Articles from September 2008

My old­est son loves him some Curi­ous George. The books, the show (on PBS) and even the toys, but he wouldn’t buy one of those toys because it’s not a super­hero or a Planet Hero, but if those didn’t exist he prob­a­bly would buy some Curi­ous George toys.

He and I read Curi­ous George books prob­a­bly twice a week thanks to the library. Curi­ous George Goes to a Restau­rant. Curi­ous George Plays Base­ball. Curi­ous George Flies a Kite. Curi­ous George is Bored. Things like that. You know the drill.

And no one in this coun­try or world would know about Curi­ous George if it wasn’t for his ubiq­ui­tous friend, the Man With the Yel­low Hat (MYWH for those in the know). He has no name, no his­tory, he just exists as the Man With the Yel­low Hat. We do know a few things about him though. He is an explorer, as we know from the first Curi­ous George book. He also appears to be wealthy, hav­ing an apart­ment in “the city” and a house in “the coun­try” and because if this he is a man of leisure. There are no real world loca­tions in Curi­ous George, but one can assume that given the his­tory of his cre­ators, the hus­band and wife team of H.A. and Mar­gret Rey, who fled Nazi Ger­many to even­tu­ally live in New York City, that New York is “the city”, but I’m com­pletely and totally get­ting off topic.

The Man With the Yel­low Hat is ALWAYS wear­ing yel­low. He never wears blue. He never wears red. He never wears black. Only yel­low. And it can only be yel­low or else part of his per­sona and psy­che is gone, like a war vet­eran who lost a limb that can still feel it itch­ing when he gets back to “the world”. This weird char­ac­ter trait would make it dif­fi­cult for a nor­mal per­son to shop for clothes, but he does live in “the city”, so he prob­a­bly gets his clothes tailor-made at some hab­er­dasher, being a wealthy gen­tle­men and all.

And for the love of all that is holy, don’t lose his hat. Few things are worse than this sce­nario. As he said in one of the episodes of the Curi­ous George show, which I watch with my old­est, “With­out my hat, I’m just not…me.” No kid­ding, Man With the Yel­low Hat. Then you’re just “The Man”. A generic plot point in a children’s book. He. Is. Nothing.

The Man With the Yel­low Hat also seems strange just for the fact that he’s a strap­ping young guy in a city full of avail­able ogling females who lives with a mon­key. Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that! And he’s always leav­ing George by him­self, say­ing things like, “Now I’ve got to con­ve­niently go over here. Don’t get into trou­ble!” What does this moron think is going to hap­pen, George is going to just sit there? Every­body in the books calls the mon­key CURIOUS George. There is no “Mild-Mannered George” or “Dullard George”.

But all in all the Man With the Yel­low Hat seems to live a pretty cool life. He’s an explorer, he dri­ves a con­vert­ible, he flies a plane, he has a pet mon­key. My old­est would kill for that life.