A few years ago a writer at a well known animation studio sent this memo to his boss. It asked the question, "If Jack and the Beanstalk were written today, at this studio, would it get approved?" The writer imagines that yes, it would be, but only if the following changes were made (below, click to enlarge):
Nifty, huh? My copy of this memo cuts off the name of the writer, but I'll gladly give him an author's credit if he writes in and identifies himself.
Hilarious! On a side note the "I am married to a cartoon princess in my mind" guy was a character I made up, I'm working on becoming a writer of some kind and the internet is a fun place to experiment. Your response was really cool!
ReplyDeleteThe reaction you can get to a stupid couple of paragraphs you write out of boredom on the internet is amazing.
ReplyDeletehttp://digg.com/comedy/Girlfriend_found_wierd_vids_I_made_of_her_PIC (500k hits!)
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/9ya0t/dear_yahoo_answers_i_am_batshit_insane/
http://www.gocomics.com/theargylesweater/2009/12/08/
ReplyDeleteHow is this for a Far Side ripoff?
http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2009/12/conversations-lawrence-of-arabia.html found a really good conversation about Lawrence of Arabia you might find interesting.
ReplyDeletewoa o,o i'm scared...
ReplyDeleteyou know that alway pissed me of in desney movies the hero never kills the villian the villian trips or something and falls of a suspiciously placed cliff.
Not being in the animation business, this reads like it comes from another planet.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing though, is that they miss the most obvious thing...
the beanstalk is a phallic symbol.
SHHHHH!! Don't tell anyone!
This is only relevant if you squint at it, but Jim Hill just posted a review of the new edition of Tom Sito's Timing for Animation. I wanted to draw your attention to this image, which says an awful lot about the way that movies are made these days. Here's an actor, here's a caricature of the actor, and here's what actually ends up on screen.
ReplyDeleteHilarious! I wish I could write that funny!
ReplyDelete"Does it have to be a beanstalk?"
In 7th and 9th grade we had a cool teacher who read us that "politically correct fairy tales" book and we had to write our own. I thought it was hilarious but the teachers didn't explain it correctly so nobody else got that it was making fun OF political correctness. I used to think this kind of thing is hilarious. I walked around for years in this anti-PC mode.
I forget what comedian said it, but he said that he'd like to see political correctness die before his time, but before that he'd like to see it suffer.
Anon: Your links were cut off...couldn't read 'em.
ReplyDeleteAbout the made-up character -- that may get you hits but you lose long-term credibility when you do things like that. You could have made a reputation in the fiction world by making a short story out of it, something that doesn't pretend to be real.
Jorge: PC certainly is a comedy killer. The 70s was an odd time. The same decade that witnessed the expansion of irreverant stand-up, also witnessed the unleashing of mind-numbing political correctness.
Maybe that kind of contradiction is standard in revolutionary times. I think of The French Revolution which was made to promote freedom and simultaneously created a police state with a warrior emperor in charge.
Thats true but I wouldn't want my real name connected to that stuff anyhow, was really just a joke.
ReplyDeleteI'm more into writing comedy than serious fiction.
Pseudo: Holy Mackerel! None of the pictures looks like the one preceding it!
ReplyDeleteThis is hilarious! and I really like the picture you've chosen too!
ReplyDeleteI like the last line "Can we make Jack a girl?"
ReplyDeleteHow about a black girl...better yet, a black girl in a wheelchair! Perhaps she's also blind! and an amputee!
Add another line: Can we take "stalk" out of the title? It sounds devious...lets change the title to "Jack and his beans, Talk"!!!
. . . like having Greedo shoot first.
ReplyDeleteLOL! I think they're trying WAY too hard to make Jack and the Beanstalk PC.
ReplyDelete"Please remove the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs or this will have no basis in reality and no one will relate to it."
...are you kidding me?! It's a fairy tale, its SUPPOSED to be fantastic and unbelievable. Plus Jack used the golden eggs so he and mom could have some money. (if I'm remembering the story correctly)
What do you think about this animated version of "Jack and the Beanstalk"?:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af5mstpUCHE
Also, please remove the offensive suggestion that Englishmen have a distinctive smell.
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder what they'd do to the Iwerks adaptation!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I especially noticed in that image, Eddie, is that the drawn versions are... not the world's greatest masterpiece, but certainly the product of someone with some talent for caricature. But what ended up on screen is toned way down, even compared to the original photograph.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of a dysfunctional system would drive a self-respecting animator to tone down Steve Buscemi?
God that is depressingly accurate.
ReplyDeleteLove the top pic, what is that from??
I just read it, and I have this to say: ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR @#$!ING MINDS?!
ReplyDeleteWho ever thought of doing a "politically correct" Jack and the Beanstalk needs a foot up their ASS!!
If Tim Burton were to do a dark adaptation of "Jack", featuring a Jeffrey Daumer-ish, bone-grinding giant, and it became a blockbuster cultural hit, all the note-givers would be requesting a "Tim Burton-ish" bone-grinding giant character, to prove how hip they were.
ReplyDeleteFreckled: I wish I paid more attention when I got that image off the net. I don't know where it's from.
ReplyDeleteRooni: It was a "what if" scenario. Nobody was actually planning a beanstalk story.
Anon: The duck vampire looks horrible.
memo: please refain from commenting on the previous memo concerning the jack and the beanstalk story.allowing people tp randomly express opinions on various topics is both dangerous and potentially offensive.in the future, we the upper corporate management would love to see the "theory corner" shut down, as we are not in the business of promoting intellectual debate.
ReplyDeletethank you
corporate stiffs
promise this will never happen.
Eddie,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your analogy of political correctness and the French Revolution.
There was a time where this country needed diversity and understanding. You had to fit into a certain box, know your place, and shut your mouth. God help you if you fought the system.
The 1970s were a revolutionary time all around. People started saying bull**** to society's roles for them, and when society fought them, they pushed back and pushed back hard. In entertainment, the cutting-edge entertainers got people to think by being "offensive" and by breaking the rules.
Now that people "get it", the pendulum has swung the other way. People are so petrified to offend anyone that it's easier to be politically correct than face a lawsuit or face a mob of - well, realistically 5 or 10 - angry people.
The other part of "political correctness" that bothers me is the double-standard of it. I watched a politically-neutral special on the double-standard of political correctness and how it's affecting the textbooks in the United States. Anything that favors left-wing thinking is praised, and anything that shows left-wing thinking in a negative light is euphemized (ex: "resistance fighter" versus "terrorist"). On the other hand, anything that shows right-wing thinking in a positive light is ignored, while anything that shows right-wing thinking in a negative way is enhanced.
Look, I don't want it to go back the way it was, where people who weren't white, straight and male were expected to accept being in a secondary role, and I don't want the media to go back to being the so-called "pro-American" propaganda machine. I just want society to start using some common sense.
Ha! Nice try, Eddie! That can't be real!
ReplyDeletePlease tell me it isn't real.
Holy crap, it's the Sleeping Giant from Tweetsie Railroad! That thing scared the piss out of me when I was a kid!
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was "surely, he's not still around," and sadly this proved to be the case:
http://users.conninc.com/photohost/tweetsie.htm
Talk about politically incorrect; the big attraction at Tweetsie back in the day was an all-out gun battle between injuns and the cavalry... one which left plenty of dead redskins in the aftermath. Fun for the whole family!
Le Republique! Eddie, you're getting political. I'm going to have to report you to the Commitee of Public Safety.
ReplyDeleteWhat I ask related with this post,if It is PC or not the "Jack and the beanstalk" vampire duck vid?
ReplyDeleteGott in himmel!!
ReplyDelete(personally, I prefer the version used in the X-rated animated feature "Once Upon a Girl!")
nice post. thanks.
ReplyDelete