My Experience With... Charlotte’s Web (Book vs Movies)

I will always have a love for cartoons in my heart, especially the old ones. They seem to have such a charm about them that has yet to be recaptured, even by today’s technology. A part of me wrestles with whether or not I even want the old style to come back, lest it loses its charm.

Anyway, I was introduced to E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web through cartoons. When I was very young, my mother bought me the movie (I’m surprised she didn’t give me the book to read first!), and we enjoyed watching it together. It’s hard to describe just how charming and nostalgic it was. I, a very urban-suburban girl, felt like I wanted to be on the farm. I’m guessing I imagined myself among the talking, singing farm animals.

Speaking of singing, oh the music! I love orchestral music, pretty much always have. Once again, this was cultivated by old cartoons.

Go figure.

My mother even took me to a live special called “Tunes and Toons” (or was it the other way around?), which taught kids about parts of the orchestra and how musical pieces worked with old cartoons.

Best. Mother. Ever.

But I digress.

The music in there is nothingshort of fabulous! You pretty much hear a medley of the songs in the overture as the opening scenes and credits roll, then you hear the narrator -- with the perfect voice for any farm / rural story, plus he’s the same guy who narrated The Incredible Journey -- as the story starts.

More than likely, you know this story already. Fern saves a piglet runt from being axed by her father, and raises him herself until he’s big enough to sell to her uncle, Mr. Zuckerman. The pig, named Wilbur (by Fern) ends up lonely in the new big world of the Zuckermans’ farm, and the neighboring animals don’t help out much. Eventually, he makes a friend in Charlotte, a spider, who ends up making efforts to save Wilbur’s life, when he finds out he’s in danger of becoming Christmas dinner. She writes words in her web (“Some Pig,” “Terrific,” “Radiant,” and “Humble”), making the humans believe that Wilbur truly is a remarkable pig, and that the words in the web were a form of miracle. This makes Wilbur famous, and his life saved. Charlotte dies at the fair, but not before laying 514 eggs in an egg sac. Wilbur returns home a safe pig, and watches over Charlotte’s eggs until they hatch. All but three fly away, and life continues on the farm. There is a secondary story about Fern and her personal growth.

Alright, kids, if you’re writing a report about this,

please just read the book. This is not a complete

synopsis. Besides, it truly is a remarkable story.

Anyway, that’s the story in a nutshell. The old cartoon was really nice, and the songs were completely loveable. Plus, it took the descriptive writings of E.B. White and painted a nearly perfect picture of it all. Overall, it was a great adaptation.

I know that at some point in school, I read the book. It seemed even more classic than the movie itself. Plus, I think that was the point that I realized movie adaptations stray from book canon.

It’s really hard to say whether I like the book or the movie more. Even having read it recently (for this blog’s purposes, of course), I still can’t say for sure which is better.

I did watch the live action version years later, and it was actually a lot better than I expected. Dakota Fanning played a decent Fern, and the farm animals were pretty funny. Templeton was interesting, he definitely had the same “scheming” voice, but it wasn’t quite as exaggerated as the original Templeton voice, which I can live with. Wilbur was ADORABLE. I had NO CLUE just how stinking cute piglets could be! Plus, that tiny, Babe-like voice they gave him... I didn’t see it coming. I guess it makes sense since Wilbur is supposed to be young, and it was way cuter than the sudden grown man voice that he starts off with in the old movie.

If I had to make a choice between the two movies, I would say the original, hands down. The newer movie was pretty good and truer to the book’s canon, but I’m a sucker for classic movies and musicals.

So, what’s your fav--

Oh, wait, I forgot.

(Grrr, do I have to...?)

*Sigh...* Between the two Charlotte’s Web movies, there was a bomb of a Nickolodeon special called Charlotte’s Web 2: Wilbur’s Great Adventure. I was a child when I saw the trailer, but I knew it would be bad. I recently watched it, and... It was bad. Really bad. But not the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.... Top 10, maybe? (Bottom 10?)

Anyway, this story takes place after Charlotte’s Web, and we get to know Charlotte’s slightly creepy three daughters who stayed behind. They were pretty cool as far as character development, except, why did they have arms and “hands” if they already had eight legs???

Unsettling...

The Zuckerman farm gets a small lamb named Cardigan, who is quite literally the black sheep of the flock. All the other sheep pretty much diss him because he’s black-wooled and clumsy. (Like, seriously, what baby hoofed animal isn't?) Wilbur, knowing full well how it feels to be alone, befriends Cardigan. Their friendship seems to be at an end, however, when Zuckerman sells Cardigan to another farmer at the county fair. Wilbur, along with Templeton, Joy, Aranea, and Nellie, set out to find Cardigan and bring him back. They make new, insignificant-to-the-plot-at-large, friends at Cardigan’s farm, all while escaping a tricky fox whose appetite and demeanor are worse than Templeton’s. Wilbur, through a bunch of mishaps involving mud and foliage, gets mistaken for a wild boar that’s on the loose. Charlotte’s daughters are also terrible writers up to the crucial part of the climax, where they warn concerned farmers that a fox is in the area trying to eat... well, anything. Cardigan stays at the new farm, but Zuckerman promises to have Wilbur visit. Two of Charlotte’s daughters also stay at the farm, feeling they’ve had enough adventure for a lifetime. The remaining returns to Zuckerman’s farm with Wilbur, seeing as she’s the feisty, adventurous one.

Yeah. There are TONS of loose ends in this feature, and really, it isn’t all that good. If there is one thing I did enjoy about it, it would have to be the music! The duet with Wilbur and Cardigan was more than cute, and it’s big band sound made me want to find someone to dance with. The trio of Charlotte’s daughters was nice, too. Still, I didn’t like this movie, despite it being a cartoon musical. That’s saying something right there.

That was painful to go through. ANYway, what’s your favorite old movie, tv show, or short?