Well, The horses don’t eat cake so the cartoonist couldn’t include “all the kings horses”…
Oh, that wasn’t what was confusing you? It was why a cake? Well, you know how when you go to a funeral and the serve the corpse up to the attendees as a bbq? Well, as humpty dumpty is an egg the made a cake rather than a bbq. Oh, wait… I guess we don’t usually eat the corpse at funerals, do we?
Well, I’m sure the joke is somehow because he’s an egg we made a cake out of him. I’m just not sure what logic or lack thereof went through the cartoonists head in thinking there was any analogy.
Okay…. in a funeral, you put the body into something (a casket) and the mourner have a processional in line to approach it, pay respect, and leave it.
So since Humpty Dumpty is an egg you’d put the egg into something and have the processional. What do you put eggs into? Well, egg cartons obviously but…
Humpty was one huge egg and thus was used to make for a huge cake- large enough to serve all the king’s men.
I guess since they couldn’t put him together again, they decided not to waste him. I’m sure the king’s baker had long regarded Humpty with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, drew his recipes against him.
I’m more bothered by the size of the cake slice. Looks as if, once removed from the fruiting body, the cake material begins to shrink rather rapidly.
I really like how the artist gets across the idea that ALL the king’s men might be attending.
If they broke an egg they should have made an omelette.
Has any king’s horse EVER been able to put ANYONE back together again?
woozy: “Well, you know how when you go to a funeral and the serve the corpse up to the attendees as a bbq?. . . .Oh, wait… I guess we don’t usually eat the corpse at funerals, do we?”
Actually, I just read about an exception to that rule. Roger Dobson’s 1988 article “M.P. Shiel and Arthur Ransome” notes that: “The [John] Gawsworth scholar Steve Eng reported that after Shiel’s cremation at Golders Green Gawsworth took charge of the ashes and went off for a drink with his wife. ‘The barman placed the parcel of ashes on a shelf for safekeeping. He was preparing a salmon sandwich when the couple noted with horror that ashes were trickling down into the sandwich! It was duly handed to the customer, James Agate, the eminent drama critic. . . .” Gawsworth retrieved his package and pointed out to the unamused Agate, “You’ve just eaten part of M.P. Shiel.”
Dobson goes on to a note that many years later another accident caused most of the remaining Shiel ashes to get brewed up as tea, but that was long post-funeral so presumably does not count here.
Even though it was fictional, there’s always the “tender subject” of Eddie’s demise in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show“. (When asked after the dinner, most of the guests said that he tasted remarkably similar to meatloaf.)
All those old fairy tales and nursery rhymes were way darker than the Disneyfied version we get now.
@ BillR – That is true for many of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but it is hard to generalize, and there are exceptions in both directions. There are a large number of “unobjectionable” tales, but there are also a number of stories that are so nasty that they would be worth an R (in a few cases even an X) rating in their original form (always for violence, never for sex, of course).
Disney is not solely responsible for the bowdlerization of the tales, many of the English translations tended to downplay some of the more “scandalous” details. In addition, the Grimms did some of these modifications themselves, in the course of publishing seven editions over several decades. Most of the tales are now known only from the latest edition, so that earlier details are difficult to find. Perhaps the most famous example is in “Rapunzel”: in the original version, the witch discovers that the prince has been visiting Rapunzel because her dresses no longer fit (because she had become pregnant). This little saucy item was edited out of the final edition.
Kilby-
The original Grim Brother’s version of Cinderella had her stepsisters mutilating their feet in an attempt to fit into the slipper.
“The original Grim Brother’s version of Cinderella had her stepsisters mutilating their feet in an attempt to fit into the slipper.”
Isn’t that the final “official” Grimm version? It’s pretty well known isn’t it?
In “The Recognitions” by William Gaddis there is a story element about cremation ashes getting mixed in with flour. I think that was the secret behind the popularity of bread from that Spanish monastery where Wyatt’s father ran off to after the church authorities decided they couldn’t continue to put up with their Congregationalist minister converting to Mithraism.
@ Cinderella – In Grimm’s “final” version, each of the sisters cut off a part of her foot (one the toe, the other the heel) to get the shoe to fit, but the prince is told (by a pair of doves in the trees) to look back (at the blood), and thus returns (twice) before finally getting the right bride. Another (less well-known) “grimm” feature is that these doves rode on Cinderella’s shoulders to the church (for the wedding) and back. She was sitting between the stepsisters, so that each dove then pecked out the closest eye of the respective stepsister on the way. Since the sisters traded seats for the way back, the doves managed get both eyes, blinding them both (as “fitting” punishment for their evil treatment of Cinderella).
Look up the disease ‘kuru’. It used to be endemic among the Fore of New Guinea because they ate their relatives as part of the funeral rites, including the contaminated brain tissue. Protein was scarce and you didn’t waste it.
No one’s going to mention Stranger in a Strange Land?
Christine: Apparently someone is!
narmitaj – I had the same thought that he should be an omelet – makes more sense and is more obvious.
Kilby- but the roast in Rocky Horror Picture Show looks more like turkey than red meat. While the meatloaf joke was never used, I have to remember that for the future.
Disney has cleaned up/made less violent all of the original fairy tales they have made. They have made the only 2 versions of “Little Mermaid” to have happy endings (not sure about the version coming in the next year or so) where the Mermaid lives at the end. (In case anyone is wondering- there is the Disney cartoon version and “Splash”. Originally the fairy tales were cautionary tales for children and all sorts of dreadful things happen, he made them happy ending stories with much less violence than the original.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Well, The horses don’t eat cake so the cartoonist couldn’t include “all the kings horses”…
Oh, that wasn’t what was confusing you? It was why a cake? Well, you know how when you go to a funeral and the serve the corpse up to the attendees as a bbq? Well, as humpty dumpty is an egg the made a cake rather than a bbq. Oh, wait… I guess we don’t usually eat the corpse at funerals, do we?
Well, I’m sure the joke is somehow because he’s an egg we made a cake out of him. I’m just not sure what logic or lack thereof went through the cartoonists head in thinking there was any analogy.
Okay…. in a funeral, you put the body into something (a casket) and the mourner have a processional in line to approach it, pay respect, and leave it.
So since Humpty Dumpty is an egg you’d put the egg into something and have the processional. What do you put eggs into? Well, egg cartons obviously but…
Humpty was one huge egg and thus was used to make for a huge cake- large enough to serve all the king’s men.
I guess since they couldn’t put him together again, they decided not to waste him. I’m sure the king’s baker had long regarded Humpty with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, drew his recipes against him.
I’m more bothered by the size of the cake slice. Looks as if, once removed from the fruiting body, the cake material begins to shrink rather rapidly.
I really like how the artist gets across the idea that ALL the king’s men might be attending.
If they broke an egg they should have made an omelette.
Has any king’s horse EVER been able to put ANYONE back together again?
woozy: “Well, you know how when you go to a funeral and the serve the corpse up to the attendees as a bbq?. . . .Oh, wait… I guess we don’t usually eat the corpse at funerals, do we?”
Actually, I just read about an exception to that rule. Roger Dobson’s 1988 article “M.P. Shiel and Arthur Ransome” notes that: “The [John] Gawsworth scholar Steve Eng reported that after Shiel’s cremation at Golders Green Gawsworth took charge of the ashes and went off for a drink with his wife. ‘The barman placed the parcel of ashes on a shelf for safekeeping. He was preparing a salmon sandwich when the couple noted with horror that ashes were trickling down into the sandwich! It was duly handed to the customer, James Agate, the eminent drama critic. . . .” Gawsworth retrieved his package and pointed out to the unamused Agate, “You’ve just eaten part of M.P. Shiel.”
Dobson goes on to a note that many years later another accident caused most of the remaining Shiel ashes to get brewed up as tea, but that was long post-funeral so presumably does not count here.
woozy/Shrug: And there’s this: https://peopleoflancaster.com/lititz-woman-arrested-for-serving-husbands-cremated-remains/
Even though it was fictional, there’s always the “tender subject” of Eddie’s demise in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show“. (When asked after the dinner, most of the guests said that he tasted remarkably similar to meatloaf.)
All those old fairy tales and nursery rhymes were way darker than the Disneyfied version we get now.
@ BillR – That is true for many of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but it is hard to generalize, and there are exceptions in both directions. There are a large number of “unobjectionable” tales, but there are also a number of stories that are so nasty that they would be worth an R (in a few cases even an X) rating in their original form (always for violence, never for sex, of course).
Disney is not solely responsible for the bowdlerization of the tales, many of the English translations tended to downplay some of the more “scandalous” details. In addition, the Grimms did some of these modifications themselves, in the course of publishing seven editions over several decades. Most of the tales are now known only from the latest edition, so that earlier details are difficult to find. Perhaps the most famous example is in “Rapunzel”: in the original version, the witch discovers that the prince has been visiting Rapunzel because her dresses no longer fit (because she had become pregnant). This little saucy item was edited out of the final edition.
Kilby-
The original Grim Brother’s version of Cinderella had her stepsisters mutilating their feet in an attempt to fit into the slipper.
“The original Grim Brother’s version of Cinderella had her stepsisters mutilating their feet in an attempt to fit into the slipper.”
Isn’t that the final “official” Grimm version? It’s pretty well known isn’t it?
In “The Recognitions” by William Gaddis there is a story element about cremation ashes getting mixed in with flour. I think that was the secret behind the popularity of bread from that Spanish monastery where Wyatt’s father ran off to after the church authorities decided they couldn’t continue to put up with their Congregationalist minister converting to Mithraism.
@ Cinderella – In Grimm’s “final” version, each of the sisters cut off a part of her foot (one the toe, the other the heel) to get the shoe to fit, but the prince is told (by a pair of doves in the trees) to look back (at the blood), and thus returns (twice) before finally getting the right bride. Another (less well-known) “grimm” feature is that these doves rode on Cinderella’s shoulders to the church (for the wedding) and back. She was sitting between the stepsisters, so that each dove then pecked out the closest eye of the respective stepsister on the way. Since the sisters traded seats for the way back, the doves managed get both eyes, blinding them both (as “fitting” punishment for their evil treatment of Cinderella).
Look up the disease ‘kuru’. It used to be endemic among the Fore of New Guinea because they ate their relatives as part of the funeral rites, including the contaminated brain tissue. Protein was scarce and you didn’t waste it.
No one’s going to mention Stranger in a Strange Land?
Christine: Apparently someone is!
narmitaj – I had the same thought that he should be an omelet – makes more sense and is more obvious.
Kilby- but the roast in Rocky Horror Picture Show looks more like turkey than red meat. While the meatloaf joke was never used, I have to remember that for the future.
Disney has cleaned up/made less violent all of the original fairy tales they have made. They have made the only 2 versions of “Little Mermaid” to have happy endings (not sure about the version coming in the next year or so) where the Mermaid lives at the end. (In case anyone is wondering- there is the Disney cartoon version and “Splash”. Originally the fairy tales were cautionary tales for children and all sorts of dreadful things happen, he made them happy ending stories with much less violence than the original.