Disney's 'Frozen' Hits Broadway - Hot Hit Or Not?

At this writing, Disney's Frozen has officially opened on Broadway and is in previews. There's no doubt it's going to make a boatload of money - at least initially. (Reports are coming in that it's already made back its production cost of $25-$30 in just two nights). But will it be a good show?

Why is it so daunting to bring Frozen to the Broadway stage?

Michael Grandage - Director of Frozen on Broadway

Frozen has the equally enviable and unenviable issue of continuing to be so ridiculously popular that it's both a guaranteed crowd draw and a great risk to make any deviation from the movie - whether that's costumes, songs, story details or structure.

But Broadway is supposed to be more than 'the movie on stage'. It's supposed to be a true, stand-alone theatrical experience.

You have to try to make something new. You have to start from scratch. The theme parks and the cruises have an obligation, in a sense, to do a beautiful book report of “What is the movie onstage? Let us bring that to life.” But our job at Disney Theatrical is to do something different. That’s not that one is not more valid than the other, but our job is to say, “How does this inspire something that’s purely theatrical? (Schumacher interviewed by Playbill, July 2017)

Everyone wants another Lion King success story, of course. What people forget about The Lion King, is that, at the time, it was Disney's most successful movie to date; bigger than The Little Mermaid, bigger the Beauty and the Beast, at that time. It was a monster hit with audiences and critics and the popular and sought-after merchandising added to the very real pressure to keep everything 'familiar'. (In the years since, Princess Culture and its associated marketing have kept the profile of the other two much higher and contributed to a greater 'long term stock' success.) To say "yes" to Julie Taymor's vision for The Lion King on Broadway was one of the riskiest moves the Disney Company, as a whole, made in a long time. The Lion King on Broadway now exists as a separate entity from the movie, and it's argued that this is part of it's continued staying power. Twenty years on, The Lion  King on Broadway remains a sell-out show. But it certainly wasn't guaranteed at the time. The Lion King was a risky experiment gone right, and duplicating that success has never happened.
               
Disney's Aladdin on Broadway, after false starts, and much criticism and worry, is finally finding its feet and is considered a (decent) hit. The Little Mermaid is considered as "not having translated to success" (to put it in company terms) and 'over-produced'. Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, which stayed closer to its source material in look and execution than Lion King but took a few risks as well, is also a "Broadway keeper" but still doesn't approach the success of The Lion King.

Fresh versus Familiar
So where will Frozen ultimately land? From all reports to date, Frozen is leaning more toward Beauty and the Beast than The Lion King, in terms of the Broadway experience, but it is still 'early days' and despite having full production tryouts, it's not unheard of for changes still to happen in the first few months.

Here's a reminder of the Disney Company's stance, when it was being developed and being handed over to a Director (twice), which, in some ways, seems to undermine the statement about Disney Theatrical above:

“ ‘It’s a big property for us,’ they said, ‘And we’d like it to not depart too much from what’s out there. But it’s over to you, how to reimagine it.’”

The biggest criticism of the show is that it is "obviously trying to straddle two worlds": that of including all the familiar and beloved elements audiences expect/want to see and that of trying to create a fresh take on the film and make it, its own experience. The problem seems to be that - at the moment - it isn't completely successful on either front, making the Broadway experience a bit of an inconsistent one.

As you can see from the collected images in this post, the promotional material and photos are emphasizing the familiar, that is, the movie brought to life (though clearly with better quality than either the Once Upon A Time experience or the Disney Parks and cruises Hyperion version). The attention to detail and scale of the costumes, sets and puppet construction and manipulation is excellent and very likely, exactly what the audience are handing over their big bucks to see.

There's an in-depth article from Timeout HERE that wonderfully describes in detail how the costumes were approached. We greatly appreciated this comment:

“The costumes from the film are iconic, and so I approached the reimagining of them with trepidation and respect. I was also very aware that this would likely be the first time that a generation of young fans of the film would set foot in a theater, so it was important to me that they had an experience that was both familiar and at the same time new and exciting. Certain looks translated very easily into real fabric and onto real bodies; others took more revision before they found their balance.” (set and costume designer Christopher Oram)

As well as this attention to their own research (as opposed to merely cribbing off the movie's):

“Bunad is the traditional Norwegian dress, and it’s the recurring theme of all the garments in the show. We were able to research it thoroughly through books and by visiting Norway; it’s still how they dress on festivals and occasions, and there are shops that sell contemporary versions of it and museums that have collections of antique versions of it, so you can see how it’s developed and changed.
...nothing is ultimately more useful to any design process then to experience the world in which the piece is set for real. So our trip to Norway, in the footsteps of the original filmmakers, was both a revelation and a reassurance as it confirmed both what the film and my many reference books had suggested.”
...“To experience the vast scale of the fjords, to feel the extreme cold of the mountains and to walk in the crepuscular half-light of medieval stave churches was the ultimate preparation for embarking on this journey. You get a sense of the scale of the place, the ache of the place, and the smells and the quality of light. On the bridge, Anna wears a mountain ensemble borrowed from Kristoff, based on his own Sami outfit. It’s a look new for her, created for the stage show: men’s clothes that are too big for her. When she realizes she can’t carry on in it, she changes into a skirt and cape, her iconic traveling outfit.”

Olaf and Sven 
There are some approaches, since The Lion King, that have become, well, standard, for Disney stage-adaptations, specifically, the puppet-actor-hybrid. It should come as no surprise that this is the approach for Olaf, Elsa's snowman-come-to-life (which his far preferable over the Theme Park-like full-character costume, as far as creating an emotional and comedic stage performance goes), and also for Sven the Reindeer (created by acclaimed puppet maker Michael Curry).

Reports are (so far) unanimous that both Sven is even better than the movie.

Olaf isn't getting quite as warm a reception all round, though critics agree the actor-puppeteer does a fantastic job.
(Note: there have been productions that have tried the full-body costume approach and it's come off as creepy, and there have been the Olaf-as-projection-special stage-EFX which have felt too removed, so the tried-and-true hybrid-puppet approach for Broadway was generally expected.)

Stage Not Screen
When asked, during development, about what differences the musical would explore, that couldn't be done within the constraints of a family friendly-length film, Playbill received this answer:

There’s a lot about origin. Animation is haiku. We can put up simple images on screen and you get it; you know what’s going on. And you accept a very brief statement as fact. [There’s] this notion that fairytale, if you will, sort of hangs over the film. What’s interesting about Frozen now is this idea that Anna is living in a fairytale world and Elsa is living in a mythic world. You think about it and you go, “Holy cow!” I’d like to tell you that was my original thought, but Jennifer Lee pointed that out to me at one point. She said, “One of them is in a fairytale and one of them is in a myth, and these two things have to crash together at the end.” It’s a big idea to think about.
We also ask, “What is the circumstance of Elsa’s power?” It’s another big idea to think about. Also, who are those creatures that they go see for healing? That’s the real story there: Who’s connected to all of that? How does that exist? But the biggest idea is about love and loyalty, and love versus fear. Can you let go and love? Can you exist without fear? What if your whole life were simply controlled by fear?

With all that in mind, there are some major differences between the movie and the Broadway edition, knowledge that potential audiences may be better off armed with before going, than being 'surprised' by them. (We are indicating any potential-spoiler differences clearly, in case we have readers wishing to avoid them.)
   

**STILL SPOILER FREE**

The Why and How (Director Michael Grandage's Approach)

“It’s a show that’s very much about a family in trauma,” says Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who with her husband, Robert Lopez, wrote the score for the film and added more than a dozen other songs for the Broadway version, which of course retains the Oscar-winning “Let It Go.”
...And it’s a show in which frostiness itself is almost a character.  (via The Washington Post)

Enlisting his partner, theatre designer Christopher Oram, to create the sets and costumes, Grandage travelled to Norway to seek inspiration for the frost-bound kingdom. “There was a guy who showed us 100 different kinds of snow!” he said. (via Telegraph UK)

**SOME SPOILERS**

(You may wish to scroll down to where it says SPOILER FREE)

The Differences (summary)
But what are those differences?

A nod to the movie's rock-trolls

• Caissie Levy (playing Elsa) and Patti Murin (playing Anna), the leads for the Broadway show think the appeal will be broader than the movie:

“There is something for everybody,” Levy said. “We have discovered so many more layers to examine within this story that can only happen in the theater. A lot of adult themes are explored. It’s not just for kids. ...With the addition of so much new material, we have the freedom to expand and to go deeper than you are able to in a film.” (Broadway Direct)

• The opening is also different: 

The show is (now) set to open with a group of creatures referred to as “hidden folk,” similar to the Scandinavian folklore of “huldufólk” but with more animalistic qualities. (Playbill)

• These “huldufólk” (basically Icelandic elves) apparently have tails too, though how they are played is unclear. (Reception has been mixed - very positive through to "creepy".) How the tattoo design for them, revealed via Director Michael Grandage's Instagram is used, is also unknown.

• So there are now no "rock trolls", as they are replaced by the "hidden folk" or “huldufólk”.

• The show now has twenty-one songs, more than double the film, including the original favorites, with the new ones all having been written by the original, Oscar-winning husband and wife team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. Those songs include "Dangerous to Dream" and the just-released "Monster".

Tryouts program for Denver - Not Broadway final

• "There’s a new duet between Anna and Kristoff called “What Do You Know About Love?,” while Anna and Elsa will both have new solo tunes, with “True Love” and “Dangerous to Dream,” respectively." (Nerdist)

• There are also some key staging and chorus details that can be gleaned from the interview with costume designer Chris Oram as well:

“We start the show in summer, with the ensemble in their light summer gear, and end it in the depths of winter. So they have a journey that’s physicalized by what they’re wearing. In the final sequence they are choreographed to function as a blizzard; wearing layered, bunad-inspired winter outfits in shades of white (also by Jennifer Love), they become the storm that engulfs the sisters at the climax.”

• So gone, too, is Marshmallow, the giant snow-guardian of Elsa's ice-palace, replaced, essentially, by the "Blizzard chorus'.

• The wolves that chase Anna and Kristoff (and Sven) are also out.

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS CONTINUED**

Any Differences From The Tryouts In Denver?

In a word: "yes".

In a review of the tryout run of the show in Denver in September, Jesse Green of the New York Times wrote admiringly about some aspects but came away decidedly mixed about the story, by Jennifer Lee*. “ ‘Frozen,’ ” he observed, “is going to have to figure out how to make the dark character less of a bore and the light character more compelling.” (The Washington Post)

*Jennifer Lee who co-wrote and directed the hit animated feature, also wrote the book for the Broadway version.

Broadway audiences will see a show that’s about 30 percent different from what was seen in Denver, Grandage and the Lopezes say. “A character we created we got rid of, we changed the opening, we changed the closing, we changed four huge numbers of choreography. And the whole reason is to make it more poetic, clearer, more precise,” Grandage explains.
“We totally rewrote the finale,” says Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Everyone agreed that “Frozen’s” teary wallop of a conclusion — a surprise final twist in the plot — had to land like a haymaker. It’s a statement about looking past pain, to an understanding of what’s most important in life, and remaining open to the possibilities of reconciliation in ways that you’re not always prepared for. (The Washington Post)

What the Critics Are Saying To Date

• Rather than repeat what's wonderfully collated elsewhere, HERE's a "round-up" of the good, the bad, the wows and the indifferent comments from critics so far, (possible spoilers if you've skipped those sections here, so be warned).

• Folks will be glad to know the "Let It Go" sequence doesn't disappoint.

• The sets, lighting and visual effects throughout the show seem to be getting thumbs up all around. 

**DEFINITELY SPOILERS AHEAD**

Audience Criticisms To Date

Hopefully some of these issues will be reworked or reconsidered in the near future, but for now, these are the issues getting the most negative attention:

• There is a much-touted addition of a Danish concept (and a song all about it) called 'Hygge', (pronounced HUE-gah) which translates as "enjoying life's simple pleasures", and has a 'burlesque' (!) chorus, which some audiences are finding ingenious while others are just baffled by it. Anna joins Oaken's family in their sauna (all having towels!) and gets into the 'Hygge mood'. (Kristoff does not - he stays on task.) Hygge, acting like the 'Hakuna Matata' of this musical seems to be key to the message and themes of the Broadway show, and while it's getting critical thumbs up for the music, it's not quite working for all audiences, possibly because of the burlesque staging (towels!) and dischord (so to speak) with where the story arc is at, at the time it's sung.

• The issues might be more explicit than audiences expect, such as Elsa's exploration of her insecurities being so deep she appears to contemplate suicide during the song 'Monster' (something which the staging and performance apparently indicate).

• Elsa's pantsuit (below) has been advertised as making her "more powerful" - that hasn't gone over well.

• Elsa has a new - white - dress because, er... oh right: ka-ching!

• Anna has climbing leathers, at least for a while, but there are some concerns about consent, in how Anna is (apparently) manhandled into getting out of her party dress and into these travel clothes, then dragged around and treated like a complete klutz and only accidentally competent, all played for laughs and during a great song... hmm. There is concern emerging from audiences so far that Kristoff takes away Anna's agency in many different ways, treating Anna as little more than a spoiled girl, with her being more a match for Olaf (essentially a child) than himself.

• It would also seem the biggest 'moment' is more about the Anna and Kristoff kiss at the end than any note belonging to the sisters, which is a shame. There is barely any interaction between Anna and Elsa, post Anna-thawing. To top off this odd emphasis, the closing song reprise/medley is a Love Is An Open Door/True Love (new song) combo. This is one spot where we would have expected a joyful variation or reprise of Do You Want To Build A Snowman. Currently, this seems to be a missed opportunity.

• One of the subtle and odd differences is that in exploring Elsa's insecurity in more depth and in beefing up Anna's comedy in the manner they have, the women in the show now seem 'less',, in other words, weak. This might be the biggest and most worrying difference we've heard rumor of to-date - worrying also because the differences are subtly enrobed in what has been a girl-power and sisterhood 'anthem' to many, from the moment the movie hit screens. The sadly insidious and weakening differences may very well slide by unnoticed to the very people who should be planting that flag even more strongly for this 'new generation of theater-goers'.

    

**SPOILER FREE ONCE MORE**

The Official Trailer
Here's the official trailer for the Broadway Show which gives a nice and non-spoilery overview of the production in rehearsal (please note, this was made before the allegations against the President of the Disney Theatrical Productions [DTP], Thomas Schumacher, so he makes appearances throughout the video):

Would We Go To See It?
YES!

While it doesn't sound perfect (and has some issues that are quite concerning to us), it looks and sounds like an amazing, high-quality show and a different enough experience from the movie to make it, it's own thing. We hope it continues to evolve and refine itself as it begins its run, but there is a lot of beautiful work here in so many ways and on so many levels, we would support it. And then let you know what we truly thought. ;)

(Below are the first offical curtain call photos Disney has released:)
 

Movie Review: 'Trolls' Will Brighten Your Day In the Best Way

"Life isn't all cupcakes and rainbows.."

Approaching that strange season of random pupil-free days and the impending holiday chaos, our FTNH (Fairy Tale New Hound) found herself escorting some children to the only G-rated movie currently in the offering, Dreamworks Trolls. Here's her review:

If you don't know anything about this movie, it's quite a ridiculous set-up. Remember those ugly little troll dolls with the bright and colorful hair that kids collected in the eighties? It's based on that toy franchise. No story, no mythology to tap into, just those dolls. The only good thing I could think about it's existence was that a lot of animators and artists were going to be able to feed their families for that coming year, but it turns out they were doing more than most people realized.

I fully expected to plaster an insincere smile on my face and grit my teeth for 90 minutes, enduring an overload of glitter, rainbow colors and ridiculously upbeat songs, and for the first 10 minutes, that's pretty much where I was. Until I realized 5 minutes later that I wasn't gritting my teeth anymore. Instead I was genuinely enjoying myself, along with the kids who were delighted by the mix of textures and creatures and, yes, riotous color. I wasn't even cringing (much) at the remix of Peer Gynt's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" - and believe me, I was primed for outrage. (In the Hall Of the Mountain King, from the Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg, was one of those brilliant pieces of classical music I listened over and over as a child, sitting rapt in front of my father's speakers, imagining the story sequence of a brave hero invading the mountain fortress of the Goblin King.)

How did this happen? I'm not completely sure but Dreamworks did something right (and sadly underrated) with this movie. They took a serious look at how to be happy, did a great job of explaining how to get there, and they made putting it so simply look deceptively easy.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it followed some fairy tale principles. The peril is real (the trolls are in serious danger of being eaten) and that danger, though never graphic so as not to be suitable for young children, is never dumbed down or downgraded so as to be confusing. Being eaten means dying and never coming back, and that loss is real to the characters - no magical resurrection or going back in time to fix it. It's something kids understand and appreciate, making surviving - and a resolution - very satisfying for them.

The story premise is straightforward: trolls - who are the epitome of happiness, (and teeny, think insect size) are being eaten by the 'Bergens' (think ogres and house sized) every 'trollstice, as that's the only way the Bergen's can experience happiness - to eat the incarnation of it, literally. At the beginning the trolls are prisoners, and the Bergens are greedily looking forward to Trollstice, which happens to be the very next day, and to eating a troll and feeling happy again. The trolls make a run for it and escape into hiding, leaving the Bergens extremely unhappy, kicking out the power-hungry chef in disgrace for losing them all, and leaving the Bergen boy prince who was about to eat his very first troll, completely miserable, never expecting to experience happiness in his entire life... Cut to 20 years later and the Bergen prince is now and unhappy king and the King of the trolls daughter is soon to become queen. Queen-to-be Poppy wants to throw the biggest party of all time, against the advice of the one gloomy troll (called Branch), who believes they're still in danger. She does anyway, betrays their location to the disgraced chef and many trolls are captured and taken to the royal kitchen of Bergen town. Poppy, who managed to escape "by a hair", sets out optimistically, and ridiculously under-prepared, to save her friends and people, and discovers life is not all "cupcakes and rainbows".

I kind of love that the movie takes a real tongue-in-cheek approach to the use of color, glitter, optimism and scrapbooking, while at the same time celebrating those things. Take a look at the trailer:

Along with the undertones of troll and ogre mythology, which were very subtly sprinkled throughout the movie from start to finish, one fairy tale took center stage but in quite a different way. Cinderella motifs were immediately identifiable to the kids with me but the focus wasn't on 'the Cinderella' (who was not the main character by the way) having her dreams come true or being center stage when recognized by her prince. There are bigger, more important issues at stake at that point in the story and the Cinderella character is blessedly free of the 'where's my happy ending' focus. It was refreshing.

All the technical aspects meet today's high standards and, with a world of fabric and doll making materials, it's a pretty wonderful playground for the imagination - something the animators obviously had a lot of fun with. Backstory and occasional narration pops out in little scrapbooking sequences, which could easily be annoying if they weren't so funny. And yes - it's funny - wonderfully, innocently, purely funny, without all that self-referencing studio business that seems to be standard of animation these days.

A note should be made about the music, which was also done far better than I could have predicted. Again, I fully expected to be teeny-bopped to within an inch of my tolerance, (and admittedly the obnoxious party scene - which was supposed to be obnoxious, came close), but, after the first 15 minutes, I stopped cringing with every first bar of a new tune and instead found the pacing and treatment of the music throughout to be sensitively done, to the point that it even made for some extremely touching moments. By itself the soundtrack might be a bit much to take, but in context, it works far better than I could have anticipated.

While clearly aimed at including young children, I keep reading about adults who have been taken by surprise at how much they enjoyed the movie, and blown away by how wonderful the message is. The movie is unashamedly bright, positive and happy (something I can usually only take in small doses) and celebrates the enjoyment of beauty, song and dance, as well as other less obvious things, like the wonder in the world and the power of friendship. Though the 'turnaround' near the end was necessarily simplistic, by that stage I was happy to let it slide and enjoy the characters enjoying their hard won happiness.

If I had known what this movie was truly like, I would have collected every worried child I knew on November 10 and taken them to see this movie. There are a lot of people who could use a dose of this message right now, and its power to restore a little hope and happiness shouldn't be underestimated. Instead, we should be sharing it. (And if you have cupcakes, share those too.)

"Stardust" To Air Via BBC Radio (& Gaiman's Many Other Projects!)

One of a number of covers for Vertigo comics by Charles Vess for Neil Gaiman's Stardust

Neil Gaiman is one busy and prolific creator, there is no doubt, but even while he is busy promoting no less than two new books and six re-releases with new artwork, (all of which you can see below and will be of great interest to fairy tale folk), as well as giving his stamp of approval to the upcoming American Gods TV series (airing in 2017 for Starz), he always seems to have other projects bubbling away in the background.

See an amazing preview of the Troll Bridge graphic novel HERE.

We are guessing the hammer will not spin as the book sits on your shelf...

This is a re-release with Chris Riddell's illustrations
(who was critically praised and awarded for his work on Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle)

One of these that we'll be treated to in the Winter/Yule/Christmas Season, is a new, adapted, dramatized, audio performance of his story "Stardust".

The just-released new cover, painted by Robert E McGinnis.
While we're always happy to see more unicorns, Charles Vess' Yvaine and flowing ink lines
will always be iconic for us

Stardust is Gaiman's work du jour it would seem! There is a new release of the novel with a new cover by  - along with new covers for three other books of Gaiman's, (see below) and you did see Lisa Stock's lovely photo story posted a few days ago with Gaiman's blessing, correct?

Also painted by Robert E McGinnis

There's also a contest for those in the UK, to create some artwork to be featured as the front cover.

Charles Vess

The two competition winners will have their work featured as the episode image for the drama, as well as receiving a script signed by the cast. You’ll also get a beautiful print donated by Neil with a personal note. One winner will be selected from each of the following categories: entrants aged 13 - 16; entrants over 17.

Entries will be considered by four judges. They are:

• - Artist Chris Riddell - UK Children’s Laureate, political cartoonist for The Observer and illustrator for a number of Neil Gaiman stories

• - Actor Sophie Rundle - As the female lead Yvaine in Stardust, Sophie is close to the spirit of the Stardust story

• - Artist Sean Phillips - Sean has been a professional illustrator for over twenty-five years, mostly drawing comic books. He was the main artist on Radio 4’s Good Omens and has also worked for DC, Marvel, Vertigo and 2000AD

• Jeremy Howe, commissioning editor for Drama at Radio 4

You can find those details HERE.

Here's the cast list:

We hope BBC will see fit to broadcast this online so BBC - and Stardust - fans around the world will have the opportunity to hear it.

From the 2007 movie adaptation of Stardust, starring Claire Daines

Northlore Series Open Call for Submissions!

We just recently posted a review by OUABlog reviewer, Leena Naidoo, HERE, for the first volume in this series, "Folklore" and now an exciting opportunity from Nordland Publishing has arisen.

Here's the announcement from the official website:

Open Call for the Northlore Series 

  

We are pleased to announce the second open call of the series: Myth. 

We are looking for short stories between 3-8000 words and Poetry of any length.
This collection will contain the secret history of the Norse gods.
“Over a period of 400 years, Christianity came to the Scandinavians, sometimes at the point of a sword.  

Slowly it spread, until only small pockets of the old religion persisted. 

The gods of the North understood their time had come. They withdrew from the world, disappearing into the realm of myth. 

But they did not die. This is their story.” 

Three books, three themes, one vision: Northlore.

 

Before you submit your work, please be sure to follow the publication guidelines.

Fearless Folkloric Foxes: Mining the Unexpected Mythic in (Assumedly) Ridiculous Pop Culture (& You Know What They Say About Assume...)

Norwegian folk art - and tricksters - have gone mainstream.

First of all: I did NOT EVER expect to give the source of this a second thought but it turns out, a ridiculous, bizarre, annoying and hugely successful viral internet music video has produced a stunning folkloric work that's unbelievably mythic. (If you've seen some of the the text and are thinking "whaaa...?", just keep reading and concentrate on the artwork.)

The source I'm talking about, if you're still in the dark on this one, is the bizarre/nonsense music video by Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis, "What Does the Fox Say?" (link takes you to the video). Turns out, even before the video went viral with its bear and squirrel costumes, that they had plans to produce a beautiful and mythic work of home grown folk art in children's book form, to be released in the wake of an "intentionally bad" song (their words). They even had an illustrator in mind, Svein Nyhus, a very famous Norwegian author and illustrator, and approached him about the project but he was very busy with other priority deadlines and the timing just didn't appear to be good.


While the song was supposed to be a quick way to draw annoying, but also amusing, attention to the pair and their talk show, what they didn't count on was just how popular their "bad song" was going to get (well over 300 million YouTube hits to date), or just how many dollars from the viral success of their video produced, making for a hit on the song alone. To quote the duo: "It's just so stupid. But stupid dollars are the same as smart dollars." As the YouTube hits started stacking up, Nyhus (the illustrator) called them back and agreed to take on the task of illustrating the, er, "text".

And now they also have a gorgeous book, which is not only a #1 NYT best selling children's book but also sold out on its first day on Amazon.com. It's also been rumored as being under consideration for Children's Book of the Year (unconfirmed). The book is hardcover, 32 full color pages and only contain the lyrics - no other story, but then, that's where you get to write your own... ;)

You can read a full color PDF version right HERE. (Highly recommended - although, you'll likely want to go grab a print copy too. Just a heads-up.)

I'll admit I was completely taken by surprise by the beautiful (stunning!) folk art the book contains, making me look at this pop-culture "phenom-sense" with a whole new set of eyes. (I never could figure out if the song was supposed to be silly and whimsical or sneakily subversive. Perhaps it's both!) However I felt about the music video, I was immediately and irresistibly drawn to the book.

While the comedy duo clearly meant their music and video to be a ridiculous stunt, it would seem that  - at least initially - they unintentionally tapped into their mythic roots and translated them playfully for pop culture - no skin off their nose if it didn't take. But it did take, showing that people - MANY people - had a positive and playful gut resonant response to the video images, even they couldn't explain, which in turn proved the importance of playful nonsense. It's this very trickster-like mentality that is reaffirmed in the excellent illustrations. In fact the whole presentation of the book tends to bring the mythic aspect to the forefront - and it's blowing people away (in a good way!).

I admit to having some shame now, for dismissing something so ridiculous, even though, somehow, it appeared to be resonating with hundreds of millions of people; and that's without/before the filter of the artwork, even if it was only on a playful level. Although I consider myself more open to pop culture and children's odd obsessions and trends than many, I have to wonder: did I dismiss this disguised trickster and the power of nonsense due to some unrealized snobbery (and ass-umption) on my part?! It certainly appears that way, and I almost missed out on something amazing as a result. Shame on me! I have some serious reassessing to do...

That said, I still can't handle repeat views of the video. The book, however, has me wanting to put the pages on display.

Someone else made a different connection with the book as well. Though my own revelation took me down forests paths of fox myth-masks and trickster stories, this person stumbled on a darker side to the images which I found fascinating. Here's the comment the person who uploaded this video (book images to a very different soundtrack) added:

DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO NOT INTENDED TO BE LISTENED TO BY CHILDREN - I had discovered that "The Fox" by Ylvis was so mainstream that a children's book was to be made featuring the lyrics of the hit song. Upon viewing the illustrations I was reminded of something eerie... something not native to Earth. If you're familiar with John Carpenter's "The Thing", just look at the illustrations and compare the Fox with the alien.(Basically I was almost passed out one night while on a website chatting with people when I saw this book while "The Thing" theme happened to be playing. Needless to say, it creeped the hell out of me. Crazy Swedes.)

Have any of you been treasuring this book on your shelves, secretly worried that you'll be outed? You can breathe a sigh of relief now.
This book is "mythic approved".

Additional sources: HERE, HERE & HERE