gotoAndPlay a nested movieclip?

I'm using AS2. On my main timeline I have a mc called parent_mc, inside that I have a mc called child_mc. In child_mc I have a stop on frame one, and an animation playing on frame 2 of the timeline.

When the main timeline reaches a point I want that animation within the child_mc to play... So on that frame of the main timeline I have...

parent_mc.child_mc.gotoAndPlay(2);

I also tried

_root.parent_mc.child_mc.gotoAndPlay(2);

I'm getting nothing. I tried putting a trace in parent_mc on frame 2 just to see if it would work and it did, so how do I go down one more level?

I made sure my instance names are all correct.

check out this link http://www.actionscript.org/forums/s...d.php3?t=22496

are there any buttons in your movieclip? I had a movie that didn't work and i ended up converting the first scene to a button and then it worked.