Curious George
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- This article is about the children's book series by H. A. Rey and Margret Rey. For the animated film, see Curious George (film).
Image:Curious George.gif Curious George (full name Curious George Mason) is the protagonist and main character from a series of popular children's books by the same name, written by Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey. The books feature a curious monkey named George, who is brought from his home in Africa by Ted, the Man in the Yellow Hat to live with him in a big city.
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Premise
The stories often consist of George getting into some form of monkeyshines by being overly-curious, and the man with the yellow hat getting him out of it. George often learns a lesson from these adventures, which parallel the way young children learn about the world around them. Being children's literature, these adventures only result in lessons that a young person can comprehend.
Creation
The series was written and drawn by the husband and wife team of H. A. Rey and Margret Rey, starting in 1941. At first only Hans Rey was credited for the work in order to differentiate the Reys' books from the large number of children's books written by female authors. Later, Hans Rey was credited for the illustrations and Margret Rey for the writing. The Reys produced many other children's books but the Curious George series was the most popular of all. It has been re-edited continuously in the six decades since the first volume came out. The current United States publisher is Houghton Mifflin of Boston.
Series
The Curious George books have been segmented by Houghton Mifflin into a few categories: classic favorites, board books, and new adventures. Classic favorites include the original seven books, all written and illustrated by the Reys. Board books are stories and books designed specifically for small children. New adventures include books by the Reys that were either original stories or adapted from the filmstrip series, as well as new books "illustrated in the style of H. A. Rey" by Martha Weston. Around the world, the adventures of Curious George have been translated in many languages, and George takes on names such as Peter Pedal in Denmark, Nysgjerrige Nils in Norway and es:Jorge El Curioso in Spanish speaking countries.
Classic Curious George favorites
- Curious George (1941)
- Curious George Takes a Job (1947)
- Curious George Rides a Bike (1952)
- Curious George Gets a Medal (1957)
- Curious George Flies a Kite (1958)
- Curious George Learns the Alphabet (1963)
- Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966)
Classic Curious George books (in alphabetical order)
- Curious George's 1 to 10 and Back Again
- Curious George's ABCs
- Curious George's Are You Curious?
- Curious George and the Puppies
- Curious George Goes Fishing
- Curious George's Opposites
- Curious George and the Birthday Suprise
- Curious George and the Rocket
- Curious George Goes to the Dentist
Interpretations
A small handful of critically minded scholars believe there is a racist undertone to "Curious George". The book, written in France, tells of a monkey with human-like characteristics who is brought into civilization. The Man in the Yellow Hat must rescue the helpless monkey as he creates blunders in his new environment. Some see this as a metaphor for the "civilizing" of Africans into European culture. Template:Fact
George can be seen as a partial-human, partial-animal - he is a monkey, but he has no tail. Although chimpanzees lack tails, they also walk on their knuckles. So what kind of monkey is George? In "Curious George Finds A Job", George escapes from the zoo then proceeds to take on a series of menial jobs. The man in the yellow hat dresses in a style akin to that of colonial masters, and George is supposed to operate under his direction. But George is "just too curious" to do what the man in the yellow hat tells him.
This depiction of the man in the yellow hat has also been interpreted as an reference to the figure of "The Man," which was popularized by the black counterculture of the Civil Rights Movement, and which later leaked into rock 'n' roll and its subsidiaries (punk rock, alternative, new wave, etc.).
On an allegorical level, it could be (and has been) argued that when George lives in Africa, his life is simple and carefree, and thus representative of the womb; the man in the yellow hat is a kindly, but stern paternal figure who takes him from this place and into the real world: the big city is the place where we all grow up.
Kidnapping?
Some [1] [2] argue that George is kidnapped by the man in the yellow hat. From the first book:
- "What a nice little monkey," [the man] thought. "I would like to take him home with me." He put his hat on the ground and, of course, George was curious. He came down from the tree to look at the large yellow hat... [George] picked it up and put it on.
- The hat covered George's head. He couldn't see. The man picked him up quickly and popped him into a bag. George was caught.
The picture accompanying this text depicts George in a sack, only his head visible, with a very surprised look on his face.
- The man with the big yellow hat put George into a little boat, and a sailor rowed them both across the water to a big ship. George was sad, but he was still a bit curious.
In the illustration accompanying this text, George seems quite happy as he looks at a couple of passing fish; in his essay "Frightened George: How the Pediatric Educational Complex Ruined the Curious George Series" (Journal of Social History - Volume 39, Number 1, Fall 2005, pp. 221-228), Daniel Greenstone finds George's "kidnapping and imprisonment striking... because of the monkey's nonchalant response".
Other media
Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat make appearances at Universal Studios Florida.
Also at Universal Studios Florida is the kid's playland "Curious George Goes to Town". It has two areas: An outside wet playground with water jets, water guns, and giant buckets that empty their contents on guests below, and an indoor playground called the "Ball Factory" where guests can launch soft foam balls at each other or provided targets; Guests are provided with many oppurtunities to launch balls with various cannons or even fill large buckets above the area, which dump their contents every two and half minutes.
There was a series of animated television films made (beginning in 1980) featuring the character, which were then adapted into books themselves (making up part of the New Adventures series listed above). This series was produced and co-written by Alan Shalleck.
There has been a stop-motion adaptation of two Curious George stories, created with puppet-figures by noted animator John Clark Matthews (who also used a similar technique for his film of Frog and Toad Together).
A film, Curious George, featuring Will Ferrell as Ted "a.k.a." The Man in the Yellow Hat, was released on February 10, 2006. In this film, Curious George secretly follows the man onto the ship to the city on his own accord.
There is also a Curious George video game that was released on February 2, 2006, published by Namco and developed by Monkey Bar Games, a division of Vicious Cycle Software.
Use in satire
There is a comic book named "Clueless George" depicting the alleged misadventures of George W. Bush.[3]
Trivia
The September 6, 2001 edition of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart reported that Jews for Jesus had used Curious George in some of its literature, prompting a lawsuit from Houghton Mifflin (following Houghton Mifflin's defense of The Wind Done Gone, another parody-copyright situation). A representative of Jews for Jesus (according to The Daily Show) said, "It is curious, and perhaps a bit ironic, that Houghton Mifflin lacks an ordinary sense of humor."
The Curious George Brigade is an anarchist collective in New York City. Their written work often bears an image of a character in the likeness of Curious George carrying a cartoon bomb.
Most curiously of all, although George is referred to as a monkey in the text and is known as a monkey throughout the world, he lacks a tail, a characteristic which traditionally separates monkeys from apes. His actions and appearance identify him more as a chimpanzee (a kind of ape) than as an Old World monkey. The most likely reason is that the original authors, like many people, simply didn't differentiate beween the two, and just happened to illustrate him without a tail.
George has a paper route. He delivers a newspaper called the Morning Star.
Dr. Lena Y. de Grummond, a professor in the field of library science (specializing in children's literature) at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Miss. contacted the Reys in 1966 about the university's new children's literature collection. H.A. and Margret made a donation of a pair of sketches (including one with the mischievous monkey by a sign stating "Curious George goes to Hattiesburg") at the time. In 1996, after Margret's death, it was revealed in her will that the entire literary estate of the Reys were to be donated to the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at Southern Miss.
Curious George & Vivendi Universal
In 2001, when Jean-Marie Messier served as CEO of French media giant Vivendi Universal, he seized upon Curious George (a character of Houghton Mifflin Company, part of VU) as a perfect embodiment of the sprawling conglomerate's various activities, which reached as far afield as the French mobile phone operator Cegetel (Messier was an early proponent of entertainment downloads via mobile phones.) Waxing enthusiastic as he met with investors and the media, Messier couldn't resist talking up George.
Although never officially raised to the status of mascot, George did audition for the part in full-page ads that Vivendi Universal ran in the pages of such papers as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times during summer 2001.
"Wherever there's a curious mind to feed and imagination to inspire, you'll be seeing Vivendi Universal", the ads, featuring George's image, read.
But Messier's own reign proved shortlived. In 2000, Vivendi, the Paris-based utilities company, had merged with Seagram Co., which then owned Universal Studios, and [[Canal+]] to create Vivendi Universal. But by 2002, Messier resigned under pressure, and in 2004, Vivendi Universal Entertainment merged with NBC to form NBC Universal.