The Phantom Tollbooth: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

{{quote|''There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself -- not just sometimes, but always.

 

 

[[Kid Hero|Milo]] is a bored little boy. Then one day he comes home from school (he's a latch-key kid) and discovers [[Call to Adventure|a very singular box in his room]]. Within are the pieces to construct a toy tollbooth. Having nothing better to do, he follows the included instructions, drives through the tollbooth in his toy car, and suddenly finds himself driving down a road under a distant sky.

Along his surprising journey he meets such colorful characters as King Azaz the Unabridged, King of Dictionopolis and the realm of words; the Mathemagician, ruler of Digitopolis and everything number-related; Tock, the loyal watch dog (literally); the oversized Spelling Bee; the shifty-but-lovable Humbug; Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Which; Chroma the Great, conductor of the sunrise; the Soundkeeper, who greedily keeps all sound to herself; and the sadly missing Princesses Rhyme and Reason, locked in the Castle in the Air and [[Damsel in Distress|desperately in need of rescue]] from the demons of the mountain of Ignorance.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[An Aesop]]: The page quote opens the book. At the end, {{spoiler|the tollbooth vanishes, but on reflection, and looking around, Milo wonders how he would have found the time to go back even if it hadn't, when there was so much to do right there}}.

* [[Affably Evil]]: The Terrible Trivium is a polite, refined gentleman -- so polite and refined, you wouldn't mind doing a few minor, insignificant tasks for him. Heck, you can spare a few thousand years, right?

** Something of a self-referential [[Truth in Television]], since Juster has said he wrote the book while he was supposed to be writing a different book about city architecture for kids.

* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: Just when the terrible creatures of Ignorance are about to descend on Milo, Tock, the Humbug and the princesses, {{spoiler|the cavalry comes in the form of damn near ''every single person'' our heroes came across on their journey.}}

* [[The Blank]]: The Terrible Trivium, and in the movies Rhyme and Reason.

* [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]: The cities of Reality and Illusions (I guess?).

* [[Damsel in Distress|Distressed Damsels]]: Princesses Rhyme and Reason.

* [[Everything's Better with Princesses]]: Quite literal with the Princesses of Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason, of the Kingdom of Wisdom. They are apparently high enough in authority that their brothers King Azaz and the Mathemagician, rulers of their own respective countries, appeal to them when there's a dispute... and once they're banished, Wisdom goes to Hell in a handbasket. It's only after they're rescued in [[The Quest]] that the Kingdom becomes sane again... everything ''is'', in fact, better with them in charge.

* [[Exact Words]]: When Milo asks the Mathemagician to show him the biggest number there is, the Mathemagician shows him a number 3 that's twice his own height. Milo corrects himself and asks for the ''longest'' number there is, and the Mathemagician shows him a number 8 that's as wide as the 3 was high.

** Earlier, when Milo is asked what kind of meal he'd like, he asks for "something light" and gets platters filled with literal light. Then he asks for "a square meal" and gets blocks of food that taste awful.

* [[Fun with Acronyms]]: Inverted. Dr. Kakofonous A. Dischord's middle initial stands for "AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE"

* [[Golden Mean Fallacy]]: Embodied by the Triple Demons of Compromise: one tall and thin, one short and fat, and the third "exactly like the other two".

* [[Grows on Trees]]: Words do [[Insane Troll Logic|because money doesn't]].

{{quote|'''Dodecahedron:''' Why, did you know that if you a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Hoover Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail?

'''Humbug:''' Where would you find a beaver that big?

{{quote|"Six million years already? My, how time flies!"}}

* [[Kangaroo Court]]: Officer Shrift runs one of these.

* [[Lovable Coward]]: The Humbug.

* [[Never Tell Me the Odds]]: The quest was ''literally impossible''--[[Achievements in Ignorance|but since nobody told Milo, it became possible]].

* [[Non-Human Sidekick]]: Tock and the Humbug.

* [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]]: The Senses Taker.

* [[Painting the Frost on Windows]]: At one point, Milo meets Chroma, a conductor whose orchestra provides color to the world, with each instrument providing a specific color. Upon stopping at Milo's request, everything turns [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|white with black outlines]].

* [[Parental Bonus]]: If you're under the age of 12, it's a given that you're not getting about a fifth of the jokes.

** The conflict between Dictionopolis and Digitopolis was Juster's jab at the "Two Cultures" mentality described by C. P. Snow; the position taken by Rhyme and Reason is much like that of Snow himself (who was both a physicist and a novelist).

* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: Feiffer drew the book's pictures because he happened to be living in the same apartment building as Juster at the time of the book's writing.

** And the origin of the book was that Juster had gotten a grant to write a nonfiction book on architecture but he had an idea for a story that he had to get out of his head. The text describing the cities of Reality and Illusion are the only surviving bits of what he wrote before he got sidetracked (and sidetracking you from what you're supposed to be doing is what the Terrible Trivium does). He reportedly has tried to pay back the grant several times, but can't find anyone who will acknowledge it.

* [[Stealth Pun]]: Among other examples, the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a bird that lives to misinterpret what others say, is actually native to the land of Context, "but it's such a nasty place, I prefer to spend all my time out of it."

** Canby's puns are as stealthy as can be.

* [[Wonder Child]]: The princesses were foundlings.

* [[World of Symbolism]]: With the tollbooth itself guarding the entrance.

* [[Writers Cannot Do Math]]: An in-universe example. Of course, the point was that there ''is'' no greatest possible number, but when Milo is for asked the highest number he can think of, he replies, "nine trillion, nine hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine". Even if he hadn't known that "quadrillion" comes after "trillion" (and not everyone does), with the "999s" he's doing, it should be obvious to him that the next number is ten trillion.

 

* [[Always Identical Twins]]: Although they are never described or drawn as such in the book, King Azaz and the Mathemagician are this in the movie. They even have the same voice actor.

* [[The Cameo]]: When Milo is in class and many people are speaking at once, the voice of [[Bugs Bunny]] can be heard. In fact, nearly ''every'' famous voice artist of the day, from Daws Butler to June Foray to Candy Candido gets a bit part somewhere in the film.

* [[Medium Blending]]: Starts out in live-action [[San Francisco]].

* [[Mel Blanc]]: One of the few theatrical feature length films he worked on. As already noted, he performs multiple characters in the film: Officer Shrift, several Lethargians, three royal palace guards, the Word Seller in the market at Dictionopolis, the Dodecahedron, the Demon of Insincerity, and the Overbearing Know-It-All.

* [[Our Demons Are Different]].

* [[Villain Song]]: "Don't Say There's Nothing to Do in the Doldrums" performed by The Lethargians, a group of sinister lazy slimy creatures (voiced by Mel Blanc and Thurl Ravenscroft).

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Children's Literature]]

[[Category:Films of the 1970s]]