2007? "The Hare and the Tortoise." DVD of a black-and-white film by Encyclopedia Britannica Films in 1947. In collaboration with Grace Storm. Length 10:22 minutes. Distributed by the University of Alabama. From Lake Orion, MI, through Ebay. April, '08.
I may well have seen this film when I was in early grade school. It is a photographic video with narration, using largely posed animal footage. The tortoise can stand the rabbit's boasting no longer. The owl asks the fox to lay out a difficult course, and we watch its key points, including the hollow log and the creek. The tortoise plops more than once along the way. The hare's friend the raccoon awakens him, just a little too late. Unfortunately, the film cuts off in the middle of the pronouncement of the moral! It is curious that the DVD producers reverse the title of the film on their DVD.
2006 The Hare and the Tortoise. Quality Information Publishers. DVD reprint of a 1947 film by Encyclopedia Britannica films. $6.99 from Quality Information Publishers, Asheville, NC, through eBay, Oct., '08.
This DVD presentation of TH in ten minutes has the unusual feature of using live animals in its black-and-white movie. There is a one-voice narration. The owl directs the fox to create a hard course. Both wait -- for a long time -- at the finish. The tortoise has difficulty managing the hard terrain, especially when it involves a drop-off to the next level. Racoon, skunk, rooster, and goose all get into the story. The moral gets clipped off at the end after only “Slow and s….”
1981 The Hare and the Tortoise. By Aesop. Illustrated by Arthur Friedman. Paperbound. Mahwah, NJ: Troll Associates.
I have had this book for twenty-three years, but there was a new addition in this eBay advertisement: story cards for a literary center. I was curious. The book remains the same, and I will include my earlier remarks on it below. In addition to the book, I received eight laminated pictures. They include a tortoise, hare, start arrow, finish arrow, sun, tree, bush, and a collection of four smaller animals, the latter presumably as spectators. I will list this item both here as a book and under audio-visual materials. I suppose that these very light pictures might stick to a felt background. Unfortunately, these illustrations are not particularly adapted to this booklet. Aesop keeps provoking new things! As I wrote then, this is a lively book. The two animals live together. The tortoise has great facial expressions. A great deal of time is spent before we ever get to the idea of a race. Perhaps the best illustration is the centerfold of the angry tortoise.
1900? 1 French card, "La Cigale et la Fourmi." Chocolat Besnier, de Peretti, Successeur, Le Mans. 2¾" x 4⅜". Amiens. G. Lecocq, Éditeur.
This card is fully different from the other I have from Besnier. It has children acting outthe GA dismissal scene. And the verso has Peretti succeeding Besnier in Amiens.
1930? 7" white plate from Sarreguemines, France. Inside a 1.5" rim there is a rendition of J.J. Grandville's GA, without the "JJ G." on the ant's grain bag. The front carries two inscriptions: "Fables de la Fontaine" and "La Cigale et la Fourmi." The back has "Fables de la Fontaine" and "Digoin/Sarreguemines/France." $40 from Denise Blin, Gurnee, IL, through Ebay, March, '99. Extra copy for $33 from Brown Pelican Antiques, Panama City, FL, May, '99. One extra exemplar.
This is a really beautiful little black-and-white plate. It presents Grandville exquisitely!
La Cigale et la fourmi Apparently we are in the fall. The ant in his scarf is rubbing his hands behind a tree, as leaves fall from the tree. I think the artist's intent here is to have the ant cold in his winter clothes, while the cicada is still doing fine in his light clothes. In any case, this cicada is a hippy with "Love" on his t-shirt and long hair on his head.
2005 The Golden Age of Cartoons: Aesop's Fables: Cartoon Classics from the Van Beuren Studio, Volume 1. Thunderbean Animation. DVD reprint of cartoons from 1930 through 1933. $8.93 from Thunderbean, Ann Arbor, MI., April, '08.
There are, as in Volume 2, sixteen "Aesop's Fables" cartoons on this DVD. There are also engaging bonus features, including, for example, a side by side comparison of a sequence from "Toy Time" with an earlier cartoon. I tried "Gypped in Egypt" and "The Farmerette" and found them fun but harmless. I had trouble accessing a number of the bonus materials.
1973 The Golden 1973 Aesop's Fables Calendar. Pictures by Mel Crawford. A Golden Calendar. NY: Western Publishing Co., Inc. Gift of Barb Markuson, Glenwood, Iowa, April, '15. Extra copy in poorer condition for $6.99 from Leah Fowler, Edgewood, MD, through Ebay, March, '99.
Very lively cartoon presentations of a dozen fables with surprisingly good morals. Thus in DS we learn "The greedy man cheats himself" and in CJ "A thing is good only if it is good for you." FM is unusual in having the fox frightened by the mask because it "looked so real." The moral here is "There is nothing emptier than an empty head." After the months, we have another page of fables titled "Animal Antics." There is also an account of the story of Aesop's life.A page`of 141 little tear-along-the-perforation stickers closes out the calendar.
