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Curious George (2006 film)

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Curious George is a 2006 American traditionally animated adventure family comedy film based on the book series by H.A. & Margret Rey. It stars Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore, Dick Van Dyke, David Cross, Michael Wincott, Eugene Levy, Vincent Pastore, Joan Plowright, Kevin Pollak & Frank Welker as the title character. Matthew O'Callaghan directed (after replacing Jun Falkenstein). It features new songs by Jack Johnson.

The project had been under development at Imagine Entertainment for a long time, dating back to at least 1991. The screenplay/story was written by Ken Kaufman & Mike Werb. Although it's a 2D animated film, about 20% of the environments are computer-generated.

It was the 1st Universal Pictures theatrically released feature-length animated film since 1995's Balto, & Imagine Entertainment's 1st animated film. Due to the success of the film, the franchise was adapted to a TV series on PBS Kids, with Jeff Bennett replacing Will Ferrell as the voice of The Man with the Yellow Hat.

Summary[]

Your favorite little monkey, Curious George comes to life for the first time in an all-new animated movie featuring the voice talents of Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore. Discover how George, an inquisitive little monkey with an insatiable taste for adventure, first-time meets The Man with the Yellow Hat named Ted in Africa and ends up following him to the city in Chicago. George's curiosity leads him and his new human friend into lots of trouble and fun!

The world's most mischievous monkey is out of the jungle, out on the city and our for the adventure! Packed with fun, excitement and entertaining adventures, Curious George is sure to have you laughing over and over again.

Plot[]

The introduction of the movie introduces us to a nameless little monkey (Frank Welker) somewhere in the jungle. He is cute, happy, artistic, and mischievous but lonely. In the city in Chicago, far away from Africa, Ted (Will Ferrell) is a 20-year-old handsome, clumsy, selfless, funny and nice employed tour guide at the Bloomsberry Museum. We're also introduced to his love interest, a happy, calm and gentle school teacher; Ms. Maggie Dunlop (Drew Barrymore) and her students who come to the museum often, but only like regular visitors. Maggie has a crush on Ted.

Then, Ted's kind, selfless, worrisome, gentle, sensitive and fragile boss; Mr. Bloomsberry (Dick Van Dyke) sadly informs him that the museum will have to close down, because they're no longer making any money. Mr. Bloomsberry's seflish, ruthless, power-hungry, terrorizing, and greedy son, Junior (David Cross) wants to tear down the museum, and replace it with a parking garage to make money. Ted, refusing to lose the museum and agree with Junior, is suddenly convinced to volunteer himself to go to Africa in place of Mr. Bloomsberry and bring back a mystical 40-foot-tall monkey idol known as the "Lost Shrine of Zagawa" in hopes that it will attract customers, much to Junior's jealously. After Ted and Bloomsberry leave the office, Junior rips off the page on the map that leads to the giant idol and writes a new X on another page, cutting the journey short then throws the ripped off page into the fire, angry that his father likes Ted more than him. Meanwhile, Ted goes to the outfit store and is first-time outfitted with a hideous yellow "khaki" uniform which other men laugh at and boards a cargo ship to Africa in spite of his embarrassment.

With the help of his tour guide and the tour group, Ted finds the "Lost Shrine of Zagawa", but only discovers it to be only 3 inches tall, much to his disappointment. Ted also encounters and meets the little monkey on his expedition to Africa, and gives the monkey his yellow hat. The monkey, who quickly grows so fond of Ted and his yellow hat, follows him and boards the cargo ship, unknown to Ted. Ted returns back home to Chicago, riding a taxi and enters his apartment room, only to receive a call from Mr. Bloomsberry telling him to report to the museum, so Ted can do an interview on the news. The monkey happily follows Ted to the same apartment building and is later discovered busily repainting Mrs. Plushbottom's apartment in full scale African animals and due to the strict "no pets allowed policy", Ted is then evicted by a grumpy, short-tempered, sassy and angry doorman Ivan (Ed O'Ross) after the monkey gets into trouble in Mrs. Plushbottom's (Joan Plowright) apartment for painting on the walls and dying the bathwater with paint.

Ted, bringing the monkey along, returns to the museum and, admitting to tell the truth, reveals to Mr. Bloomsberry the idol's actual size. Ted is then kicked out of the museum by Junior after the monkey climbs on an Apatosaurus skeleton, trying to get Ted's attention. After making a quick phone call to the Animal Control, Ted and the monkey sleep in the park under a large oak tree, become satisfied with the stars, admire fireflies and make their tongues glow green as a result of eating them. The next morning, Ted, after waking up from a nightmare, follows the monkey into the zoo, where his girlfriend; Maggie and her students name the monkey "George".

George then gets into trouble and begins dangerously floating away on balloons high over the city as Ted bravely takes flight as well. George's balloons are all suddenly popped by the spikes on a building and Ted quickly saves him from his certain death just in time. Ted and George, after an amazing flight, ride through the city and both make their way to the home of an inventor named Clovis (Eugene Levy), where George uses an overhead projector to increase the idol's size making it and himself appear 40 ft tall.

Ted and George then head to the museum to show Mr. Bloomsberry the invention. Holding a cup of coffee, Junior tries to convince his father that it wouldn't be nice to fool the public, but Mr. Bloomsberry sees it as the only way to save his museum. Determined to get his parking garage, Junior foils Ted's plan by pouring his coffee on the machine and blaming George for it. Bloomsberry then realizes that he and Ted have just been fooling themselves. Sadly, he and Junior leave. Once they are gone, Ted hears waiting people outside the museum and heads to the door when George follows him and he tells the monkey to stay inside. George then watches through the window as Ted sadly tells everyone that the museum is closed forever and there never was a giant idol. After all the dismayed people leave, Ted sadly sits on the bottom step when George comes out and tries to cheer him up. But Ted tells that he belongs in the jungle and he cannot have him in his life. George plays with Ted, but the man in yellow angrily tells him to get away. As George sadly watches him go, he is suddenly captured in a net. The animal controllers have arrived to take him back home to Africa. Ted tells them to take the monkey and they lock him in a cage, shut him in the back of their truck and drive off to the shipyard. After that's over Ted, feeling sad about what he did to George, speaks with Maggie who helps him "see" what's really important in his life. Ted regrets the decision to give George to animal control and boards George's cargo ship to get him back.

After apologizing for what he did, Ted tells George that nothing else matters besides their first "buddyship". In the hold of the ship, George discovers that when reflected in light, the idol reveals a pictogram with the message "turn your eye to the light, go from blindness to sight". It turns out that when held up to the sun, the small idol's actually a map to the real idol. They sail the ship back to Africa and George helps him find the real idol which is indeed 40 feet tall.

The idol is then put in the museum and the museum is back in business which make it more successful than ever when it becomes more hands--on because of the addition of Clovis' inventions, the interaction with Ms. Dunlop, her young students and, of course, George. Junior manages to get his parking garage, but is upset that Ted now works at the museum. Ivan invites Ted to move back to his apartment because he now likes George, and Ted and Maggie almost start a first romance, but George then causes more trouble by starting up a rocket ship, forcing Ted, himself to follow him to the rocket and into outer space. When they get there, Ted drives the rocket, but George scoots closer to him so he can drive too. Ted doesn't let George drive, but then George presses a button on the steering wheel which gives the rocket a turbo and it circles the earth multiple times.

Characters[]

Voice Casts[]

  • Frank Welker as George, a curious little monkey who is compassionate and clever, with a proficiency in visual art.
  • Will Ferrell as Theodore "Ted" Shackleford (aka The Man in the Yellow Hat), George's new human friend who is clumsy, but resilient and compassionate. In a deleted scene, his last name is established as "Shackleford".
  • Drew Barrymore as Margaret "Maggie" Dunlop, a school teacher and Ted's love interest/ girlfriend.
  • David Cross as Junior Bloomsberry, the son and the only child of the museum's owner also Ted and George's enemy.
  • Eugene Levy as Clovis, a museum employee/ inventor who builds his robotic animals to help him with his work.
  • Joan Plowright as Ms. Plushbottom, Ted's neighbor and also an opera singer.
  • Dick Van Dyke as Mr. Bloomsberry, the kind, elderly owner of the museum, also Junior's father and Ted's boss.
  • Ed O'Ross as Ivan, the doorman at Ted's apartment building.
  • Michael Chinyamurindi as Edu, Ted's African guide.

Gallery[]

Production[]

In various points during its development, it was proposed that the film would be entirely CGI or live-action mixed with CGI, before the decision was finally made to use traditional animation to bring the titular character to life. As of 2000, Brad Bird had written a script for the film. Director Matthew O'Callaghan greatly appreciated having Dick Van Dyke voice one of the characters. "I was surprised when I actually finally met him that he had never done an animated voice before, with his association with Disney for all those years. I was just blown away so I'm going, 'This is great,' because as an animation director you always want to use people who are fresh, who haven't done animated voices – at least I do." he said. CG Supervisor Thanh John Nguyen states that they tried to duplicate the look of the cars in the book, which Executive Producer Ken Tsumura describes as bearing the look of the 1940s and 1950s; According to Production Designer Yarrow Cheney, the filmmakers also partnered with Volkswagen to design the red car that Ted drives, simplifying it a bit & rounding the edges.[5] Cheney also said that prior to this they had based some of the models on Volkswagens due to their suitability

Reception[]

Box Office[]

The film was released to 2,566 theaters on February 10, 2006 and opened at #3 with a total opening weekend gross of $14.7 million averaging $5,730 per theater. The film grossed $58.4 million in the United States & $11.5 million overseas, totaling $69.8 million worldwide

Critical reception[]

The film received generally positive reviews and earned a 69% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert praised the design of the film & its faithfulness to the "spirit & innocence of the books." Since he himself didn't particularly enjoy the film, Ebert made an exception in this case in recommending it for young children based on its better qualities, a point on which he said he disagreed somewhat with his TV show co-host Richard Roeper. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly was "pleasantly surprised" by the film's calm tone, which he found to be against modern trends, but said that George was perhaps a bit too sweet & that the "movie comes close to denying he's any sort of troublemaker". He noted somewhat negatively the few modern anachronisms in the film. Brian Lowry of Variety was negative about the film, criticizing the quality of the animation, the music, & other aspects. Lowry states that there are some updates to the story, such as that "The Man in the Yellow Hat" from the books is finally given a name. He also notes that David Cross' animated character bears a strong resemblance to the actor himself. Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune noted that the film's use of "traditional cell [sic] painting & digital effects" compliments the original watercolor illustrations, & thought the film entertaining & yet still quite simple. He considered the difficulties in adapting the original stories (in which George basically causes trouble & the Man in the Yellow Hat fixes it all up) into a film, & how some conflict & a slight romantic subplot were added.

Soundtrack[]

Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George is the film's soundtrack featuring songs by Jack Johnson & Sally Williams. In its 1st week on Billboard 200 albums chart, the soundtrack made it to #1, making it Jack Johnson's 1st #1 album (In Between Dreams peaked at 2, On & On peaked at 3) & making it the 1st soundtrack to reach #1 since the Bad Boys II soundtrack in August 2002 & the 1st soundtrack to an animated film to top the Billboard 200 since Pocahontas reigned for 1 week in July 1994.

Home media history[]

  • September 26, 2006 (DVD)
  • March 20, 2007 (DVD - 2-pack with The Land Before Time)
  • November 20, 2007 (DVD - 2-movie collection with Babe: Pig in the City) (Note: This is a widescreen DVD box set only.)
  • August 5, 2008 (Carrying Case DVD with Fun Activity Book - Universal Watch on the Go) (Note: This is a pan and scan DVD copy only.)
  • March 3, 2015 (Blu-ray)

TV series[]

The film has been adapted into a PBS Kids animated television series, also called Curious George, narrated by William H. Macy (Season 1) and Rino Romano (from Season 2 to Season 9).

Sequels[]

A sneak peek for the new sequel, Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey! was included in the special features for The Tale of Despereaux. The sequel was released on March 2, 2009. The plot for the sequel centers around George becoming friends with a young circus elephant named Kayla. George tries to help Kayla travel across the country to be reunited with her family in California.

The third sequel, Curious George 3: Back to the Jungle was also released on June 23, 2015.

Trivia[]

  • The film made its broadcast debut on November 23, 2011, when it was televised on local PBS stations during the Curious George "Holiday Spectacular".[1]
  • This is Universal's first animated theatrical film to be produced by Universal Animation Studios.
  • Clovis's truck is a 2005 VW Touraeg Pickup Truck.
  • Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George has four songs that aren't in the film: We're Going to be Friends, The 3 R's, Lullaby (feat. Matt Costa) and With My Own Two Hands (feat. Ben Harper).
  • Will Ferrell and David Cross were co-starred in Megamind together.
  • Eugene Levy and Joan Plowright were both starred in Bringing Down the House.
  • Will Ferrell's first animated film and first voice-over debut.
  • The painters in Ms. Plushbottom's room are literally the same characters from the book Curious George Takes A Job.
    • The elevator man from the book also appears when George is messing about with the hologram machine thus creating a ruckus all over the city.
  • During the scene when George accidentally knocks down a dinosaur skeleton, a person that strongly resembles Aunt Margaret can be seen in Mr. Bloomsberry's museum.
  • Bill, Charkie, Chef Pisghetti, Clint Quint, The Doorman, Gnocchi, Hundley & Mrs. Quint make a cameo appearance in the end credits.
  • The film seems to loosely adapt the first two books of the Curious George series.
    1. Ted meets George on his expedition to Africa, which is similar to how they met in the original book.
    2. George paints Ms. Plushbottom's room in Ted's apartment, which is what he did in the second book and in an episode called Curious George Takes Another Job.

External links[]

References[]

  1. ↑ https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/pbs-kids-kicks-off-the-holiday-season-with-broadcast-premiere-of-curious-george-movie/
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