Monday 15 August 2016

WHEN DID ANIMALS START BEING SO FUNNY?

by Eoin McLaughlin




There’s nothing the internet loves more than funny animals. And by ‘funny animals’ I mean animals behaving like us humans. What could possibly be funnier? It feels like we’ve all pored over the cat who thinks he’s a pirate, the gopher with the evil look and the sneezing panda since time began. But it’s easy to forget that Youtube is only 11. The internet meme is in its infancy.  
But picture books are not. Ever since John Newbery published A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, picture books have understood, like no other medium, the comic potential of the right animal doing the wrong thing. All the way from the White Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck to The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Gorilla. More often than not, there’s a funny animal at the centre of our favourite tales. Each generation seems to find their own unique slant on the joke, whether it’s greedy pandas peddling donuts or vicious bears trying to locate their hats. The funny animal is the comic gift that keeps on giving.


Four years ago, James Catchpole sold my first picture book to Dial Books. While waiting for it to come out, I have:
Married.
Moved house three times.
Realised that I love mayonnaise.
And written my first blog post (you’re reading it, hope it’s going okay!)
Amongst all that, I’ve also been reading and writing as much as I can in the hope of learning ‘The Art of Picturebooking’. And whilst, as James will tell you, I’m still very much in Key Stage 0, I have noticed an increasing number of funny animals creeping into my texts. One features an octopus learning to swim, another a bear as a detective. It seems I’m succumbing to the power of the funny animal. Whilst I’m fully embracing this as a good sign that I might be making some progress, it has made me wonder: when did animals start being funny?

There’s a small scrap of Ancient Egyptian papyrus in the British Museum, dating from the 13th Century BC. It was drawn by a scribe, for sale to ordinary Egyptians outside his local temple. What’s unusual about the papyrus, is that it depicts a cow sitting on a plow, as if she were a farmer rather than a farmyard animal. According to Daniel Antoine, one of the curators at the British Museum, Egyptian texts are full of exactly this kind of imagery. Seeing animals performing human activities was one of the Ancient Egyptians’ all-time favourite gags. It had them LOL’ing and RROTFL.
Daniel directed me towards further papyri (yes, apparently that’s the plural) where I found lions playing board games, wolves heading to the shops and cats shepherding ducks. And funny animals didn’t stop there, in medieval marginalia they seem to specialize in dark humour. [Left]

And by the 18th century, Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi seems to have already perfected the cat joke. [Left a bit, down a bit]


Whilst the funny animal isn’t regarded the world’s oldest recorded joke (that’s widely credited to be a Sumarian corker about farting) it’s very, very close. One man’s papyrus is another man’s Youtube. Funny animals have been making humans laugh for at least 5,000 years, and presumably much, much longer (before papyrus or papyri).


I guess almost all of us would count our sense of humour as one of the things most personal to ourselves, one of the things that makes us who we are and the primary reason we love the people we do. It’s quite amazing to think that we have this bond in common with our most ancient ancestors. We could have shared a good laugh with them over the picture of a cow and a plow in 5,000 BC or by showing them any number of fantastic, funny animal picture books published in 2016.
Isn’t that a nice warm feeling? Let’s bask for a moment in the amazement of inter-generational-super-connection…
Ahhhh…

But it does pose a more serious question: “Why, after all that time, are we still picking the very same animals to be funny? For five millennia ducks, dogs, frogs, cows, cats and pigs have been getting things all their own way. Sure, they’ve been a hoot, but isn’t it time to draw a line? Shut the pen? And close the barn door? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to try some new animals for a change? Don’t you think?!” It was at this point that Daniel from the British Museum stopped replying to my emails. He’s obviously part of the funny animal conspiracy. I had no idea how deep it ran.
Regardless, it’s time to make a change. All of us gathered here have the unique opportunity to end thousands of years of subjugation. That’s why, right here, right now (drum roll please) I’m launching ‘The Campaign For Getting More Weird Animals, Things Like Marmots And Poison Dart Frogs, Onto Our Papyri, By Which I Mean Children’s Books’, or ‘TCFGMWATLMAPDFFOOPBWIMCB’.
Granted, it could do with a catchier name. Perhaps we can think of a new one at the first annual meeting, taking place at The National Hystrix Sanctuary.
For the next 5,000 years, bring on the musk ox, the capybara and the skink.
To kick things off @eoinmclaughlin will be tweeting a 142 character funny animal story every day this week, featuring a very deserving, obscure animal. Just leave your favourite weird animal in the comments.

Eoin’s first book, This is NOT a Bedtime Story is coming soon from Penguin Random House (Dial Books). More to follow from Walker and Bloomsbury.

28 comments:

Jonathan Emmett said...

Great post, Eoin.

I sometimes talk to children about the stories of Anansi the Spider that originate from Africa. They are among the first stories to feature an anthropomorphic animal character and many of them are pretty funny.

If you're really doing story tweet requests, mine's an Okapi!

James Catchpole said...

Ha! Thanks Eoin. Step up Jane Clarke, at this point, whose I Saw Anaconda (on its way from Nosy Crow) boasts:
- eponymous serpent
- tick (!)
- skink (!!)
And what the hell is a skink?

James Catchpole said...

PS Capybara please, like the ones threatening to snaffle Justin Rose's birdies.

James Catchpole said...

PPS Hint. Rhymes with Rooney Mara. Now back to work.

Michelle Robinson said...

A skink is a lizard-y thing, James. I only know this because it lends itself so well to rhyming animal texts. Love this post! Many of my stories start off with me thinking 'I want there to be a book about a such-and-such.' Anteaters are still on my hit list.

Jane Clarke said...

Saw a lot of those in Venezuela too :-)

Jane Clarke said...

Ha, ha, enjoyed your post, Eoin. Sign me up for TCFGMWATLMAPDFFOOPBWIMCB and add Axolotl, Coatimundi and Quoll.

eoin said...

How funny! I came across Anansi for the first time recently when reading about the origins of Brer Rabbit, which in turn seems to share a lot of similarities with the rabbits of Watership Down. Amazing how the same stories and characters can travel through time and space. Must have a closer read though, are there particular Anansi stories you'd recommend?

Thanks very much for reading the post. Your Okapi story's about to hit Twitter. What a cool animal! Fantastic zebra skin trousers they wear, would love a pair myself.

eoin said...

Not sure about capybaras. They always look so superior. Very arrogant rodents. But a deal's a deal, so whether they deserve it or not, I'm on the case. One capybara tale coming up!

Frilled-neck Fan #1 said...

If you ask me, which I'm sure you will, I think the world needs more frilled-neck lizards or 'chlamydosaurus kingii'. They remind me of Hans Klok and his wild mane.

Jonathan Emmett said...

"How Anansi got Eight Thin Legs" is pretty funny. Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' (a great novel) includes a great story about Anansi and the Tiger's Balls, but I think Gaiman may have made that one up himself.

Thanks for the okapi story!

James Catchpole said...

Oh a SKINK! - Lizardus Abitsimilus. Gotcha.

Unknown said...

Love it! Have I missed the ark? I'd like to see sea mammals get a look in, particularly the tusked varieties. Too often overlooked in the clamour for whale and dolphin content. A narwhal or walrus story would go down a treat.

Michelle - Roald Dahl makes an excellent anteater contribution to the animal anthology in his 'Dirty Beasts' stories, if you're interested.

Christopher West said...

The axolotl is an oft overlooked amphibian with bags of character and a penchant for fine wine.

Michelle Robinson said...

Yes, I know it well. I just want to write about one myself.

eoin said...

'chlamydosaurus kingii' is already ALL my characters. But as you've referenced Hans, I'll try...

Lynne Garner said...

Interesting post.

I discovered Anansi years ago and fell in love with him. I ended up writing 16 stories featuring him. I Indie published because I was told they wouldn't sell, they do. I then discovered the original Brer Rabbit stories (ended up retelling 8 of those) and finally Coyote (retold 8 of those as well). Whilst reading the first written versions of all of these there were many stories that were very, very similar.

A. Colleen Jones said...

I'd love to write a story about a skink, maybe a stinky skink, just because the alliteration would be so much fun!

Moira Butterfield said...

I once gave my husband the present of an adopted skink in Bristol Zoo. We went to see it a few times. It didn't move. Just took my money. Parrot Fish please, if you're still doing stories. They nibble coral and poop it out as sand, and are this responsible for making all the white sandy beaches of the Caribbean. Dudes.

Michael Karg said...

Julie Falatko has something cooking along the aforementioned lines:
http://juliefalatko.com/book/the-society-of-underrepresented-animals/

thom said...

I would like you to write an exciting story about about the Amazonian fish, the 'candiru', ideally in rhyme.

Lauri Fortino said...

I firmly believe the Tarsier deserves its own story. Who's with me?

eoin said...

Here's your axolotl story Christopher, the penchant for fine wine comes in a later verse.

https://twitter.com/eoinmclaughlin/status/765626031797567489

Paeony Lewis said...

Ha ha, really enjoyed your post. I never knew visual animal jokes were thousands of years old. Right now I'm trying to come up with an alternative animal as the publisher has too many goats. I've discovered Sand Cats that live in the desert and both meow and bark (or is it a sort of yelp that says heck, it's a scorcher of a day, again...). Oops, see I can't get away from cats.

eoin said...

I'M WITH YOU LAURI!!! A tarsier story has just been tweetified.

eoin said...

Glad you enjoyed it Paeony. I had never heard of sand cats before, they're very beautiful. And tell your publisher there's no such thing as too many goats.

Juliet Clare Bell said...

Thanks for your very first blog post. I've somehow managed to miss it until now, so I've missed your funny animal stories but I hope they were fun. Isn't it great to feel that connection with people five thousand years ago...

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