Mysterious Mudcat Workings

Subject: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 May 07 - 04:51 AM

I noted in passing, an entry in an old thread that had popped up mysteriously. An off-topic post asked a question unrelated to the thread:

From: SINSULL - PM
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 04:11 PM

Thread Creep Alert: When I was a child I had a collection of fairytales. One was about two sisters - Rose Red and Snow White …


Thinking I vaguely remembered a connection, I left the thread open, without reading on down, and in a new tab I searched and found:

Paul's Puppets

Long before Bert and Ernie or any of the Muppets made their television debut, there was Bernie and Edie and the puppets that made up Paul's Puppets, which was televised here in Baltimore. Broadcast on WBAL - TV in the late 1940's and into the 1950's, Paul's Puppets was a change to the early days of television were someone would simply read a script in front of a camera.

Bernie started Paul's Puppets in 1929 after attending the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore. He soon married Edie , who would design and create the costumes for the puppets. The two had a running joke between them for years that Bernie married Edie so that he didn't have to pay her. Edie was also the script writer for the shows.   " Paul's Puppets " and " The Little Bookstop " appeared on Baltimore television for ten years, starting in 1948.

This was the early days of television, and Bernard & Edie Paul found that the idea of puppets on TV was a idea that would work. This was an era before big television sets, and big television budgets. The Paul's Puppets show lasted for over ten years, and is still remembered by many who grew up watching WBAL back then.

In Spring 2005, the puppet collection went up for auction in Baltimore.

One of the links on the page indicates a short story with the title: "Red Rose and Snow White" – which through some miracle of technology was sort of what I thought I might have remembered.

Unfortunately, the link was to a page that said only "Page still in work."

I think I remember once seeing a "collection" from this TV show. A neighbor may have had it sometime in the early 1940s(?) and it could have contained the story in question.

Through another miracle of modern technology, while I was still looking at the blank page, an AV update completed a background install, and requested a reboot.

Pasting the needed URL for the Puppets page into a scratch pad and saving, I allowed the reboot, on the naïve assumption that I'd be able to find my way back.

Returning to Mudcat after the reboot, the original thread was nowhere to be found.

Interpretation?: the thread was brought up by another of those SPAM posts, and when the spam was deleted the last post put it far off in the deep bowels of mudcat archives – and I'd neglected to record a thread title.

Several searches later … … …

The last previous post to the original thread was 08 Mar 06, and the post applicable to my bit of research was noted as "off topic" by the one who asked, hence a new "throwaway" thread to brag about my total confusion.

If Sinsul is still interested in what might be the source of a fairy tale when she was a child, it could have been the "short story" from a collection that may or may not have been produced by the TV show, and her mother quite likely might have had it as a child if any such book actually ever existed. (Sinsull isn't old enough to have had anything new that was around when I was a kid.)

But probably not.

Once again, it's not at: Paul's Puppets although it might be someday.

While searching for the original thread, I also found:

Subject: BS: Bear stories
From: freda underhill - PM
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 08:00 AM

I couldn't find the bear threads, so here is a new (old) bear story!
Snow-White and Rose-Red

This latter one has the right (maybe) title, but is not the one requested, although it might still be interesting should someone want to do a real thread on "variations on the theme of Show White" – other than the limericks and one liners that appear with astonishing regularity in joke threads. (There have been 228 threads that mention Snow White, but few specifically about her.)

For now, I give up on the subject.

I guess the question is:

Does everyone here have this much fun doing such absolutely unproductive foolishness?

John

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 May 07 - 05:07 AM

yes, nowadays I have a great time following links.

It reminds me of school days when I was supposed to be studying something & read lotsa' books about or around the topic, & then wandered off into an area that did not relate to the topic I was studying/researching.

But I always had a great time.

sandra

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 May 07 - 05:08 AM

Much older than Paul's Puppets.
Snow-White and Rose-Red

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 May 07 - 05:10 AM

I thought this thread above the line when I started typing?

is there even more mystery, or is it me?

signed
confused

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 May 07 - 05:12 AM

Hi, John - I think it's this thread (click) that you were seeking. There's a utility hidden in QuickLinks called Messages by Date that allows you to view all messages for any date. Since you gave the date, it was easy.

We got hit hard by Spam tonight, so a lot of threads appeared and disappeared quickly as we cleaned up the mess.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 May 07 - 05:37 AM

Yeah Joe, I finally sort of figured out what happened.

Of course I wouldn't have had to do all the searching if I'd made note of the thread title before the reboot. And unfortunately the date that I gave, that let you find it, was something I found only after I relocated the thread, and was debating whether to post in it or do the new thread thing. I didn't have the date or the title when the thread disappeared on me.

The Bartlesby linked by TheSnail is, incidentally, the one that Freda posted in her thread, although I don't think she had an attribution for it there. It's not quite what Sinsull described, and of course I still don't know what the Puppet version was.

All just another day and night and day and night at mudcat.

John

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: JennyO
Date: 11 May 07 - 05:42 AM

Yes, I saw that flurry of Spam, and the threads appearing and disappearing.

Joe you beat me to it finding that thread. I had the link all ready to paste in here, but I thought I'd better refresh this one first and see if anyone else had found it, and you did.

I forgot I could check 'messages by date' - I found the thread by bringing up SINSULL's posts, oldest first. Had to work my way through a few pages, so your method is better and quicker.

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 May 07 - 08:27 AM

JohninKansas

thanks for reminding me about Snow Whait and Rose Red. i have to get two copies of the book, for two two-yearolds (mini snow white and rose reds)

freda

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: GUEST,SINSULL at work
Date: 11 May 07 - 08:52 AM

No bear in the story I had. There was a witch with seven league boots who plucks the white rose on the red rose bush and kills Rose White.

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 May 07 - 11:40 AM

"Messages by Date" gives a good snapshot of which and how many members are active at any point in time. Verrrrryyyy interesssting.

~S~

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 May 07 - 11:44 AM

Plus you can see approximately when the number of posts/day doubled.

~S~

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 May 07 - 01:30 PM

HMMMM Sweetheart Roland comes close. I wonder if I "remembered wrongly" or re-wrote the story myself?

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Peace
Date: 12 May 07 - 02:07 PM

"And if not - can some indication be given where this deletion has
taken place?"

The deletion has taken place in North America.

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 May 07 - 02:49 PM

LOL Peace! Love it. North America indeed.....

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 May 07 - 04:48 AM

In the original Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the bears, bereft of porrige, eat the greedy, thieving, lying little brat. Serve her right.

Wonder why that version got sanitised?

LTS

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Bee
Date: 13 May 07 - 09:27 AM

A lot of old childrens' stories and fairy tales have had the violence sucked right out of them. Sometimes entire stories disappeared. I had a wonderful huge fairytale book when I was a kid, and some of the tales were gruesome indeed. Some were from Grimms', some old folktales :

The Red Shoes; a horrifying tale of a little girl who, not wanting to get her new shoes muddy, steps on the bread she's taking to Grandma. She sinks into an earthy hell of toads and worms and mud, stays for years of torment before returning, chastened. Related, possibly the same, (memory failing!), The Dancing Shoes; girl dances too much, posssibly on Sunday, cursed to be unable to stop dancing until someone cuts her feet off for her. The Erl KIng; a chilling tale of hapless lass walking "three times widdershins around the church", consequently carried off by this very unpleasant fairy man.

That last gave me delicious chills, because it would be so easy to try it out on any Sunday afternoon when church let out and the grownups were chatting in the yard. But I never quite got up the nerve!

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 May 07 - 09:57 AM

"The Dancing Shoes; girl dances too much, posssibly on Sunday, cursed to be unable to stop dancing until someone cuts her feet off for her."

Ballet & Movie "Red Shoes" is based on this too.

Subject: RE: Mysterious Mudcat Workings
From: Rowan
Date: 13 May 07 - 11:30 PM

Disney seems to be particularly resistant to some of the moral/ethical underpinnings of such stories. the original little mermaid, as I recall, is a tale with a moral as old as the hills and usually described as Faustian since Goethe's play hit the stands. I prefer my daughters to read versions with the "proper" denoument and refuse to have isney's version in the house.

But then I also require them to read the 'book' version (usually predating the film) before taking them to see the "film" version of stories. They certainly got a kick out of Martin Pearson's presentation of Lord of the Rings; so much so that they checked his deconstruction of Dan Brown's monstrosity and subsequently avoided both the text and the film.

Cheers, Rowan

---

Thread closed temporarily because it's been a target for a heavy barrage of Spam. If you have something to add to the discussion, contact me and I'll reopen it.
-Joe Offer-