Your Childhood Memories of Scotland?

**Bugbear** · 23rd April 11, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Canuck of NI

The cartoon in question went something like this: the grasshopper spends the summer loafing and playing the fiddle while the ant is working, growing and storing food and building a house etc. When winter comes the grasshopper is seen outside starving and freezing while the ant is sitting on a rocking chair in front of a warm fire. He looks out his window and sees the grasshopper and says something to the effect of "Tough nuts, you stupid grasshopper! I warned ye!" And that was the end, but you could tell things would not go well for the grasshopper after that. They just don't make cartoons like that any more- now the grasshopper gets half the food, free housing, and the ant has to pay for his medical care.

I liked the Coyote and Road Runner show, and Bugs Bunny cartoons, of course. Belle and Sebastian was kind of a neat cartoon, too.

**Lallans** · 23rd April 11, 02:04 PM

The Warner Bros depiction of Bugs in Scotland, "My Bunny Lies Over The Sea", is described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Bunny_Lies_over_the_Sea. If that isn't the greatest American animated depiction of a Scotsman, I haven't seen the other one. And I see from Wikipedia that the scene where MacRory runs after his bullet and recovers it was censored out in the USA and surely also in Canada. Presumably they didn't want kids to get hurt chasing bullets....

Belle and Sebastian was a cartoon? I remember a live version also, then.

**Bugbear** · 23rd April 11, 04:27 PM

Ya, those were good cartoons.

there was a Belle and Sebastian cartoon in the early eighties. I don't recall a live version, but they were based on books. I should look into the books.

**Lallans** · 23rd April 11, 04:59 PM

Possibly the live-action Belle and Sebastien series I remember was in French only, also it may have originated in and stayed in Quebec And the difficulties of translating a Francophone St Bernard's lines into Dog English would have been almost insurmountable.

**Bugbear** · 23rd April 11, 05:16 PM

Looks like the cartoon was produced by a Japanese company.
Belle and Sebastian (TV series) - Wikipedia

There is also a band called Belle and Sebastian and they are from Scotland.
Belle & Sebastian - Wikipedia

**Lallans** · 23rd April 11, 06:32 PM

Now you've said it, I do remember reading about an anime version of the doggie story. They also did TV series anime versions of Anne of Green Gables and many of the other classic Euro-Canadian children's stories. Not to get in trouble with the spelling this time o'night, Hayao Miyazaki, the man who is the guiding force behind Studio Ghibli, just did The Little Mermaid story; Ponyo it's called. He of course makes everything very Japanese. Some of his things make me incredibly nostalgic for postwar Japan, and I certainly was never there. I don't know if he's ever visited Scotland.

**Bugbear** · 23rd April 11, 07:01 PM

Ya the article talks about a Japanese version under a different show name, too. Mike and Jolly or something like that.

That link to the article about the band Belle & Sebastian on Wikipedia doesn't seem to work right. It shows up on a Google search, though.

**Lallans** · 24th April 11, 05:17 AM

The link to the B&S wiki points up something I've previously noted about the Japanese, which is that they seem to have a 'thing' about the Great Pyrenees breed- Great Pyranees shows up all over the place in their anime and it says they used one of those in B&S- but I'm fairly certain that the original Belle was a St Bernard. Or perhaps I'm wrong, but at least she was a St Bernard in the live action version.

EDIT: No, wrong again. The original story was set in the Pyrenees and if Belle wasn't that breed, there was something wrong with the author. Also, here is a link to the live-action show- it does seem to have been French-only. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166900/ So it is probably this very anime that made the Japanese so aware of Great Pyrenees, when they want to feature a big dog.

None of this has much effect on Scotland.

**Bugbear** · 24th April 11, 01:05 PM

No... I wouldn't have seen the live show.

Belle was always on the run from the dog police for being too big, and Sebastian had a little yapper dog that road around in his pocket.

I guess it did have some effect on Scotland because the Scottish band took Belle & Sebastian as a name; it does seem to relate to the story, which ever source, and however small and meaningless in the grand scheme of things...