German bedtime stories.
Mana wasn’t feeling terribly well this afternoon and so she stayed for a while in our bed while Mum read her a fairy tale.
As I popped my head around the door to see that all was well (and to also report that Alex’s damaged finger nail had finally fallen off – nice) for some reason, I happened to mention that some German stories of this ilk were rather brutal and not so saccharine as some would like. This notion then got me thinking about an amusing Family Guy episode where this topic comes up… which I just had to find because I found it really quite funny – because it was so true.
Thing was, I saw this episode ages ago and at the time of broadcast, one of the reasons why I found it so funny was because I was certain that they were riffing not only on a genuine German tale, but also the illustrations that went with it too. A quick visit to the bookshelf to check and we got our answer…
Click to embiggen.
…A resounding yes, which made me laugh some more.
I do have to admit that they’ve switched the order of the images a little to make it work better, but all the same, it’s instantly recognisable.
If, on the outside chance that you’re even remotely interested in the book, it’s called Der Struwwelpeter by Doctor Heinrich Hoffmann. It’s out there on the interwebz.
Ah yes, saw the theatre production 3 times. I’m 90% certain the actor playing the Narrator also ended up playing Davros.
For those interested get the CD of the rhymns in song by the Tiger Lillies & the book version that has the original Inky Boys story. A tale of racisum change to for the show, & book on sale in the theatre, to The Bully Boys, that doesn’t make sense as they tried to ‘PC’ it up. The show & book was/is brilliant stuff!
There’s a theatre production? Well I wasn’t aware of that. I have to confess that I can’t quite see how it would work because the book is just a collection of very short, unrelated stories – unless of course the whole show is done as a progression of cautionary tales.
And yes, The Ink Boys story did raise an eyebrow or two here.
I’ll have to look up the show and the CD too.
Yeah about 8/10yrs ago. Was done with puppets & humans. It was very much like an edwardian thatre show, had the feel of one of those side shows with freaks at the fair. The music is sung in falsetto & quite creepy. Must be a clip on youTube.
Ah right, that makes sense. It does have a side show air to it.
I will never forget reading Original Grimms Fairytales ,yeah not for faint hearted never saw Disney the same again
Sorry to hear sounds like got your hands full
question where do you sleep ?,the Bath
Put it this way, the Grimm fairy tales are rather tame by comparrison.
There’s a story of a girl who burns to death after playing with matches and one of the illustrations is of her engulfed in flames.
Charming.
sometimes family guy strikes gold with these bits…lol
In deed it does. A real gem, this one.
suppose shock tactic to teach kids dont do it ? ,healthy childhood trauma?
Am just commenting to say I adore “Family Guy” and that this episode did make me chuckle.
I don’t think the book did me any harm. Being German, I owned this book (and we still have it now here) and I was fascinated by those stories and the rather gruesome illustrations. It certainly taught me a few lessons which would have been very beneficial to Purple in his childhood years going by the stories from his mum about what he got up to when he was younger!
Anyway, I love the family guy version and now I don’t hear the end of it at home.