Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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| M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Tuesday, August 28, 2007 What's Under That Yellow Hat, Anyway? When I first encountered the Curious George books at the age of five or six, the man in the yellow hat always struck me as the very embodiment of authority. His appearance late in the book always signaled the end of fun, that George's day of reckoning had arrived. The shit was about to hit the fan. He was both nameless and hulking, and the combination made him almost terrifyingly godlike. What an idiot I was. When I became a parent, I expected to identify more with the man in the yellow hat, just as I had identified with George's anarchic high spirits when I was a child. But now I see that in order to truly identify with the character, I would have to undergo some kind of brain damage that would be considerably more catastrophic than any literary experiment could possibly merit. I'm perfectly willing to concede that the character has changed over the years. We've been deliberately avoiding the original, old-school Curious George stories, which I'm given to understand are barely-veiled colonialist screeds in which the man in the yellow hat personifies not only authority, but manifest destiny and the white man's burden. But can he really have evolved into the character we see today? The newer books almost always follow the same formula. They start when the man in the yellow hat brings George to some public place or event. This is fine. I have no quarrel with this. Trash and I love bringing M. Small to new places and letting him have exciting new experiences, whether it's the neighborhood Fourth of July parade or a balloon fiesta in Albuquerque. But here's where our methods diverge: Trash and I do not set M. Small down in the middle of a crowd and tell him to behave himself while we wander off to go look at something shiny. Yet somehow the man in the yellow hat always seems so surprised when George trashes a library, or wrecks a bobsled, or hijacks a dump truck, or accidentally steals a hot air balloon. Dude -- it's a series. By definition, this isn't the first time this has happened. Do you honestly think that telling a chimpanzee to "stay here and don't be too curious" is going to avert disaster? George is a damn monkey. He doesn't know any better. WTF is your excuse? But if the man with the yellow hat in the modern books is merely a clueless and incompetent monkey-parent, the current PBS series narrated by William H. Macy takes things even further by making him a dork as well. Yes, I know what you're thinking; it's not like you can make a guy seem cool in the 21st century when he insists on walking around in an outfit that makes him look like an assembly of yellow drinking straws. I'm sure the 2006 movie, which I haven't seen (so talky that M. Small got bored after ten minutes, which was twice as long as I lasted), went in the same direction, what with Will Ferrell doing the voice. But the animated series frequently has the man in the yellow hat doing things like conducting a "moth census" and getting waaay too into the kid's displays at the local museum (and not just because he nurses a secret crush on the brainiac scientist who works there, either). And of course he's not any better than the book version when it comes to leaving George to his own devices. His farewell catchphrase is "Be a good little monkey," which at this point has become almost like a rain dance, but one that brings precipitation in the form of destruction and mayhem. The other weird thing about him? He's loaded. He and George live in the big city in a bright yellow high-rise apartment with a balcony outside and a doorman downstairs. It's obviously in a great neighborhood, because it's mere blocks from the park and George's human kid friends can run around unattended on the sidewalk without anybody worrying that they'll do a Without A Trace film-dissolve right off the screen. Plus they've got a house in the country, fully furnished, that they seem to own free and clear. And yet the man in the yellow hat never seems to go to work. At all. Sure, he'll step out for errands -- or to have some of the same kind of anonymous broom-closet sex that keeps drawing him away from George in public places, according to one alternate theory -- but he's never gone long enough to be at an actual day job. Probably nobody would hire him in that getup anyway, but the fact remains that they have no visible means of support, despite the fact that they probably have to keep dipping into a giant slush fund set aside to pay for all the stuff George keeps breaking (which included on one occasion, I shit you not, a building). So clearly he's living on some kind of trust fund that's not only large enough to keep them both in bananas, but also large enough that he never has to suffer any painful consequences as a result of his monkey's activities (I keep waiting for Bill Macy's avuncular narration to include the phrase "fuck-you money"). Could it have come from his family? We never seem to meet any of his relatives. Perhaps they were all killed in the same horrific accident that left the man in the yellow hat unable to grasp that unattended monkeys get into mischief, unable to dress himself like a non-spazz, unable to go out in public without a towering, sunny chapeau to camouflage his massive head wound, unable to even remember his own name. So no, I don't identify with the man in the yellow hat. I would have to be stupider than I have been since I was…oh, say, about five or six years old. posted by M. Giant 9:40 PM 8 comments 8 Comments:
I have often wondered about much of this, particularly TMITYH's apparent independent wealth. The house in the country is what gets me on that one. I'm thinking that he's just one of those rich people who's described as "eccentric," which earns him the right to dress and act stupidly. Plus it's the city: no one notices anyway.
Since TMWTYH has referred to his childhood in the country, I assume he inherited the country house where he summered with his wealthy family, before they were killed in a tragic accident while he was off climbing Yellow Hat Mountain. He also inherited the NYC co-op AND got a hefty settlement from those responsible for his family's deaths.
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It is so funny you posted this today because we were watching the PBS cartoon yesterday morning, and I wondered aloud, "why does he keep leaving George alone?"
Have you considered that TMITYH might be...the president and spokesman for a lumber company? http://www.greatsouthernwood.com/
By Yes, yes, you're right, of course. But the PBS show is really the only kids show we watch that I can actually stand to watch, and watch repeatedly. Of course, since we don't have cable, our only other choices are Dora (which folks gave us on DVD - THANKS) and Elmo's vignettes on Sesame Street (since the hour long show doesn't yet capture our 2.5 year old's attention). But I actually enjoy Curious George, even after repeated viewings!
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My husband and I have spent many hours discussing this very topic. TMWTYH leaves his monkey home alone with his new rug while he goes to buy batteries for his camera. WTF? Or what about Bill, who seems to think that George is a "city kid"?
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I always thought TMITYH did something shady in Africa, when he first "adopted" George. Like, maybe picked up some ancient artifact and then sold it on the black market? And maybe he makes trips like that once or twice year, while pretending to be an academic and writing papers as his cover.
I'm sure no one is reading this comment thread anymore - but if you are - Is William H. Macy gone? I saw a new George ep this morning that I did not like. The narrator's voice was off. And Mrs. Renkins', too. And I caught the end of the new ep yesterday and thought the doorman's voice was off. I'm not happy! My daughter didn't seem to notice, but as I posted earlier, I actually liked watching this show. Today the new voices bothered me, as did the content.
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