1992 The Lion and the Mouse. Children's Animated Classics Library. Goldstar Video. Freehold, NJ: Little Red Schoolhouse. $1 at "Every Thing's a $1," Kansas City, May, '93.
Three sections. The first two are introduced as "European Folk Tales": "Green Mountain" and "The Ass and the Stick." Each lasts about eleven or twelve minutes. The third is LM, produced in 1976 by ACI Media. It runs about nine minutes. Two mice, Leah and Mac, meet, get married, and have five children. Mac tunnels to put in an extra escape route and disturbs the lion as he comes up. The whole family chews the lion's ropes. Simple animated cartoons throughout.
1993 The Lion & the Mouse CD-ROM. Production Manager George Fleischman. Produced in USA. Interactive Publishing Corporation.
This is a simple presentation of LM on cartoon slides with the text on the screen highlighted phrase by phrase while it is read. A listener can also click on any word to have it said or on any object to see and hear the word. The reading is enhanced with simple musical background and some sound effects. The speed of the presentation is so slow that it is burdensome to any but those who are learning to read. The text is copyrighted by National Textbook Company, the producers of Leonardo el León y Ramon el Ratón/Leonard the Lion and Raymond the Mouse (1978/90). An audio cassette is included with the same sound track (listed separately under 1993) and so are crayons to color the printable black-and-white slides. To get the CD-ROM running, I followed the sequence Start/Run/D:/OK and double-clicked on the "go.bat" icon. Leonard and Marty are the characters here. The story is told in the present tense. The slides composed completely of Leonard's face when he is angry with Marty are excellent. "I don't make a good meal, but I do make a good friend" Marty pleads.
1993 The Lion & the Mouse. Production Manager George Fleischman. Produced in USA. Interactive Publishing Corporation. $10 at the Omaha Computer Swap Meet, May, '98.
This audio cassette reproduces the narrative of the CD-ROM of the same name, year, and manufacturer. See my notes there. The text is copyrighted by National Textbook Company, the producers of Leonardo el León y Ramon el Ratón/Leonard the Lion and Raymond the Mouse (1978/90). Leonard and Marty are the characters here. The story is told in the present tense. "I don't make a good meal, but I do make a good friend" Marty pleads.
1930? 7" white plate from Sarreguemines, France. Inside a 1.5" rim there is a representation of Grandville's "Lark, Her Children, and the Master of the Field." The front carries two inscriptions: "Fables de la Fontaine" and "11. L'Alouette, les Petits et le Maitre d'un Champ." The back has an indistinct "Digoin" stamp.
The illustration suggests the calm of the mother, who knows human promises and unfulfillment. It also suggests the anxiety of the young larks, who do not know how to put human remarks into perspective.
Over a mantel in the dining room of Kenmore, the estate of George Washington's sister Betty and Fielding Lewis, is a chimney piece known as "The Aesop's Fable" mantelpiece or chimneypiece. A booklet, postcard, photos, and brochures, gifts of Margaret Carlson Lytton, Nov., '92 and April, '97, present the delightful plaster work, done by a stucco worker whose identity is one of the great questions of American design history. Further, professional photographer Dan Fitzpatrick has taken some high-density photographs to help in investigating the visual history of the overmantel's motifs.
Legend says that it was George Washington himself who ordered the subject of Aesop's fables for the chimney piece and even that it was he who insisted on the inclusion of FC as a reminder to his young nieces and nephews to beware of flattery. In fact, FC is the clearest fable at the center of the piece.
1920? Ceramic plate of "The Heron" by "Jars, France pour F & S." 10" in diameter. Scalloped rim. Tan with green edging, script, and illustration border around a circular full-color illustration of the heron. "Le Héron" and "Fables de la Fontaine" on the plate front. $5.95 from Charles W. Turner, through eBay, June, '04.
This colorful plate has the heron standing on one leg in the midst of calm water. Two features mark this excellent scene. One is that there is no other creature present. The artist rightly shows how the heron is at the center of his own world. Secondly, his eye looks out at us with something like disdain. Disdain drives the heron in this fable.
