Curious About Curious George

I know it's not my usual thing, but I've been thinking about Curious George for a while now and really feel the need to rant a bit.

My kids love Curious George. I think that the original art by H.A. Rey is darling, and the original story lines are cute. As you may already know, the Curious George franchise continues, with new books drawn in the style of the originals. For example, Jack adores his Curious George Dictionary book, and I have to say, the artwork is very close to the original. And then there's the cartoon show....

My kids want to watch the Curious George cartoon every morning (and if they miss it, the shows are repeated in the afternoon). As a result, I've seen a lot of the episodes multiple times and have become a sort of Curious George expert. Almost every time I watch the show, I start asking myself a lot of questions about the show. Maybe someone out there knows the answers?

First, why does the Man in the Yellow Hat always give George so much responsibility? Does he not realize that a) George is a monkey and b) every single time he gives George any responsibility, it ends up costing him money? For example, today the Man in the Yellow Hat (MITYH, for short) told George to go buy a dozen donuts. Since George doesn't talk, the MITYH gave him a note asking for 1 dozen donuts. George, who can apparently read and write, added 2 zeros, making it 100 dozen donuts. Ultimately, the MITYH came home to find 1200 donuts hidden in his apartment and an extremely large bill from the donut shop. They didn't tell us how much the donuts cost, but let us assume they are about 50 cents apiece. That means the MITYH had to pay $600 to clean up after George's shenanigans. (He ended up donating most of the donuts to the local firemen, in case you were wondering).

Off the top of my head, I can recall that George recently knocked down a brand new building, destroyed the vegetable garden that belongs to a local restauranteur, filled the MITYH's living room with soap and water after spilling grape juice on the MITYH's brand new rug, allowed a neighbor's pet snake and two pet mice to escape while supposedly "babysitting" them (who puts a monkey in charge of pets that could potentially eat each other?), and wasted three bags of goods meant for a card party by using them to build a bridge for ducks. That's just off the top of my head, folks. Almost every time George does something destructive, the MITYH sheepishly pulls out his wallet and takes care of the damages.

I would really like to know what kind of a job the MITYH is holding down. He doesn't ever seem to go to work. In one episode, he had to submit some kind of paper to the people at the museum, and in another he brought in some robot models for a display at the museum, so I'm thinking his work must have something to do with the museum. Maybe he's a consultant? Who knows? Whatever his job is, it must pay pretty well because he lives in a doorman building in New York City and owns a country house somewhere nearby, and he also has plenty of the ready to hand over whenever George does something destructive. And George always does something destructive.

And that leads me to the real puzzler of the show. Why doesn't the MITYH EVER catch on that leaving George unsupervised is a Very Bad Thing? As I'm typing this, I can recall episodes where George peeled a great deal of wallpaper off of the MITYH's bathroom and let a lot of small items go down the tub, thus blocking the pipes, which he then tried to fix himself. Needless to say, George not only flooded his own apartment but also flooded the basement (he took apart a pipe and forgot to put it back together) and a few other apartments in the building. I'm sure that the MITYH paid through the nose to clean up those messes, too. When the building across the street from my office had it's basement flooded by a broken pipe, they had to call in water removal specialists with high tech drying equipment. It took more than a week to clean up the mess. I'm guessing that the clean up for that job cost at least in the mid 5 figures.

But week after week, the MITYH blithely sends George on errands and leaves him unattended in the apartment or country house. He brings home priceless art, expensive furnishings and important museum exhibits and then leaves them unattended in George's vicinity. The MITYH doesn't even seem to lock his doors or windows, because George comes and goes as he pleases. He opens his wallet and takes care of the damages and then barely says a cross word to George.

Here's some free advice, Man in the Yellow Hat. Get George out on entertainment circuit. A lot of people would pay to see a monkey who can read and write. You could use that money to defray the high cost of fixing George's mistakes. Heck, if you kept him busy on the entertainment circuit, he wouldn't have the time to damage so many things. Alternatively, take a fraction of the cash you're doling out on a regular basis and hire a Monkey Sitter. Or just lock George into the apartment when you go out. You obviously don't mind his destructive nature, but I bet the people who had water blown into their kitchens during George's plumbing fiasco don't feel the same way AT ALL. Just sayin'.