off the zeppelin]] when Baron Bomburst tries to lighten it. Later, we see the spies having swum all the way back, but because the Vulgarian people are fighting at the castle, they head back into the water to swim away.
* ChildHater: Having been invented by Creator/RoaldDahl, Vulgaria naturally has its whole culture built (very illogically) around this.
* ChildlessDystopia: Vulgaria.
* ChromaKey: Used to make Chitty fly. You can see blue matte lines in some shots, especially around Jeremy and Jemima's hair and inside the see-through trim on Truly's hat.
* CoolBoat: Chitty can float as well as fly.
* CoolCar: Guess...
* CreatorBacklash: For many years, Heather Ripley, who played Jemima, never talked about the movie because her parents divorced during its making. However, her attitude towards this movie has become fonder now.
* DawsonCasting: Truly Scrumptious was supposed to be in her twenties, though Sally Ann Howes was in her mid-thirties when she took the part.
* DisproportionateRetribution: All children are banned in Vulgaria because one child called the Baroness ugly.
* DrivingIntoATruck: Lord Scrumptious is captured by being tricked, ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''-style, into driving up into the back of a truck.
* EagleLand:
--> '''Spy 1''': But I can speak English and still be Vulgar(ian).
--> '''Spy 2''': That would make you an American.
* TheEdwardianEra
* EjectionSeat: When Baron Bomburst commands Grandpa to make the eponymous car fly, Grandpa presses a button at random that sends the Baroness shooting skyward out of her seat. (''See'' ParachutePetticoat, ''below''.)
* FatalMethodActing: Narrowly averted. Robert Helpmann's dancing reflexes saved him when he was riding the Child Catcher's carriage and it turned on its side too quickly. Helpmann leapt off in time, amazingly unharmed.
* FatAndSkinny: [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Those Two Spies]].
* FlyingCar: Chitty, obviously.
* GenreAdultery: Based on a children's book written by a man famous for gritty spy novels.
* GentlemanAdventurer: Played with. Grandpa Potts thinks he's this trope, but he's really just insane.
* GorgeousPeriodDress
* HaveAGayOldTime: "You'll find a slight squeeze on the hooter an excellent safety precaution, Miss Scrumptious."
* IfItSwimsItFlies: The car itself.
* {{Intermission}}
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Among Caractacus's not-quite-working inventions are a television antenna and a vacuum cleaner.
* LetXBeTheUnknown: One of the spies wants to go by the CodeName "X", but his superiors misunderstand it as "Rex" or "Tex." It doesn't help when the other spy tries to clarify that it's X as in "X and Bacon."
* MadScientist: Not merely Caractacus himself (who, as his father says, is "Eccentric -- definitely eccentric. [[HypocriticalHumor Can't think where he gets it from]]!"), but also a collection of rather grotesque inventors (and one telephone repairman) forced by the Baron to work on a supercar for himself.
* ManChild: Baron Bomburst, ironically. To the point that he's singlehandedly keeping the toymakers in business.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Believe it or not, Robert Helpmann, who played the terrifying Child Catcher, was extremely kind, especially towards the children.
* MeaningfulName: Caractacus Potts. Dick Van Dyke himself once said it was just a long form for "crackpot". {{Lampshaded}} in the case of Truly Scrumptious with the song that bears her name. ("By coincidence, Truly Scrumptious, you're truly, truly scrumptious.")
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: C'mon now? ''Bomburst''? (Not to mention "Vulgaria"?)
* NoOSHACompliance: The Scrumptious candy factory doesn't have handrails and has some of the boiling vats of sugar sitting on the edges...
* TheNoseKnows: The Child Catcher's huge nose lets him track people's scent.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Dick Van Dyke is in a movie set in England with English actors playing the other members of his family and he still uses his American accent. Of course, we all know what happened [[Film/MaryPoppins the last time]] he [[OohMeAccentsSlipping attempted a British accent]].
* OfCorsetsSexy: The Baroness
* OhCrap: At first, the children when they realize the Child Catcher has joined the battle. [[spoiler:But it then reverses onto the Child Catcher himself when he realizes he's outnumbered.]]
* ParachutePetticoat: Happens to the Baroness when she is launched from Chitty's EjectorSeat.
* ParentingTheHusband: Baron and Baroness Bomburst
* PercussiveMaintenance: When the giant music box that is given to the Baron as a gift for his birthday doesn't start up correctly, a swift kick from Caractacus gets it started again.
* PlayingGertrude: Lionel Jeffries, who plays Grandpa Potts, was actually six months younger than Dick Van Dyke.
* PlungerDetonator: Complete with the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' gag of the detonator exploding instead of the dynamite.
* PunnyName: Truly Scrumptious
** Also, Caractacus (say it really fast, and drop the "acus") Potts.
** Possibly {{lampshaded}} when Caractacus asks his children if they believe he's a crackpot.
** Ironically, despite Fleming's penchant for women with {{Punny Name}}s in his Bond novels, Truly Scrumptious was invented by Creator/RoaldDahl. Lord "Skrumshus" didn't have a daughter in the novel.
* PushedInFrontOfTheAudience: Mr. Potts at the fair lets this happen when he realizes it will hide him from the angry customer to whom he just gave a horrible haircut.
* RecursiveAdaptation: There was a {{Novelization}} by John Burke of the movie, scripted by Creator/RoaldDahl from the original book by IanFleming, since the movie script wasn't really close to the original at all. In it, all the scenes in Vulgaria are more explicitly said to be [[AllJustADream Potts' fantasies]] [[{{Escapism}} due to his inability to cope with the loss of his wife]].
* RubeGoldbergDevice: Pretty much everything in the Potts Household is set up this way, by Caractacus himself.
* RunningGag: Truly ends up in a boggy pond whenever she's driving by the Pottses.
* {{Ruritania}}: Vulgaria.
* ScarilyCompetentTracker: There's a reason he called the Childcatcher, [[TheNoseKnows His nose knows]].
* ShipperOnDeck: Jeremy and Jemima work very hard to get their dad Caractacus together with Truly.
* ShoutOut: During breakfast, Grandpa Potts tells everyone "[[TheMarxBrothers I got up this morning, and I shot an elephant in my pajamas.]]", making everyone say in unison "[[TheMarxBrothers How it ever got into my pajamas, I shall never know.]]"
** "[[NeverHeardThatOneBefore You've heard it before!]]"
* SickeninglySweethearts: Played with. The lyrics and tempo of "Chu-Chi Face" make it sound like the Baron and Baroness are this trope. But throughout the song, the Baron [[LyricalDissonance makes repeated attempts to kill her]] while she seems to remain oblivious.
* SinisterSchnoz: The Child-Catcher.
* TheSixties: The original novel was set in early-60s Britain, with the eponymous car being a vintage barn-find Caractacus bought because neither he nor anyone else in the Potts family wanted to be the twelfth family on the block with a black Morris Minor.
* SteamPunk: The movie has a steampunk sensibility, but Chitty is a 20th century gasoline-powered vehicle, and the mood is the very opposite of "punk". The novel is set in the 1960s and is definitely not steampunk.
* SwingLowSweetHarriet: Truly on her garden swing. Rrrrowrrr...
* ThoseMagnificentFlyingMachines: Chitty ''and'' the Baron's blimp. Early in the film, Caractacus attempts to build a set of rocket wings, as well. EpicFail.
* TooDumbToLive: The children are told point blank about the [[MemeticMolester Child Catcher]], ordered to stay put, and not to go outside no matter what...and they still go running after him with the call of sweets in hand. The worst of it is that they had seen the Child Catcher before and yet they were fooled by his PaperThinDisguise.
** The Child Catcher himself exhibits this at the climax. I mean really, thinking he could handle a whole army of angry children by himself?
* TrapDoor: Baron Bomburst tries to dispose of his wife through one.
* UglyGuyHotWife: The Bombursts.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The episode of the two spies dressed as "English gentlemen" ''may'' be based on a WorldWarII story in which two German spies were apprehended in the fen-country of Norfolk because (having been misled by Creator/PGWodehouse and other similar English authors) they had attempted to pass as Englishmen by wearing spats and top-hats, both unsuitable to the terrain and hopelessly out of fashion by the 1940s. Caractacus is reputed to be partially based on Henry Leland.
* VillainLoveSong: "[[EarWorm You're my little ]][[TastesLikeDiabetes chu-chi face!]]" Subverted, though, [[spoiler:since he spends the whole song trying to kill her]].
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