The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales is a book of spoof fairy tales written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith.
The sardonic narrator, Jack (of "and the Beanstalk" fame) relates to the reader warped takes on a number of classic fairy tales, including "The Princess and the Bowling Ball," "The Tortoise and the Hair" and others. But his production is plagued with problems from the very beginning... literally. Before the book even begins, the bossy Little Red Hen shows up on the front paper and demands Jack tell her story (she's also on the back of the book, complaining about the bar code and wondering "Who is this ISBN guy?"). The table of contents goes missing, only to end up as the punch-line to one of the stories. And when Jack finally gets around to telling his story, the Giant shows up and threatens him.
So, "Fairly Stupid" is the best way to describe these tales.
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- Blessed Are the Cheesemakers: Proof Positive that cheese is inherently funny.
- Fission Mailed: Jack moves the end of the book up a few pages while trying to escape from the Giant.
- Fractured Fairy Tale
- Hostile Show Takeover: The giant during "Jack's Bean Problem".
- Nausea Fuel: In-universe, the smell of the Stinky Cheese Man.
- Nested Story: "Jack's Story".
- No Fourth Wall: Examples abound, almost too many to count.
- Case in point? "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I forgot the Table of Contents! I forgot the Table of Contents!"
- No Indoor Voice: The Giant.
- Overly Long Gag: In "Jack's Story," the following passage fills up three-quarters of the page with the font getting progressively smaller and smaller and smaller until it hits the end.
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Once upon a time there was a Giant. The Giant squeezed Jack and said, "TELL ME A BETTER STORY OR I WILL GRIND YOUR BONES TO MAKE MY BREAD. AND WHEN YOUR STORY IS FINISHED, I WILL GRIND YOUR BONES TO MAKE MY BREAD ANYWAY! HO, HO, HO." The Giant laughed an ugly laugh. Jack thought, "He'll kill me if I do. He'll kill me if I don't. There's only one way to get out of this." Jack cleared his throat, and then began his story. |
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- Paratext
- Post Modernism: It, along with The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (also by Scieszka and Smith), were arguably two of the first postmodernist picture books.
- Rage Against the Author: The characters of "Little Red Running Shorts" get ticked off by Jack and decide to leave rather than finish their story.
- Running Gag
- Self-Deprecation
- Spoiler (in-universe): Jack manages to ruin the ending of a few stories, to other characters' dismay.
- Spoof Aesop
- Stylistic Suck: The Giant's Story, which is literally made of pieces cut out ransom-note-style from other fairy tales and makes pretty much no sense.