Peabody's Improbable Movie

Yesterday, I wrote about not liking the poster for the upcoming movie, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and then noting that the trailer gave me even bigger concerns.

I got the following response from Arthur Tiersky --

Oh, you don't know the half of it. The plot is partially about how some uptight harridan disapproves of Sherman being the "boy" of a dog and tries to have him taken away.

Seriously clueless. Half the goddamn appeal of the cartoon was that it would begin, "Peabody here. My boy Sherman." and get right into the story. No pauses for explanation or anything else, he's just a dog who has a boy, and that's that. Drawing attention to it and turning it into a plot point just plain destroys that.

I hate Hollywood.

Sigh.

Just freaking sigh.

Something like that was my concern when I saw those poster. As I noted in the piece I wrote, the humor was that they didn't draw attention to Mr. Peabody being a dog and that a dog had a boy, it just was.  The segment, "Peabody's Improbable History," was sophisticated and whimsical and hilarious -- and because of that, it was beloved.  And because of that, they made a movie.

So, to make a movie where you change so much of it is not only degrading but wrong-headed.  It might do well financially -- but even if so (and it might not), I could argue that it might do even better if they'd done it right.

This is it done right.