October 05, 2005

• NOOOOoooooooooooooooOOOooooooo!!!!
• eh.
• I'm more disturbed by a link to USA Today
• This version looks more witless than George does in the book illustrations. Guessing The Adventures of George the Monkey-Unitard wouldn't sell so well, though.
• Well, I had no particular feeling for the books as a kid, so I'll be able to judge this one on its merits without having to hate it just for existing. At least it's 2d.
• You know what, this may be blasphemy, but I hate those bloody books and that horrible little bastard.
• Curious George is somewhat nifty.
• I have never read any. I will never watch this film. I'm rock solid.
• I never read any of the Curious George books either. Or Babar for that matter. Did I miss something really cool?
• Yes, yes, yes! He went to the moon, for heaven's sake! And he ate a puzzle piece and had to go to the hospital! Chyren, that definitely is total blasphemy. And you know nothing about his monkey parents. He might have been born in a completely loving monkey home. He might have...never mind. *goes off to take medication*
• Tintin went to the moon first, AND he took his horrible little French dog and an alcoholic English sailor with him.
• Hey Lara, I hear Curious George smells funny too. Tee Hee
• Don't listen to these IDIOTS, Lara. Your favourite fictional anthropomorphism is far superior to their favourite imaginary protagonist.
• Won't someone rid me of this troublesome Will Farrell..?
• There's nothing imaginary about Bagpuss, you non-Londoner Londoner!
• Emily Firmin - 1 degree.
• "Maybe he had an accident and lost his tail at some point." Jesus! Don't tell that to the kids!
• Looks like Gabe from Penny Arcade, which explains the witlessness.
• non-Londoner Londoner How dare you discriminate on the basis of my living sowf ov the riva. Just because you live in a disused cleaning cupboard in Liverpool Street Station is no excuse to knock Brixton.
• Actually, it's a pretty good one, quid. *knows nothing of English geography*
• Another smoking chimp. This guy apparently has something against Curious George and Babar.
• Babar was nice. Liked the cutesy animation. And hey, elephants! Baby elephants? What's not to like about baby elephants? I've never liked TinTin. Always on the run, looking all hurried and important, metting people in exotic places... and that scruffy dog, pah! I met George only thru a relative's kids, they had a couple of those books. One of them with a story on hospital or something. I liked the simple style and balance of the mischievous-looking ape and clueless human.
• I love Curious George. So do my kids. I think the major travesty of this version of George is that he has complete eyes rather than just black dots with no surrounding whites and pencil lines for eyes. For some reason that for me was always the distinctive characteristic of the character, and somewhat paradoxically made him more expressive. I'm sure Lara remembers tearfully as I do the heartbreaking look on the little monkey's face after he fell from the skyscraper and broke his leg in "Curious George Takes a Job." Though his smoking habit is distressing to me now as a parent. Not to mention the adorable way he HUFFS ETHER. (CGGTTH) Still, I can't hold it too much against him. He's a good little monkey, and always very curious.
• The theological implications are...curious.
• ps--in rereading the books to my son, I noticed something interesting. All the books have some formulation about George's curiosity, usually early in the book. However, there is a very clear difference between the ones H. A. Rey wrote alone and the ones he cowrote with his wife. To wit, in the ones he wrote alone, it's always: "This is George...He was a good little monkey, and always very curious." However, in the ones Mrs. Rey assisted on, it's altered to this: "...He was a good little monkey, but he was too curious." (emphasis mine) I think you'll agree that's a very big change in the subtext. In the first instance, his curiosity is simply a personality trait, and in no way conflicts with his being a "good little monkey." In fact, the subtext is (in my reading) that his curiosity is laudable, even if it sometimes lands him in hot water. However, in the second, the trait of curiosity is set up as antithetical to George's being a "good monkey." It's presented as a flaw--he was good, BUT HE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF HE HADN'T BEEN SO CURIOUS. I think that's terrible--I'd rather teach my kids that it's good to be curious, not that you should avoid curiosity since it sometimes leads to trouble. And in Rey's books, George's curiosity may get him into hot water, but it also is the occasion for his many wonderful adventures he wouldn't have had otherwise--performing in the circus, delivering newspapers and creating a floatilla of newspaper boats, taking a job as a window washer, having a movie made about his life, and EVEN BEING THE FIRST FREAKIN' MONKEY IN SPACE!!! To you, Mrs. Rey, I SAY GOOD DAY!
• Babar, ala wikipedia:

  Underneath they could be seen as a justification for colonialism, with the benefits of French civilisation being visited on the rustic African elephant kingdom. Some writers, notably Herbert R. Kohl and Vivian Paley have argued that whilst delightful the stories are politically and morally offensive. Others argue that the French civilisation described in the early books had already been destroyed by the Great War and the books were originally an exercise in nostalgia for pre 1914 France.

  Ah, troubled tales. I loved both Babar and Curious George (the eating-the-puzzle-piece-and-going-to-the-hospital-story was my favorite).
• Maybe we all missed some sort of subtext. The smoking, the ether, the "curiosity" to try new things...was it a metaphor for drug experimentation? No, I won't believe it. The puzzle piece was my favorite, too! I love the way they took the piece out of his tummy at the hospital, then George and the Man with the Yellow Hat went home and plunked that there piece, digestive juices and all, right into the puzzle to finish it. And yes, the eyes are all wrong in this one.
• 
• Aaahh, bliss.
• Blah... Worked on preview :(
• We were given a book from somewhere in the Babar tales -- it was very surreal and made no sense, really, unless you were already familiar with the previous ones. We never bothered to look for others in the series. Wot I recall: There was an elephant in it with ripply edges to his ears. All the other elephants had smooth edges to their ears. The ripply one was a full-grown elephant. But he never did anything to distinguish himself, which I felt was a kind of cheat. My older brothers were skeptical about elephants wearing crowns and morning suits. We all disliked the book. So much so, we gave it away the next time we moved. We never missed it.
• I can see funny pic, Lara. Hee Hee I say.
• Where I come from, all elephants wear morning suits. It was the crowns that really put it over the top of believable for me. But George, he was the king of doing it all, trying it all, hard-living, fun-having curious monkeys. He should have had a crown. Except that would have been silly.
• Don't forget that George also did hard time in prison for "fooling the fire department," and rather than waiting for the Man to come free him, staged a jailbreak via telephone lines and made his escape with a bunch of balloons--and this is DECADES before Gonzo did the same. That monkey is HARDCORE, people.
• Yeah, "Curious George Jacks Some Suckas" was way over the line, though.
• yup, I prefer the REAL George, not this upstart. And of course, this needs TP's tagline: MonkeyFilter: He's a good little monkey, and always very curious And Chyren is a little green freak, so there! :P phhuuttt
• With a huge gash on my head.
• Heh. You said.... Wait...on your head?! Ew.
• Picture in profile.
• Yes, its vulvariffic.
• OWSH!
• Told you to leave those bald eagles alone, OK?