Category: movies

list gone wild

What with all the travelling I’ve been doing, it’s been a while since I managed to put together a ThThTh list. But this week, inspired by our recent visit to the zoo, I’ve managed to round up some zoo-themed items. You are welcome to feed the list, but please keep your fingers outside the cages.

A Zoo List

  1. the zoo in metaphors: The term zoo is used idiomatically to evoke chaos, wildness and other general craziness in places or situations. Cf: “This place looks like a zoo!” or “It was like feeding time at the zoo.” (Of course, I have to say that the zoos I’ve been to are not so much like the crazy situations that are likened to them: they tend to be well-organized and orderly. At least the animals. The people buying snacks and such can get out of hand.)
  2. animal crackers: Cookies shaped like animals. Though often packaged/marketed in ways evocative of circuses, the animals featured are much more zoo-like than circus-like overall. (See, for example, a picture of animal cookies from the Barnum’s Animal Crackers. Have you seen a giraffe or a rhinoceros at the circus? I rest my case.)
  3. zoo keeper: a computer/arcade game where you need to line up animals in rows. You can play a flash version online.

  4. A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) A movie directed by Peter Greenaway. I’m not quite sure what to say about it. A zoo (or the animals from the zoo)(or some rotting carcasses of animals from the zoo) is involved. And also referenced in the title.
  5. 12 Monkeys (1995) One of my favorite movies, directed by Terry Gilliam. Zoo animals appear at various times during the film, and a zoo is featured in a significant scene at the end.

  6. Madagascar (2005) A Dreamworks animated feature about animals escaping from a zoo.
  7. Creature Comforts (1989) Nick Park’s brilliant claymation short with interviews of zoo animals. The soundtrack was taken from interviews with real people, describing their own living situations, and attributed to animated zoo animals. (I also discovered that there was later a related TV series that was supposed to be pretty good.

  8. Zoos are a pretty popular setting for children’s stories, such as If I Ran the Zoo, Dr. Seuss, Good Night, Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman and Animal Strike at the Zoo. It’s True!, by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Margaret Spengler, and a gazillion others.
  9. “At the Zoo” poem by A. A. Milne. Here’s a bit:

    There are lions and roaring tigers,
    and enormous camels and things,
    There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons,
    and a great big bear with wings.
    There’s a sort of a tiny potamus,
    and a tiny nosserus too –
    But I gave buns to the elephant
    when I went down to the Zoo!

  10. “At the Zoo,” a song by Simon and Garfunkel

    Zebras are reactionaries,
    Antelopes are missionaries,
    Pigeons plot in secrecy,
    And hamsters turn on frequently.
    What a gas! you gotta come and see
    At the zoo.

  11. “Christmas at the Zoo,” by the Flaming Lips. A song about letting animals out at the zoo on Christmas Eve. The animals show no interest in escaping.¹

    12. ¹I was rather disturbingly reminded of this song this past Christmas when hearing the news of a tiger escaped from a San Francisco zoo on Christmas day, killing one zoo visitor and injuring 2 others.

    Images from wpclipart.

flower power

Today is the first day of May, or May Day. Since I haven’t found an opportunity to dance around a maypole, I’ll present this flower-themed ThThTh to you as a sort of virtual May basket.

a bunch of flowers

  • “April showers bring May flowers.” An expression that makes reference to the frequency of rain in the month of April (in the Northern hemisphere, at least), and the Spring flowers that benefit from the watering. It has the meaning “Some unpleasant occurrences bring about better things.”
  • Flower children: a term for hippies, based on their tendencies to wear flowers as symbols of peace and love.

    • morning glory

  • Victorian Language of Flowers. A means of sending messages during the Victorian era. Specific flowers or colors of flowers had specific meanings attached for the recipient to decode. For example, a lobelia meant “malevolence” and a morning glory meant “love in vain.”
  • (s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not: a tradition of plucking the petals off a flower to determine whether one is loved. For each petal, the plucker alternates saying, eg. “he loves me” and “he loves me not.” The final petal, and which of the two phrases is slated to be spoken as it is plucked, establishes or refutes the love being questioned.

  • “Roses are Red.” A short poem (with many variants), sometimes used in Valentine’s Day cards. For example:

    Roses are red, violets are blue
    Honey is sweet, and so are you.

    I like this one better:

    Roses are red, violets are blue
    Some poems rhyme
    But this one doesn’t

  • American Beauty (1999) A movie with Kevin Spacey, which features rose gardening. It also has the famous dream scene with Mena Suvari in a pile of rose petals. (Why did I think it was Heather Graham? I guess it’s been a while.) American Beauty is also the name of a variety of roses¹
  • “Edelweiss” A song about the small white Alpine flower that is widely believed to be a traditional folksong, but was actually written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the musical “The Sound of Music.”

    Edelweiss, Edelweiss
    Every morning you greet me
    Small and white, clean and bright
    You look happy to meet me

    • blue bonnet poppycarnationsunflower

  • El Seed from the animated Tick series. A megavillain who is an anthropomorphic sunflower. (The name is a play on El Cid.)
  • Certain poppies are used to produce opiates (opium and heroine). Poppies also have a drugging effect in the field of poppies from the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her companions (at least those that are mammals) are drugged to sleep when they enter a field of poppies. (Here’s the corresponding book chapter.)
  • The Orchid Thief: A non-fiction book by Susan Orlean about a man who illegally collects rare wild orchids. The movie Adaptation (2002) is in part about this story, and in part about the process of adapting a book into a screenplay.
  • Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Gregory Maguire‘s second novel for adults². This reinterpretation of the Cinderella fairytale is set in 17th century Holland during the peak (and then crash) of the tulip craze.
  • Carnation: In the Avengers series, Steed would typically wear a carnation in his buttonhole. Characters in various fictional stories, especially spy stories, will wear a red carnation in order that they may be identified by someone who doesn’t otherwise know their appearance.
  • “Dennis Moore,” the Monty Python episode where a bumbling Robin Hood-type character steals lupins from the rich to give to the poor. “Your lupins or your life!”

    • ——
    ¹ There are so many rose-related things out there, including several fairy tale rose references, that I could easily do a list just of roses. I probably will at some point down the line. Consider this a token rose for now.)

    ² He had written several young adult/kids’ novels before writing Wicked.)

    flower images: source

    Is it hot in here?

    Okay, I was all set to whine again. I came down with the flu a few days ago, and spent many of the last 24 hours feverish and miserable. But it got me thinking about fevers. Now, suddenly, I’m feeling much better. My fever is all gone. But I still have this fever list I came down with, or came up with for ThThTh.

    A Few Feverish Bits

    1. feed a cold, starve a fever (or is it feed a fever, starve a cold?) an expression about folk remedies. Said to be based in part on an idea written in 1574: “Fasting is a great remedie of feuer.” Of course, they probably would have set leeches on you then, too.
    2. the brainfever bird, a nickname for the common hawk-cuckoo inspired by its repetive song, which sounds to some like the bird is saying “brain fever.”
    3. the origins of the fahrenheit scale. I remember a story my high school chemistry teacher told about how Fahrenheit made his temperature scale. According to this story, Fahrenheit wanted 100 degrees to be human body temperature. So he took his wife’s temperature to use. It turned out she had a lowgrade fever. (This tale is likely apocryphal, as people have offered up various other stories.)
    4. Fever is used quite a bit metaphorically to mean “high levels” of some thing: eg. fever of activity, fever of enthusiasm, fever of interest, fever of work. (Mind you, Google showed me no hits for either “fever of pants” nor “fever of bananas.”)
    5. cabin fever: an expression describing the feeling that one has been stuck inside for too long. Also the title of a movie
    6. jungle fever: A slang term for interracial relationships. Also a movie directed by Spike Lee
    7. fever pitch: intense levels of excitement or other emotions, often said in reference to crowds or other masses of people. Also the title of a book by Nick Hornby, and a movie based on the same.
    8. Saturday Night Fever (1977). John Travolta’s famous disco dancing movie. I don’t believe he actually had a fever in that movie.
    9. But speaking of fevers and dancing movies, did you ever hear that Gene Kelly had a high fever (103° f) during the famous scene where he dances (and sings) in the rain in the movie Singin’ in the Rain?
    10. Fever, or the metaphorical hotness it invokes, has also been the inspiration for lots of songs, such as Suzanne Vega’s “99.9 F°“, a lowgrade fever, and also the album title. (Video on YouTube.) And here are a few more from our iTunes library:
      Fever Few, Throwing Muses
      Fever Moon, Mission of Burma
      Fevered, The Stills
      Stray Cats Fever and Electric Beach Fever, Puffy AmiYumi
    11. Of course, any feverish list couldn’t be complete without Fever, the song made famous by Peggy Lee, and which has been stuck in my head much of the day:
    12. There’s also this version performed by Rita Moreno, as accompanied by Animal. Because many things are improved with the addition of muppets.

    feeling the burn

    Okay, I admit it. I’m feeling a tad burned out. What with the trip for the conference, the conference itself, the prep for the conference, the hard drive failure, and the various illnesses of the past couple of weeks, I feel like I’m due for a break. But sadly, I’ve got to get cranking on the next poster for the conference in Brazil, which is now (most startlingly) less than 3 weeks away.

    And not that you wanted to know this, but I am now plagued by heartburn. I had this problem when I was pregnant before, especially as I got huge. I thought things might be better this time around, but either the timing was coincidental, or the stomach bug I got pushed me out of the comfort zone, and into the fire.

    Hello zantac, my old friend,
    I’ve come to look to you again,
    Because the acids softly creeping,
    Left my stomach while I was sleeping,
    And the fire that was planted in my throat
    Really blows
    Giving the burn of reflux.

    Anyhow, I owe a ThThTh list, but I’m not feeling sufficiently fired up to do a thorough job. But here are a burning bits to toast your marshmallows. (Please feel free to fuel the fire, too.)

    • Phoenix, a mythical bird who burns and is reborn out of the ashes
    • Quest for Fire, a 1981 movie base on a 1911 French novel. About prehistoric people. Who, um, want fire or something like that.
    • Out of the the frying pan and into the fire, an idiom meaning “leave a bad situation for a worse one.”
    • Firestarter. A 1984 movie starrying Drew Barrymore as a pyrokinetic kid. Based on a Stephen King novel.
    • The Human Torch, a comic book character. Who gets all fiery.
    • Spontaneous Human Combustion. I don’t really have anything to say here. Poof.
    • Flame war or flaming: “the hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users”
    • And here, how about a whole bunch of songs I like with a fiery theme.
        Burning down the house, Talking Heads
        Beds are Burning, Midnight Oil
        Fire on Babylon, Sinead O’Connor
        London’s Burning, The Clash
        Firestarter, Prodigy
        Light My Fire, The Doors
        Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash (also Social Distortion)
        Who by Fire, Leonard Cohen
        Dig for Fire, Pixies
        It’s a Fire, Portishead
        Into the Fire, Sarah MacLachlan
        Keeper of the Flame, Nina Simone

    going bananas

    With work keeping me crazy busy, and life in general pulling me in all sorts of directions, it’s no wonder I feel I’m going a bit bananas. And what with yesterday’s big banana-related news, it’s no wonder I’ve got bananas on the brain. Seeing as I don’t have a whole lot of time tonight, this ThThTh list may be on the short side. So please feel encouraged throw in your own bananas.banana_bunch_1.png

    A small bunch of bananas

  • banana split. An ice cream sundae characterized by a banana that has been split in half lengthways.
  • The Tattooed Banana: a blog devoted to “the emerging appreciation of banana art.”
  • Banana Yoshimoto. A Japanese author. Not actually a banana. Her first novel was Kitchen.
  • Bananarama. An 80s musical group. They weren’t bananas either. Actually, the members were all female.
  • “Yes, we have no bananas.” A song that was a hit in the 20s. (…we have no bananas today…)
  • “The Banana Boat Song.” A song made famous by Harry Belafonte. Here’s a clip from the movie Beetlejuice with the song:
  • top banana. An expression meaning “head honcho” or “big cheese.” Has origins in burlesque performances.
  • slipping on a banana peel. A common slapstick-type sight gag. (cf. this batch of cartoons.) For further insights into the phenomenon, check out this insightful post, which also led me to this fabulous banana-peel-slipping-related dialog from the 1966 Batman movie:

    Batman: [reading a riddle] What has yellow skin and writes?
    Robin: A ball-point banana!
    Batman: [reads the second riddle] What people are always in a hurry?
    Robin: Rushing people… Russians!
    Batman: So this means…
    Robin: Someone Russian is going to slip on a banana and break their neck!
    Batman: Precisely, Robin!

  • Banana in the tailpipe: a prank involving shoving a banana up the tailpipe of a car, causing the engine to stop. Made famous by a scene with Eddie Murphy in the movie Beverly Hills Cop (1984).
  • This may come as a shock to you, but I find the word banana itself to be funny. (Yes, much like the word pants.) I might even go as far as saying that I find banana to be an inherently funny word. This may be part of why bananas are featured in a lot of jokes. Some of them remarkably silly. I found a page of banana jokes that someone posted on a joke blog, and lookie what I found there:

    Knock knock
    Who’s There?
    Banana
    Banana who?
    Banana Pants.

    • banana_peeled1.png

    all my eggs in one basket

    whole_egg_simple.pngWith Easter around the corner, and with nesting on my brain, it seems like a good time to break out the eggs. While there are loads full of eggs out there, to help moderate our cholesterol intake, I’ll restrict this ThThTh list to a dozen egg things.

    A Dozen Eggs

    1. Easter eggs. Eggs that have been dyed and/or decorated as part of Easter traditions. Linked by some to the concept of rebirth. Linked by others to an anthropomorphic bunny.
    2. Easter egg: a hidden message or bonus in video game, DVD, or other (ususally digital) media. (Can you find my Easter egg?) They can also be found in print or other media, scuh as maps, as a means to protect from copyright infringement.
    3. Fabergé eggs. Elaborate jewelled eggs made by Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé, many of which were commissioned by the Russian imperial family. They often had surprises hidden inside.
    4. Chocolate eggs. Not actually eggs flavored with chocolate, which probably comes as a relief to many, but egg-shaped chocolates. I’m partial to Kinder eggs. A type of chocolate egg containing a plastic yolk with a surprise inside. When I was little, the toys were much cooler than the prizes you could find in, for example, Cracker Jacks. Cadbury Creme Eggs are pretty tasty, too, but the yolk contained within is messier to play with.

      5. egg_blue2.jpgegg_yellow.jpgegg_purple.jpgegg_green.jpgegg_pink.jpgegg_orange.jpg

    5. “the egg scene” from Angel Heart (1987) (clip on YouTube) “You know, some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul,” says Robert Deniro during the scene where he malevolently peels and eats a hard-boiled egg.
    6. Humpty Dumpty. A nursery rhyme about an egg.

      Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
      Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
      All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
      Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

      It has quite a bit of lore associated with it. (Did you know it was a riddle in earlier forms, with the eggness of Humpty being the answer?)

    7. Palestinian egg story: A Palistinian folktale about an egg trying to discover its identity. I was exposed to it during a field methods class, where we worked with a speaker of Palestinian Arabic. I particularly remember the line [ʔɪnti mɪʃ Хudra], or “You are not a vegetable.”
    8. Eggbert, the Slightly Cracked Egg, a picturebook by Tom Ross, illustrated by Rex Barron. A story of an egg who is an individual. And a slightly cracked one.

      9. egg_pink.jpgegg_blue2.jpgegg_orange.jpgegg_purple.jpgegg_green.jpgegg_yellow.jpg

    9. Horton Hatches the Egg, by Dr. Seuss. A story of an elephant who is talked into sitting on a nest.
    10. Look – (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers (1968). An Avengers episode with an archive of clown faces painted on eggshells. (This was actually a Tara King episode, but one of the better ones.)
    11. “She was a bad egg.” An expression meaning “she was a bad person,” and a quote from the movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) by Gene Wilder when Veruca Salt was dumped down the chute after being identified as faulty by the egg-dicator.
    12. “Egg Baby” Parenting an exercise or assignment sometimes used to teach teenagers about parenting and responsibility. Kids are given an egg to “care for” for a set amount of time. Featured in “First the Egg” (1985), an After School Special starring Justine Bateman. Also in the Buffy episode “Bad Eggs.” Of course, in this case, the eggs turn out to be evil demon spawn.

    eggs_carton.jpg

    images (edited 2/7/2010, since people were wondering): The white egg is a public domain image from wpclipart.com, and the single colored egg images are ones that I made based using that image. The photo at bottom is mine.

    roar

    lion2.pngHere’s my first ThThTh list of March. In like a lion, as they say. Or in with a list of lions, which they don’t really say. But I’ll say it. Or I just did. Here are some lions for you.

    1. Leo. The astrological sign of the lion. Based on the constellation.
    2. The Cowardly Lion from L. F. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (Also in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.) A lion who wants to get courage.
    3. Aslan. The lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the other six books in the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.
    4. The Lion King (1994) . An animated Disney movie, and a broadway play based on the same.
    5. The MGM Lion. This lion mascot (actually several different lions since 1924) appears roaring in the MGM logo as part of the (much parodied) opening sequence of Metro Goldwyn Mayer film productions.
    6. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight“. A famous song with a more complicated history than I’d realized.. The original version “Mbube” was recorded in South Africa in 1939. Many versions, some also going by the name “Wimoweh,” have since been recorded around the world. Best known perhaps is the version by The Tokens. (Hear it on YouTube in a video with a singing hippo and dancing dog.)
    7. The lion’s share. An expression meaning “the biggest portion.”
    8. “The Lion’s Share“. A song off 10,000 Maniacs’ album Blind Man’s Zoo.
    9. Fed to the lions or Thrown to the lions. Expressions meaning that a person has been placed in a metaphorical position of danger or a situation for which they are not well prepared. (Ancient Romans threw people to the lions as a spectator sport, and in a less figurative way.)
    10. “The Slave and the Lion.” An Aesop’s fable about an escaped slave who removes a thorn from a lion’s paw, and thus gains the lion’s loyalty. And avoids getting eaten when he is thrown to the lions.
    11. “The Lady and the Lion.” A fairy tale told by the Brothers Grimm about a young woman who is held captive by a lion, who turns out to be a cursed prince. The story has much in common with versions of the “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale. A retelling of the story is available as a picturebook.
    12. The Lion and the Unicorn. Symbols of the United Kingdom. The lion gets to wear the crown on the UK Royal Coat of Arms. There’s also the related nursery rhyme:

      The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
      The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
      Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown;
      Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town.

    leo2.jpg

    ribbit

    Here it is, February 28th. What is typically the last day of February. However, this year, as I’m sure you are aware, is a leap year. So we get another day this month, making this year 366 days long.¹ Anyhow, this leaping business of leap year has inspired me to think about frogs.² And thus you get a froggy ThThTh list.
    florida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpg

    A Few Frogs

    1. leap frog: A game you play by leaping over crouched people. (I can’t really describe it. Go see what Wikipedia says.)
    2. Frogger. A classic 80s arcade game. The goal is to get a frog to hop safely across a road and a river without getting squashed or dunked. You can play online.
    3. Kaeru: This Japanese word means both frog and return, leading to frog charms being carried for luck by travellers.
    4. The Frog Prince. A fairy tale about a princess prince-turned-frog-turned prince. It has some variations I’m less familiar with:

      Although in modern versions the transformation is invariably triggered by the princess kissing the frog, in the original Grimm version of the story, the frog’s spell was broken when the princess threw it against a wall in disgust.[1] In other early versions it was sufficient for the frog to spend the night on the princess’s pillow.

    5. The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, a book by Beatrix Potter. Mr. Fisher is a frog who goes fishing for his meal, but after some mishaps, opts to dine on grasshopper.
    6. Frog and Toad. Characters from the series of books (including Frog and Toad are Friends) by Arnold Lobel. They are a frog and a toad. Who are friends.

      7. crane_frog4.jpg     beatrix_potter_jeremy_fisher_cover.jpg     frog_and_toad.jpg

    7. Kermit the Frog. The beloved Muppet, created by Jim Henson. The orginal version was made from a discarded coat and ping pong balls.
    8. Michigan J. Frog. The singing frog from the classic Warner Brother’s cartoon.
    9. Keroppi Hasunoue. A Sanrio character. (It’s not actually clear to me what he is a character of, beyond toys and other merchandising.)

      10. kermit28.gif     mjfrog3.gif      keroppi.jpg

    10. Froggy, a character in various books by Jonathan London, such as Froggy Gets Dressed.³

      11. magnolia.jpg

    11. The frog scene from the movie Magnolia (1999). It rains frogs. Really big frogs. It gets messy.
    12. Frog Went A-Courting. An English folk song.
    13. Five Little Speckled Frogs. A children’s count-down song:

      Five little speckled frogs,
      Sitting on a hollow log,
      Eating some most delicious bugs,
      Yum, Yum.
      One 1 frog jumped in the pool,
      Where it was nice and cool,
      Now there are four 4 speckled frogs,
      Glub, glub.

    14. A frog in one’s throat: an expression describing the gurgling and croaking⁴ that people sometimes get when talking with phlegm in the throat.
    15. Crunchy Frog: a Monty Python sketch about a chocolate confection with a dead frog center.

      We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest-quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.

    ———————–

    ¹ Has anyone else noticed that this is perhaps an unfortunate year to choose for the inaugural year of Blog 365, where people commit to blogging daily for the whole year? But I see they have a planned day off for tomorrow.

    ² Because they leap.

    ³ We recently got a different Froggy book for Phoebe from a Scholastic catalog, namely Froggy Eats Out, and were a bit dismayed by the message of this particular one. In it, Froggy behaves like a brat and embarrasses his parents so badly at a nice restaurant that they must leave. They then reward him by going out to a burger joint, like Froggy had originally wanted.

    ⁴ Or irregular phonation. Which sounds less frog-like than croaking and gurgling.

    rats!

    Happy New Year, and welcome to the Year of the Rat! In celebration of this holiday, how could I not offer up to you a platter of rats? No, not to eat, silly. That would be gross. This is a generous helping of rat-themed¹ things for a festive ThThTh list.²

    • Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O’Brien. The Newbery Award winning children’s novel about a mother mouse and a colony of highly intelligent rats.
    • Templeton, the rat from E. B. White’s beloved book, Charlotte’s Web. Was voiced by Steve Buscemi in the 2006 movie based on the book.
    • I don’t give a rat’s ass. An idiom meaning “I don’t care,” akin to “I don’t give a flying fig.” One of those expressions that is always used with the negative. For example, one would not likely hear “I give a rat’s ass.” Or maybe one should. I could design a line of greeting cards, perhaps for Valentine’s Day: “I give a rat’s ass about you.”
    • ratty: An adjective to mean dirty, messy and/or worn out. Also a nickname for a cafeteria at my undergrad University. The Sharpe Refectory was long ago nicknamed the Sharpe Rat Factory, later shortened to The Ratty. The nickname was used so frequently that it was easy to forget that it wasn’t the cafeteria’s official name.
    • Ratatouille (2007) Pixar’s latest animated movie is about a young rat who loves to cook.

      • willard_movie.jpg

    • Willard (1971), and its sequel, Ben (1972). There was also a 2003 remake of Willard, starring the appropriately creepy Crispin Glover. These were movies about the friendship between a man (or boy) and some rats. (Oh, and the rats are vicious killers. Note that you can find these movies on imdb via the plot keywords “eaten alive by rats.”)
    • “You dirty rat!” a phrase popularly attributed to James Cagney, though apparently a misquote:

      It should be noted, however, that he never actually said, “You dirty rat!”, a popular phrase associated with him….The phrase actually originated in the 1932 film Taxi!, in which Cagney said, “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!” often misquoted as “Come out, you dirty rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!”

    • Rodents of Unusual Size (ROUS): Oversized rats (well, it’s not specified that they’re rats, but they look pretty rat-like in the movie) from the Princess Bride.

      • rats_of_hamelin.jpg

    • The Pied Piper of Hamelin. A legend, sometimes written as a fairy tale, about a man who freed a town of its rat infestation by playing his pipe to lure the rats to drown themselves in the river. When the town refused to pay the agreed upon fees, the Piper then lured away the town’s children.
    • The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett. A Discworld book for young adults about some rats (and a cat) who work a Pied Piper scam.
    • I Was a Rat, a children’s book by Philip Pullman (of The Golden Compass fame). About a boy who was once a rat. A bit of a fairy tale retelling from an unusual perspective.
    • “Adventures of the Rat Family,” a fairy tale by Jules Verne
    • Amy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A character who turned herself into a rat to escape being burned as a witch, but didn’t manage to turn herself back into a human afterwards. Was then kept in a cage as pet by Willow for several years. When she eventually returns to human state, says “I felt like I was in that cage for weeks.”
    • “I think I smell a rat,” a song by the White Stripes. For Amy (see above item) clips set to the song check out this YouTube video.)
    • A few more rat-related items include: mazes, the rat race, The Rat Pack, and pack rats. There was also the rat who ate the malt in “This is the house that Jack built”

      This is the rat,
      That ate the malt
      That lay in the house that Jack built.

    rat_frenzy1.jpg

    ¹ YTSL mentions, though, that this can also be considered to be year of the mouse. All the more reason to get around to a mouse list some time soon.

    ² Last year, I gave a list of pigs for Year of the Pig.