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Jun 26, 2012

"Family Guy" German Inspirations

I've been a fan of the Family Guy television series for years and more recently grown interest in the genre of German children's stories. I've noticed a few similar story lines between the two. Who knows, maybe it's just a couple coincidences. Maybe one or two of the writers heard the stories in their youth and some stuck.



For starters, the children's story of, "Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat" (From the small mole to which who wanted to know to him on the head has done), the story entails a mole that upon leaving his hole in the morning, gets pooped on the head and must search for the doer of the deed. When he finally finds the culprit, he returns the favor by pooping on the sleeping dogs head. Animation of the story here.

In the Family Guy episode, Peter Griffin finds bird poo on his car, so in an effort to exact revenge Peter finds the bird's house and waits for the bird to finish washing it's car while perched in the overbearing tree, squatting, reading to soil the birds car as was done to his. An eye for an eye. A shit for a shit.

Family Guy Peter Griffin Pooping on Bird's Car

"Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat"
(From the small mole to which who wanted to know to him on the head has done)




Another similarity would be the story of "Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher" (The Story of the Thumb-Sucker), a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs. However, when she goes out of the house he resumes his thumb sucking, until a roving tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors.

In the Family Guy adaptation a German boy who sucks his thumbs is home alone, the boy ignores his mothers preachings and does it anyways. So the mother cuts off his thumbs with scissors and now the boy has no thumbs. The end.



Whatever the case may be I am happy I can enjoy both forms of story telling and look forward to many more soon. 

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