Scuffy The Vampire Slayer- The original story is about a tugboat who decides that he wants to leave the small confines of his bathtub to venture out into the wider world. Really, it's a story about the grandeur of the American west and the reaffirmation of the rugged individualism personified by American cowboys. Of course, at the end Scuffy is gathered back in to the arms of his original owner because the dream proves to bigger than he can handle.
That story doesn't sell anymore. If Scuffy leaves home it needs to be for a good reason. It's probable that Scuffy is himself turning into a vampire, or had his uncle, a steam ship of good repute killed by a vampire. Therefore, when Scufffy sets out into the reeds and the wild blue yonder it is not to assert himself as an individual, rather, it's to do what all great Americans (Lincoln included) now do, slay vampires.
Goldilocks and the Three Werewolves-The original tale includes some sitting in chairs, eating of porridge, and sleeping in beds. Now, the problem with the bear's response to Goldilocks intrusion into their house is that she gets away with it. Anyone raised in the era of mass bear killings like I've been knows that bears are faster than Cheetahs and can climb trees faster than sloths, which are slow. But anyhow, yeah, bear=death machine. The problem with the story is that these dangerous bears are turned into English house butlers.
The rewrite involves three Werewolfs coming home to discover the same thing. And trust me, by the time they get to the beds they've totally transformed and are stark raving mad. No longer will your children think it okay to break into someone's house and eat their porridge, no, they'll realize that such an intrusion ends up Brother's Grimm style. Aside: it seems better to be a vampire because you can turn other people into vampires while werewolfs seem like they'd be a more reclusive type animal due to gnashing and tearing of all people in their path. Maybe we could tie in some lesson about solipsism. Let it marinate.
The Three Little Zombies-The original story teaches us that it's best to move to the burbs and build your house from bricks and that pigs will eat just about anything. Anyhow, it clearly amounts to a lengthy ad for post WW II America's desire to build some sort of suburban paradise. What you got against sticks old America?
The three little zombies have a much different life. This time around we replace the pigs with zombies. Are kids are going to have to face these existential realities at a sooner point than we ever had to. Let's be honest with them about it. The first zombie builds his house out of some sort of macabre collection of animal body parts and is rounded up and killed by the posse. The second zombie builds his house out of a collection of failed dreams that he had back in his human life, like, maybe he wanted to be an engineer or something, but he didn't have the money to go to a proper school. The posse shoots right through his house built of dreams and nabs him. The third zombie builds his house out of proper stuff, the bodies of all those people that he's eaten. The posse is overwhelmed by the stench and by the existential dilemma of having to fire through friends and neighbors in order to kill something that is, let's be honest here, already dead. They'd all walk away feeling a little ashamed of themselves, and we'd all learn something about our relationships between each other. And then the zombie would eat them.
James and the Giant deficit-All the particulars of the story remain pretty much the same. James has these two horrible aunts who spend most of their time doing derivatives trading and loan swaps. Eventually this causes them to fall into bankruptcy. Then, as a result of the austerity measures that the aunts decide to undergo they start treating James poorly. And, when James says, "Hey, I wasn't the one speculating in the evening on E-trade(so pretty much verbatim the original) every night," his aunts will tell him to be quiet and then say something like, "We'd all be fine if it weren't for this huge deficit." And James, even though he be a child, would point out that it seemed to be missing the real point, which is that the family got into this mess due to the original trading.
Then he wanders out back and finds a Giant deficit. A much bigger deficit than he's ever seen, but once he climbs inside the deficit he finds all of these people inside with different ideas about how to fix the aunt's problems. Some of the people blame socialism, some the deficit itself, which was silly since it was the thing keeping them afloat, and others, the aunt's themselves for speculating and causing the whole damn mess. Eventually, as they are sailing somewhere over the Pacific and on their way to China, James will grow tired of all the wrangling over the problems and decide to become a politician himself. This dream will not come to fruition, and he'll wind up as a depressed bank clerk living in Kansas. I think it captures a lot of what Dahl was after without losing much.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar-We'd take this classic children's tale of a caterpillar overeating and turning into a butterfly and have it become a Japanese horror film with a human caterpillar that is really an allegory about the ills of a right wing government. Oh, I'm hearing word that's already been done. Well, maybe he'll just eat healthier stuff in our version.
Oh The places you won't go-Basically this is book that we're going to distribute to people who don't make much money, people who don't go to Ivy league schools and people with MFA's in creative writing. We'll put in a bunch of pictures of the White House, people in a hot tub in the Hamptons, traveling through Europe, having a live in nanny etc. Because look at what all that agitating about the 99 percent got those people...nothing. The key to happiness is reduced dreams. Hey, there can only be one President every four years, they're always looking for people to scrub toilets.
Where the Wild Things Aren't-This rewriting would be a change from the traditional story of wild play that Max engages in. In the retelling, the wild things are all in trophy cases and the woods are a parking lot. Max maybe wanders around the parking lot for a while, has a conversation with a bum about the possibility of getting a smoke and maybe global warming and then he goes back to bed. However, on the plus side, not only has he seen a more proper world, he's also gotten to bed earlier. And, like most adults, I know that you never regret going to bed early.
Charlie and the itenerant chocolate factory workers-Listen, I love the rags to riches story of finding the special wrapper and all that. But let's be honest with each other, capitalism is a degrading thing. It's time to teach our kids about the power of the proletariat. Maybe Charlie gets inside and starts talking to some of the Oompa Loompas and discovers they aren't weird crazy people made from magic but just regular joe's working under really crappy conditions that have totally hosed them. Maybe Charlie helps lead a strike and they overthrow Wonka and the workers gain the rights to the factory. Maybe we can do something to change this world instead of just eating chocolate and calling it a day? I always opt for the latter, but I'm hopeful that with the right book our kids can opt for the former.
Cloudy with a chance of Acid Rain-What's that, things that look like meatballs in the sky. Wrong kids. That's the massive cloud that forms when we're about to have some acid rain dropped on us. In this version the kids aren't really excited by the rain, rather, they are kind of terrified. And after the rain stops they'd probably congregate, sign a petition, and head down to Charlie's factory and get the thing shut down, because we all have got to live together in the proletariat not just you, Charlie!
Cinderella-Listen, I just reread Cinderella. I've got no major issues with the beginning plot points. I'm fine with mean step-mothers and sisters and all that. I'm even fine with Cinderella "wanting" to go to the ball. However, when things don't work out for her why does the fairy godmother show up? We want to teach our kids to be a little more self-reliant than that. The only people in this story with gumption are the sisters who hack off toes to try and fit in the shoe. They are the real winners because you' know they'll be successful in the future, hobble and all.
No. In the retelling Cinderella goes to the ball, but she just observes. She live tweets the thing. Prince, more like a frog #lamest ball of the year. And maybe people start following her tweets during the ball, maybe she's trending by midnight. I'll tell you what, she certainly isn't falling in love and waiting to be carried away. What kind of patriarchal bull-shi is that? No. She goes back home, maybe notices that the prince is following her tweets and does says something mildly flirtatious to reel him in. She is not waiting for a glass slipper though, she is updating facebook to it's complicated and posting pictures of her with mannequins made to look like boyfriends in different poses via Instagram. These kids need to know. Eventually she ends up with the prince or mildly famous, it's all the same in the end, right? Lesson learned.
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