'The Three Little Pigs Revisited’: New Version With Recycled Houses and ‘Miscommunication’
Remember the childhood story “The Three Little Pigs”? Complete with animals, action, and some life lessons about not taking the easiest route, the tale has become a classic. And despite variations over the years, the core story remains the same. Until now.
A new version of the story is now popping up in the classroom as part of the the fourth grade reading textbook Storytown: Winning Catch 4. In that book’s version, the wolf has a sudden heart attack while trying to blow down the third little pig’s adobe house. The three little pigs rush to his aid, save him, and while trying to flee from him once recovered, realize that the whole “huff and puff and blow your house down” thing was a simple “lack of communication”: the wolf actually wanted to move in with the pigs and was testing each abode’s structural security.
Yes. Really. The big bad wolf is a misunderstood vegetarian who only wants to test the structural soundness of the three little pigs' house. I sent this to my buddy SCI-FI who quipped "That's so f'ing stupid it has to be real" - which was pretty much my reaction to this as well. The linked story has a two page excerpt from the new version. Reading it, it's really hard to tell if this is sublime parody or honest-to-goodness moonbattery.
It's supposed to be a morality play about not taking the easy way out. Like the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper, it's supposed to illustrate that hard work pays off, goofing off does not, and bad things happen when you shirk your responsibility. It is near-certainty that this ancient insistence of self-reliance is what brings these stories up for "renovation" (meaning decimation) - because we all know that we're supposed to rely on big Nanny government to take care of things for us - remember the mantra, we discourage self-help.
For the sake of our culture, I hope it's parody; however the pessimist in me fears it is not.
That is all.
8 comments:
Kinda like how they made Cookie Monster into some horrible thing that talks about eating fruit and vegetables...
Couldn't find anything in Snopes.com. It may be real unfortunately. :(
In the version that I tell (inspired by a post by Marko Kloos), the first pig shoots the wolf with a Mosin-Nagant and all three pigs live happily ever after.
Hmm. Since my version takes place in Texas, maybe that should be an AR-15.
Ditto on John's comment :)
That reminds me--I need to find the socialist non-cannon Disney Winnie the Pooh story that wound up in the books for my grandson, and shred it. In it Pooh is shamed into giving half of his honey-pots to 'the less fortunate'.
Hardest Job In The World: Writing for The Onion.
How the Hell do you parody today's world?
Heh..from the comments
"..and wolfy helped pay the rent with his welfare check, and the third piggy knocked up the first piggy so she could get foodstamps, and the the second piggy quit her job because welfare paid more and she wanted to explore her creative side."
Classic
If it's real I hope it was thought up by someone who thought it was ridiculous and funny and then some fools said, "Brilliant".
That way at least one person gets a chuckle out of it.
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