Can We Stop Making Kids Stories Into Slasher Flicks?

Explain how the show from the video above turns into the characters from the video below.

Yes, a goofy kids show about four guys in mascot costumes clowning around, allegedly playing music, introducing cartoons, and running from pre-teen gogo dancers became Five Nights At Freddy’s. I want to state right at the start that nothing I am complaining about is a discussion about the quality of the work itself. Maybe these are all good movies. I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t watch horror to begin with and I wouldn’t watch these one way or the other. I keep saying here that being good technically shouldn’t be the only requirement to enjoy or not enjoy something. It’s not even that they exist. I’d roll my eyes and move on. Depending on how you view fairy tales, Snow White and Hansel & Gretel beat these guys to the punch. It’s actually a trend that started with Winnie The Pooh the moment the original A.A. Milne books (NOT the Disney version) went into public domain, and it’s a trend that just annoys me personally. Consider this the vent of the week: why are we turning kids entertainment into horror movies?

Unless you’re new here (hi!), you probably see my answer coming.

Here’s one way I’ll know someone ran to the comments without reading the article: I know The Banana Splits Adventure Hour is not public domain. It’s a 1960s-1970s TV show that aired on ABC, featuring comedy segments of people in costumes doing comedy skits and musical numbers while introducing cartoons. It’s still owned by Hanna-Barbera, which is currently owned by Warner Brothers Discovery, just another property they’re leaving hang on the vine like sour grapes (not to be confused with the aforementioned go-go dancing pre-teens) except for approving this movie where beloved childhood characters murder everyone within eyesight. I saw it in syndication as The Banana Splits & Friends while Hanna-Barbera and CBS offered a similar show on their Saturday morning lineup in my childhood, The Skatebirds. (I miss Wonder Wheels, while the Robonic Stooges had a recent comic appearance.) However, I started noticing this trend with the trailer for the movie in which the characters are now animatronics who didn’t take the show’s cancellation well, and there goes someone’s childhood.

I’m not going to sit here and say that making a horror version of a fairy tale is some sin against children and childhood innocence on its own. No, that’s coming later. Still, my last straw was broke after an article about Robert England playing Jiminy Cricket, or a stand-in as the cricket in the book, which as typical is a bit darker than the Disney version, isn’t named. He’s also killed by Pinocchio if Wikipedia (question the source) is to be believed and becomes a ghost haunting the puppet boy. Yeah, it’s horror fodder already.

The face of a tempter to kill?

However, the trend isn’t simply horror, it’s slasher, what that article refers to as either the “Twisted Childhood Universe” or the “Poohniverse”, and here’s where my annoyance starts. Ever since Blood & Honey and a sequel that brings Piglet to join Pooh, we’ve been seeing public domain stories being turned into slasher movies. Popeye, Bambi, and apparently Peter Pan have all gone into slasher mode. This disturbs me. A.A. Milne created his Hundred Acre Woods stories to entertain his son, only for the boy to reject them after the books were published and the kids at school decided to tease him for it, the little brats! Other kids around the world probably envied him and enjoyed the stories very much. I only read one of the novels and I remember liking it, though I don’t remember which one. They’re even working on one for “Steamboat Willie”, the version of Mickey Mouse currently in public domain, or at least the copywrite is. Like Disney’s Pooh (the red shirt is Disney’s trademark…though I guess covered in blood might skirt things, right moviemakers?) Bambi, and Pinocchio, only a certain version is available. For Popeye it’s based on his early Thimble Theater comics, where he was a guest-star in a comic about the Oil family before his popularity led to him practically taking over the comic like a Steve Urkel prototype…if Popeye was a clumsy nerd instead of a punch-happy sailor man. You all did the “toot toot”, didn’t you?

I can’t speak to Bambi or Thimble Theater as I never actually read either, and we can debate each fairy tale individually, but the rest of the “Twisted Childhood Universe” are indeed meant for kids originally. Peter Pan is about growing up. The Hundred Acre Woods are whimsical tales literally created for the child that inspired Christopher Robin. “Steamboat Willie” and the Mickey Mouse cartoons that preceded it without sound were made for movies between films, all ages if not directly for kids. It’s one of the reasons Mickey is never the antagonist like Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker can be at times. If you think making adult versions of Space Ghost, Transformers, and Silverhawks have bothered me, you can guess what I think of those. (I guess Blue Falcon and Dynomutt are next on Dynamite’s hit list, as they seem to be after all of Warner’s acquired animation. Not that DC was any better.) I want to be able to show new kids the stuff old kids liked, but to do so I have to show them old shows and comics, not anything made since the turn of the century. That’s so lame.

“So we get all the hunters in their sleep. But save Mom’s killer for ME!”

And why is it always slasher movies? You’d think Neverland at least would offer more horror options. It’s not Wonderland (or “Wunderland” as they let Tim Burton ruin Alice), but surely there’s something there more horrific than Ghostface or Jason Voorhees. Considering the source material they’re ruining, they show so little imagination. I’ll give you one worse: why is the hero of the original the VILLAIN of the story? Seeing Pinocchio going up against a horror monster and winning would be more interesting than having him doing the killing. Even the Banana Splits horror story had one of the characters switch sides to protect the kids. Peter Pan fighting bad guys, even when he’s usually the cause of them getting mad and continuing to be a threat so he can have a “great” adventure, is usually what we come to the stories from, whether it’s by Disney or Fox Kids. (Speaking of cartoons I miss. Can’t even find them legally.) Pooh and company had heffalumps and woozles until Disney writers had them meet the former. Snow White and the gingerbread kids (sounds like a band) got to be the heroes of their horror reimaginings. Hansel and Gretel even became witch hunters. And yet Popeye is evil, Pinocchio is evil, I think Bambi is evil, Pooh and Piglet are evil…and word is they want Superman the moment Action Comics #1 goes public. WE HAVE ENOUGH EVIL SUPERMEN! (Supermans?) WE DON’T NEED SLASHER SUPERMAN ON TOP OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s not the victims that should be dying, it’s the trend. I know they hate kids. They’re part of the Hollywood system despite being independent companies from England, at least that’s what the article says about the “Poohniverse” at least. I don’t know about the others, but it’s clearly being done to make subversive Disney back when Walt Disney–certainly not modern Disney–cared about entertaining children while imparting positive life lessons. If you want to make the horror version, at least show more imagination than yet another slasher. Stop making the hero the villain. Or better yet, why not make a new adaptation that’s more faithful to the book, which in Pinocchio’s case would be pretty dark to being with, than what Walt and his replacements used to do. You could make something really cool…or you can redo the same weak concept again and just flip off childhood innocence. You know which one they’re going to do, right?