A "Very Small Animal" Named Piglet

Piglet, one of the most famous fictional pigs in children's literature, made his debut in A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh in 1926. This "Very Small Animal" lived in house in a large beech-tree with an old, broken sign next to it reading TRESPASSERS W. Throughout these stories, illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, Piglet is easily frightened, but nevertheless continues to try to be courageous. My favorite adventure of Piglet's in the original book involved his being trapped in his tree during a flood. As he notes, "It's a little Anxious to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water."

The first of the Disney adaptations of Winnie-the-Pooh appeared in 1966. Piglet was absent, replaced by Gopher, which, according to director Wolfgang Reitherman, was believed to have a "folksy, all-American, grass-roots image." After protests by fans, Piglet was reintroduced in 1968's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. Disney still makes film and television programs with Pooh and Piglet, most recently Piglet's Big Movie (2003). There is a lot of Piglet merchandise out there, unsurprisingly. You can get a sense of the ongoing legal battle between the Milne family and Disney from a BBC article here.

Speaking of children's toys, I still have my childhood Steiff bear, identical to the growler model that the real Christopher Robin Milne had (see picture; Piglet is the very small animal in the middle, to the left of the stack of books). I too called my bear Pooh, although it hasn't survived in nearly as nice shape as Milne's. You can see the original toys at the New York Public Library, by the way. I must have seen the Disney films in the late 1960s, but I've largely forgotten them. I certainly prefer the original look of Ernest Shepard's Piglet and his friends.

The Little Pig's Ramble From Home

The San Francisco Public Library has an excellent collection of children's books, some of which are discussed on-line in an essay by Ruth McGurk (here). In a section in her essay on the moral lessons imparted by children's literature, McGurk uses The Little Pig's Ramble from Home (ca. 1850) as an example of the kind of children's book that urges youth not to put on airs. In this text and illustration, Jack Pig wears a wig and a top hat but receives his comeuppance when he discovers how pigs are "dressed" at the butcher's. A cautionary tale indeed!

Revising Roald Dahl (Or Not) in the UK

One of the great pleasures of the internet is having weekly access to Chuck Shepherd's long-running feature News of the Weird without having to pick up my local alternative weekly and without an editor cutting out stuff they don't think would fly with our local audience. In last week's version I heard of yet another instance of British sensitivity (perhaps over-sensitivity is a better word) to Muslims. Under the headline "We Must Never Offend Anyone," Shepherd refers to a March 16, 2007 report in London's Daily Telegraph of how the head teacher at a school in Huddersfield changed the title of a student production of Roald Dahl's "The Three Little Pigs" (from Revolting Rhymes of 1982) to "The Three Little Puppies" to avoid making Muslim children feel uncomfortable singing about pigs. As it turns out, Mohammed Imran, a spokesman for the local Muslim community, pointed out that Islam does not prohibit the mentioning of pigs, condemning this change as unnecessary and the school overruled the teacher. Paul Stokes' article about the "controversy" (so to speak) "Three Little Piggies Win A Reprieve" in the Telegraph can be found here.

By the way, Dahl's poem has some great opening lines worth repeating:

The animal I really dig,
Above all others is the pig.
Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
Pigs are courteous. However,
Now and then, to break this rule,
One meets a pig who is a fool.

The Energy Hog

Josh Levin has an interesting slide show on Slate today called "Smokey Bear Nation" (here) about the uses of animals to teach children. The site has some nice images and film clips, including Disney's 1944 poster for the U.S. Forest Service featuring characters from Bambi (1942) and the 1952 Federal Civil Defense Administration "Duck and Cover" campaign featuring Bert the Turtle, although you won't get much in-depth analysis of how and why images of animals have been used at different moments in history. Levin does argue that "for Smokey Bear and his animal friends, life is harder now that it was 20 years ago" as a result of the end of compulsory public service announcements that brought widespread public awareness of characters such as Smokey the Bear or Woodsy Owl. Perhaps a sign of how much has changed is the Energy Hog campaign, which creates a villain to loathe rather than a character to emulate. This energy efficiency campaign, launched in 2004 by the Ad Council, The Alliance to Save Energy, and a host of other groups, including Home Depot, is targeted at kids, who are encouraged to play on-line games to defeat the Energy Hog (left) and become a "Hog Buster." You can try to play the game "Hog and Seek" for yourself here. There are also tips for adults about energy conservation at the main site, www.energyhog.org. It's a rather odd campaign, one that plays off all the worst stereotypes about sus scrofa. It might just be me, but there's also something vaguely creepy about the way they've anthropomorphized the pig to create the Energy Hog, who seems vaguely ethnic. Weird.

The Simpsons & Pigs: "A Wonderful, Magical Animal"

Pigs appear rather frequently in the greatest of all American television programs: The Simpsons. In "Homer Goes to College" (1993), for example, the Springfield A&M mascot is a pig in a letterman's sweater. In "Lisa's Wedding" (1995), Homer gives Hugh Parkfield, Lisa's fiancé, the same pig bride-and-groom cuff-links to wear that he had been given by his father on his wedding day. There is also a suckling pig on a spit at the Renaissance Faire where the fortune teller kicks off the episode. Speaking of edible pigs, in "All's Fair in Oven War" (2004) Brandine creates the festive holiday Alcohog, a recipe that involves pouring whisky down a hog's mouth and garnishing the beast with candy canes." In "Simple Simpson" (2004), Homer is intrigued by a television commercial announcing that the finder of a golden ticket will get a trip to Farmer Billy's Bacon Factory. After buying a ton of bacon at the Kwik-E-Mart he only finds a silver ticket, which permits him to serve as a pig judge at the fair .

"Simpsons Bible Stories" from 1999 features the Pig of Eden, which exists to provide a never-ending supply of pork, wisdom, and droll remarks, including this bit of dialogue:

Pig of Eden: Today I'm featuring mouth-watering pork ribs. Tuck in, then!
(Homer digs into the pig's side and comes up with a side of ribs. He looks at them).
Homer (as Adam): Oh, I gave a rib to Eve and now she's gone forever!
Pig of Eden: One whole rib and still standing. Oh, aren't you the plucky one, sir.

In the classic "Lisa the Vegetarian" (1995), Homer hosts a barbeque featuring roast pig. Enraged, Lisa climbs aboard a riding mower, and drives away with the roast pig in tow. Homer and Bart chase after her, but she pushes the pig off a slope. The pig rolls through bushes, into the river, and is shot into the air by a hydroelectic dam's suction. Meanwhile, Mr. Burns is about to sign a million-dollar check for a donation to a local charity. He says that he will sign it when pigs fly -- just then, the roast pig flies into view. Burns is utterly shocked, but, of course, still refuses to donate the money. This episode features some great pigmeat related dialogue:

Homer: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Lisa, honey, are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: [Chuckles] Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Pigs are used metaphorically as well in The Simpsons, especially when discussing Homer's behavior and hygiene. In "Some Enchanted Evening" (1990) Homer has this conversation with at Moe's Tavern:

Moe: Hey, you can level with me. You got a domestic situation?
Homer: You might say that. My wife's gonna leave me 'cause she thinks I'm a pig.
Moe: Homer...
Homer: What?
Moe: Marge is right. You are a pig. You can ask anyone in this bar.
Barney: You're no more of a pig than I am. [belches]
Homer: Oh, no!
Moe: See? You're a pig. Barney's a pig. Larry's a pig. We're all pigs. Except for one difference: Once in a while, we can crawl out of the slop, hose ourselves off, and act like human beings.

I'm sure there are many more references to pigs than these. It looks like pigs play a major role in this summer's The Simpsons Movie, at least from the trailers I have seen. The most recent trailer implies that Homer has started raising pigs at home, as there is a silo in the backyard reading "Pig Crap." Marge asks him to dispose of the waste properly, and there is a cut to a scene with Homer and a pig driving to illegally dump the waste in a lake. I guess we'll have to wait until this summer to figure out the whole story.

Pearls Before Swine

Pearls Before Swine is a comic by Stephan Pastis that appears in many American newspapers. The title Pearls Before Swine refers to the admonition "Neither cast ye your pearls before swine" that Jesus Christ delivers to Peter according to Matthew 7:6 in the Bible. In Pastis's comic strip, Rat, who has a heightened assessment of his own intelligence, must cast his 'wisdom' before the Pig, who is, to say the least, a bit slow. You can find the current strip and and the last thirty days worth at the comic's official site here. I recommend a daily visit, esp. for those of you who don't get it in your local paper. I also like quite a bit of the merchandise at Cafe Press. I'll have to see if I can get Pastis to let me use an image of Pig in my book... Thanks to Liz Stone for turning me on to this back in the day...

The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913)

I've been reading Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913) today, surprised that I don't remember it from my childhood given how much I know my mom loves the Peter Rabbit stories. In the picture to the left, Pigling Bland is being given a license permitting him and his brother Alexander to go to the market in Lancashire. To make a long story (well, not really--it's a children's book) short, Pigling Bland loses his brother, winds up in the wrong county, meets a "lovely little black Berkshire pig" named Pig-Wig and escapes with her from Mr. Piperson's kitchen. While trying to get back to the bridge that marks the county boundary, the pair are stopped by a grocer, who realizes there is a reward posted for Pig-Wig's disappearance. This grocer figures that a pig with a walking stick can't escape very quickly, but while he goes to consult with a local ploughman the two pigs run like mad for the bridge and safety. It's a strange story, to say the least, one that Alison Lurie has argued (in Don't Tell the Grown-ups: Subversive Children's Literature (1990)) serves to stand in for Potter's own marriage and move to the country over her parents' objections in 1913.

You can find a host of Pigling Bland related merchandise, etc. on the interweb. One of the more interesting sites I found concerned the effort to turn The Tale of Pigling Bland into a musical last year. It appeared at the Toronto Fringe Festival, directed by Marc Richard with a book and lyrics by Suzy Conn and music by Mitchell Kitz. You can read about the production here. I wish I'd seen it...

The Headlong Career and Woful Ending of Precocious Piggy

One of the more remarkable children's books featuring a pig is Thomas Hood's The Headlong Career and Woful [sic] Ending of Precocious Piggy, by the Late Thomas Hood; Illustrated by His Son (Boston: Mayhew and Baker, 1859). In this tale, a pig leaves his mother to go see the wider world. He tries out a career as a landscape gardener, rides in a carriage, starts drinking, attends a ball and the fair, and buys a wig (see image at right) before meeting his end with the butcher. It's quite a dark story, one you can read for yourself here, as a hand-colored version has been digitized by the State University System of Florida.

Thomas Hood is perhaps more known in pig circles for his poem "The Lament of Toby, The Learned Pig," about which more later.