Curious George. I am sure you are all familiar with the adorable, trouble making monkey from the classic book series we all read as children. Most of you also probably know that he has been brought to life over the past 10 or so years in various movies and a cartoon TV series that runs multiple times a day on PBS and their pay cable network, Sprout. Yes, I pay more for cable because I added the children's television package. I was raised on TV and I turned out fine, right? I mean, a bartender with a blog and thousands of dollars in student loan debt. What else could a mother ask for?Anyway, because I am a father and sometimes you just have to distract your kid so you can mop the damn floor or do some work for your bullshit freelance writing gig, Av has been watching a lot of the TV series. And by a lot I mean at least three episodes a day. Which is really six episodes because they pack two stories in to every half hour. Inevitably, I end up watching at least two of these episodes. By all accounts, the show is extremely tolerable in comparison to crap like Cyberchase, Wild Kratts and Super Why. Also, it is fairly educational. Teaching math and problem solving skills that my kid actually occasionally picks up on. But the more I watch the show, the more I am beginning to have a problem with The Man with the Yellow Hat.
The Man is George's, um, keeper? I think in the show they refer to him as his 'human.' He is the dapper yellow fella you see above. Whatever the case, he is credited with saving George from Africa- or something like that- and the two of them now live together. Basically, he is George's father. He's like a single dad with a monkey instead of a kid. They live together- alone- in some sort of fancy high-rise penthouse apartment with a door man. The show, as the books did, make it out to seem like George is a curious child and The Man is there to teach him about the world. It is a lovely friendship.
Here's the thing, though. The more I watch the show- and I get that it is totally fictional and exaggerated- but the more I watch the show, the more apparent it is that The Man with the Yellow Hat is an irresponsible nuisance who is a danger to society. George is essentially a child. He has the same mental capacity, it appears, as a five-year-old. This makes him a very smart monkey. It also means that he should not be left alone. Which he is. All the time.
A few examples. One episode begins with George and The Man walking to the subway. The Man is headed to work, George is walking him there. This means that once The Man gets on the train George is left standing in the middle of the city alone. Unsupervised. What is an unsupervised monkey to do in the middle of a city alone? Oh, that's right, go to the local Asian grocery store and 'volunteer' his services- without telling the owner. Instead he just eats all the bananas, leaves all the freezer doors open, knocks over the stack of paper towels and somehow manages to set up a Christmas in July scene in the front window without anyone else who works there noticing. For some reason he gets paid at the end of the day.
In fact, The Man is always leaving. Saying things like "I have to go help out at the museum," or "I have to go to the store." Meanwhile George is left with assignments like taking care of a cat (that gets stuck in the wall) or going to pick up donuts at the bakery which, now that I think about it, is one of my least favorite episodes. He orders 1,000 dozen donuts because he thinks it's fun to add zeroes to the end of numbers, and the dumb bakery lady just accepts it as if it were logical for a monkey to order 12,000 donuts. Then he tries to run away and the lady and her workers chase him to his house with a wheelbarrow filled with donuts and drop them off. Oh, no up front payment needed for your 12,000 donuts, we'll bill you. In the end, after The Man returns home and DOESN'T GET MAD, they give all the donuts to the fire department, where they proceed to eat all of them on the sidewalk in front of the fire station. Great. Just what I want when my garage sets fire, a bunch of fat fireman who just ate 4,000 donuts a piece.
The only episode I hate more than this is the one where George goes to see Hansel and Gretel and acts it out afterwards for his friend who missed it because of the chicken pox. I mostly just hate that one because I find musicals intolerable and that story seems dumb to me.
Right now we are watching an episode where George is left alone in the city to wander by himself. Not only has he managed to wander on to a construction site, he has also knocked over an entire f-ing building! And you know what? No one is pissed. No one. George is credited with finding a structural deficiency that would have made the building dangerous. In the second segment in this episode George- a monkey who can't read- is left in charge of the children's section of the library. Seriously? What is wrong with you people?
Again, I get that it is a cartoon and that regular monkeys don't have the ability George does. But can you imagine the repercussions of a man just letting a monkey wander around society alone on a daily basis? First of all, the thing would have been captured by animal control in a matter of minutes and either put down or taken to a zoo, and once they found out that this weird yellow man with a stupid hat was the owner, he would probably be facing some sort of charges.
I think we should all consider ourselves lucky that this is a fictional story intended for children, because if The Man with the Yellow Hat actually existed society would crumble.
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