Monday, April 1, 2013

Anthropomorphic Advice

Welcome to the A to Z Blog Challenge! One month, twenty-six posts, Monday through Saturday. It’s gonna be awesome. Check out more information here, as well as all the other awesome people participating! (A huge thanks to Arlee Bird for the awesome challenge!)

And to kick us off, I decided, why not pick the most fun “A” word ever? Seriously, say it out loud. It’s a good time.

You want to do it together? Okay.


Just good, clean fun.

Plus, who didn’t love stories of such creatures (talking animals, non-living things, natural phenomena, etc.) when they were growing up? The Brave Little Toaster was where it was at, am I right?

It makes particular sense to take a look at anthropomorphic animals on this of all days. The day we all come together in the efforts to completely pull a fast one our nearest and dearest. After all, quite a few of our anthropomorphic buddies were tricksters.

It was through a series of tricks and deceits that Puss in Boots got his penniless master married off to a princess. My favorite of all of his nefarious activities was when he convinced an ogre who owned a castle to turn himself into a mouse. The Booted Cat then ate the mouse and passed off the castle as his master’s. Not very nice, sure, but come on, that ogre fell for the oldest trick in the book. The I’ve-been-told-you-can-do-this-but-I-don’t-believe-it-so-you-do-it-to-prove-a-point-and-I-trap-you? You’re better than that, ogre.

I’ll tell you that thanks to stories of anthropomorphs I have a really hard time trusting rabbits. How about Bugs Bunny? Was there ever a rabbit more accomplished at mental warfare? It didn’t matter if his foe were human or animal. Bugs could trick just about anybody. He often didn’t start the trouble, but he could always be counted on to end it. And then there’s Harvey, another tricky wabbit. Not only was he anthropomorphic, he was invisible. Talk about a double whammy. No wonder poor Elwood kept getting into trouble. And don't go following any rabbits who appear to be running late. I don't care how dapper they look with their vests and pocket watches. No good can come of tailing these fellows. No. Good. 

Ones Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose are certainly remembered for the ingenuity. Boris and Natasha may have been trained spies, but they were never taught how to deal with the superior intellect of talking animals. But, I mean, who is? A serious hole in the education of all humans. (Teachers, this is really something we should look into.)

So, good luck out there on this April Fool’s Day. I encourage you to keep an eye on your friends, but also on your pets. ‘Cause you just never know when one of them is going to decide to strike up a conversation to distract you from the epic joke they’ve planned.

*Cut to me running off a cliff with an ACME anvil whilst my turtles laugh their shells off*

4 comments:

  1. I like that you mentioned the Fairy tale version of Puss in Boots. There is all sorts of good anthropomorphic characters in Fairy tales, like most of Aesop's Fables.

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    1. And most of them are pretty tricky. We could learn a lot from them in the field of pranking.

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  2. *starts looking around nervously at his toy animal friends* Yes, this is a valuable point you've raised...

    :D

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    1. You're right. When anthropomorphism is involved, we're not safe from even inanimate objects.

      *Shifts away from finger puppets lining desk*

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