The 50s were a different time

I’m always surprised at the posts that generate a lot (relatively speaking) of comments on this blog. So since you all seem in agreement with me about the questionable judgment of the man with the yellow hat and his compatriots, I have to tell you all to make sure you go read the original Curious Georg stories. I try to get at least one CG book out of the library every time I go, and recently checked out both the very first Curious George as well as Curious George Takes a Job.

Well.

First of all, in the first book, I discovered that after the man with the yellow hat monkey-napped George from his African jungle home and spirited him away back across the ocean to his house in the Big City, George smoked a pipe. Very casually. Before bed. And, interestingly, this was not one of the things George does out of curiosity that results in people losing their candy businesses, or getting fired from their newspaper delivery jobs, or losing their apartments to fire. Smoking “a good pipe” was just something men with yellow hats – and therefore monkeys – did before bed to relax. It was quite startling to my modern, politically correct sensibilities.

But even more startling was how George got tossed in jail for calling the fire department under false pretenses. It was an innocent mistake; George wanted to try the phone because it looked like fun and accidentally called the fire department. (The man with the yellow hat had of course gone out and left a wild monkey uncontained and alone in his apartment, because, as we have established, the man with the yellow hat is not so bright.) And they threw him in jail! Jail! Fortunately, the jailer was also not so bright, and George handily escaped. But still! Jail! Without even the appearance of a trial!

And did you know that George breaks his leg and has to go to the hospital in Curious George Takes a Job? This is fine in and of itself; it was apparently revolutionary at the time to let kids know what would happen to them in the hospital. But here’s the thing; after George heals, the nurse gets him up and goes to get the man with the yellow hat, saying, “Now, be a good monkey and don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”

And what does George do? Nearly overdoses on ether that someone had left lying around on the floor. Seriously! The nurse and the man with the yellow hat find George passed out on the floor next to the open ether bottle and have to put him in the shower to wake him up.

And then the man takes George to a movie studio and they fake a documentary of his life. Because, why not?