And they lived happily ever after...(unless, of course, they didn't)

I am fascinated with the stories that shape our childhood. The fairy tales, fables, mythology that people only seem to know through popular media and watered down versions.

Take The Wizard of Oz for instance. What is our exposure to the story? Have you ever even read the books? Are you aware of the books at all? Is your only exposure to Dorothy Gale a singing teenager preteding to be much younger? Did you see Wicked? Did you read A Barnstormer in Oz (Phillip Jose Farmer)? When we see a simplified version of the story we can miss so much of the depth that an author intended.

In Peter Pan, the last movie was very, very close to the book. Still, who would know if you didn't read it?

Sure, we know The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but have you read Aesops Fables (a translation, of course).

Is Quasimodo someone who just sang with gargoyles?

Is Mowgli just someone who learned the 'Bear Necessities'?

Tarzan has been warped so badly it is barely recognizable.

Hercules? Alladin?

Did Merlin teach valuable life lessons to Arthur by changing him into amusing animals?

What famous Disney movie should have ended with the Evil Queen being killed with the maiming of her feet with red-hot shoes? (Hint: She is no longer the fairest of them all).

On a mandatory Science Fiction note - Starship Troopers appears to have been adapted by a misunderstanding of the book jacket blurb. Only the names remained the same (some of them).

Oh well, the effects were good.

I suppose this post is just an effort to get people to find the source of our information and not the diluted shadows that are fed to us.